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The Quote of the Day

Tue, 10/23/2007 - 6:55pm — Nick

As someone who just upgraded his laptop to Ubuntu 7.10, primarily used Ubuntu linux as my primary desktop O.S. since Dapper was in beta, and utilized Linux O.S. since 1998 as a server, the following quote from Rupert Goodwins blog really says it for me1:

Then how come I'm so much more at home with Ubuntu than Vista? It boils down to one abiding impression: Ubuntu goes out of its way to get out of your way, even if it doesn't succeed all the time. Vista goes out of its way to be Vista and enforce the Vista way. You must conform regardless of the implications.

Like Goodwin, I have several computers at home and at the office. But almost all of my computing work and leisure time is spent in Linux outside of Windows only games, the increasingly rarer program that I want to run that I can't find a suitable replacement in Linux, or for testing websites in Internet Explorer. And even then, I can use virtualization to run many of the games and programs to run in Windows under Linux. Even further, I could even use Wine if I really want to cut out Windows completely. The truth is, I really don't care to. But, in general, as Goodwin says, for me, "Ubuntu goes out of its way to get out of [my] way".

  1. 1. Granted, I have limited experiences with Windows Vista, mainly playing with it on a friend's computer. But the quote still highlights what is an important different between close source and open source software are to me in general.