A Note on Ubuntu vs. Windows

I have a duel boots system (this means I have both windows XP and Ubuntu installed on different parts of my hard drive and a spot in the middle that both can access.)  Today out of sheer necessity I had to run Windows after a week of not (I don’t have the printer set up yet and I needed to use Paintshop Pro to edit my header since it was originally made in Paint Shop Pro.)

I had been wondering why I seemed to spend less time working on my computer recently.  I have the same amount of things to do, the same amount of work, yet somehow I am spending much more time doing other things.  I couldn’t figure it out.

Today I saw it.  I loaded Windows XP–which took a while.  I waited 5 minutes for my anti-virus software to update and run, I waited a few more minutes for all the other little programs that feel they need their shot (and I have this machine stripped down to the essentials).  I waited for Thunderbird and Firefox to boot up and I had to wait for Paintshop Pro.  Then I spent a whole lot of time waiting for Adobe to open so I could view and print a PDF.  All those programs wasted 20 minutes of my life that I will never get back.  I run the same sorts of software on Ubuntu and yet it only takes me a minute to get them all up and running–and they can do it at the same time.  No wonder I have so much more free time!