Last week I had the opportunity to try two new operating systems: Microsoft Vista (Home Premium) and the Ubuntu Linux distribution (6.10, Edgy Eft).

I’ve been using Windows XP for my work desktop for years. When my home computer died, I figured it was time to try out Vista. (At work, our IT folks have been avoiding Vista — to the extent we’re paying a premium to Dell to stay with XP. We’ll grudingly migrate the business desktops en masse when Vista is more fully baked, they say.)
So, I bought a modest mid-range home computer from Dell with Vista. I did add the 2 gigs RAM upgrade, which I think is pretty necessary for this OS. The first time I turned on the machine it took eight or 10 minutes to come up (!) . That wasn’t encouraging. But ever since that first slow startup, the new Vista machine has been snappy. The operating system is really pretty. The OS works quickly. I’m relatively satisfied. Only problems so far: I can’t get OpenVPN working. Dragon NaturallySpeaking doesn’t work on Vista. And I still feel like I can’t find anything in their “normal” places — menu items, system files, etc.

The Office 2007 programs look beautiful.

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