Wednesday, 10th March 2010.

Linux on Laptops

Written on Sunday, 8th March 2009 by Neeta

I have switched over to Linux on my Laptop recently. I was earlier running Vista which came bundled up with my Laptop. Initially I was a bit apprehensive. Since I had never used Linux, I was not willing to let my familiar OS go. But Vista had become painfully slow. It was taking lot of time in booting up and then shutting down. I tried removing all temporary files and then defragmenting the disks but the result was more or less same, with no noticeable improvement.

I had the option of downgrading my OS to XP or as suggested by one of my friends, install Linux. After taking a backup of all my documents, I decided to go for both the options by partitioning my disk. The experience was great. I literally cursed myself for not exploring these options earlier.

For Vista to function effectively, the OS demands 2 MB RAM and 15 MB of hard disk space. Quite a lot. Installing and using Ubuntu 8.10 on my Laptop was an exhilarating experience. I enjoyed coming back to Ubuntu again and again. It’s so quick off the blocks and run so smoothly that I forgot I even have a Windows OS loaded on my Laptop. Incidentally my Laptop uses AMD 64 X2 processor. Linux is so light on my processor that the battery runs for twice the period, it used to run earlier. The top five reasons for giving Linux a try on your Laptop can be summed up as:

Since it is lightweight and require lesser space it has faster start-up and shutdown
Freedom from keeping check on virus definitions.
Bo need to keep track of all software and their updates. Linux does it in one go. All essential packages get installed in new version.
No need for defragmenting the disk in Linux. It is simply not required.
Last and most important point: It is absolutely free.

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If the requirement is only of checking mails and writing some limited stuffs, in my opinion Linux is best but if one is interested in doing some heavy stuff like running applications and dealing with bigger files and data then probably Windows XP is the proper choice. let’s have the best of both the worlds and enjoy computing.

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