Since about a week or so I’ve been running Ubuntu and Windows Vista in dual boot. I’ve had Windows Vista for a longer time already and after trying Ubuntu from the LiveCD I decided it was time to install it for real.

Today we are going to take a look at installing, and running, both Windows XP and Linux Mint on a Dell Inspiron 6400. Why crusty old XP and not the sparkling new Windows Vista? For the unspectacular reason that it's what I have. You see, I purchased the computer about a year ago and Vista had not shook the world yet.

It may be a brave opinion but I predict that Ubuntu Linux and Windows Vista are going to be the two operating systems that will take over the largest chunk of the desktop OS market during the next couple of years

A user or sysadmin posts about problems with a brand new Vista PC on a support forum. Within minutes, a "helpful" soul suggests a fix: "Install Linux!"

It may be a brave opinion but I predict that Ubuntu Linux and Windows Vista are going to be the two operating systems that will take over the largest chunk of the desktop OS market during the next couple of years. This comparison is based on my experience with both systems during the last couple of weeks on two different computers.

Dan Kegel has been running some DirectX and OpenGL benchmarks on Ubuntu + Wine and Windows Vista, Here is the results of Dans recent benchmark test.

Yagmarkdata now has data from five different benchmarks: 3dmark 2000, 2001, 2006 and heaven2_opengl, d3d9, and running on a semi-whimpy e8400 dual core box with an nvidia gt 220 card, on both Vista and Ubuntu+Wine.

To sum up this comparison: "My Ubuntu boxes, I love." and on Vista: "...it's not been a good experience... it behaves like XP behaves on a 256MB computer, only it's running in 2GB. Everything is just... slow. "

I've been getting requests on how to dual boot Vista and Linux or requests to install Linux on someones recently purchased computer. If the goal is to try out Linux or a few of the many Linux distributions, then I suggest running Linux virtually. That way one can a) decide which distribution they prefer, and b) decide of Linux will be their primary operating system.

It was time for a new computer for my Grandparents. Their ancient Windows 98 PC had become so slow that it was unusable. The replacement, an inexpensive Acer PC, came with Windows Vista preinstalled. It was up to me to set up the new computer and support it. So I decided to wipe out Vista with a Debian 4 base install and set up an easy to use environment for my Grandparents.