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Hi,

So this is the thread where I list some of the things that make me prefer Windows (7) over Ubuntu, and you convince me that Ubuntu is actually better / share thoughts / etc, and make me want to stop using Windows as my main OS and switch to Ubuntu right away.

1. Gaming
-Some of the games I play the most are Oblivion, Fallout 3, Bad Company 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2, and Portal . It seems that it is possible to get Steam running on Ubuntu, but I was wondering if any of you who play similar games on Ubuntu under Wine could share how much of a hassle it was to setup, how it performs, etc.


2. Programming
-I love the .NET framework. It's easy to use, fast to develop with, has the WinForms designer, .NET Reflector , the Parallel library, LINQ, etc. All the programming courses I have taken were in Java/C++, but I learned C# on my own, and it just seems much easier/faster to use than Java, and seems to have more useful features

-XNA Game Studio for faster game dev on Windows, Xbox360, and soon, Windows Phone (also, some of my classes require this)

-Visual Studio (2010). VS2010 may take up 4x as much memory as VS2008 since it uses WPF/has more features/etc, but Eclipse takes up 4x as much memory as VS2010 ! VS also seems easier to use, but maybe that's because I use it more.

-DirectX (also, PIX debugger). It irks me that OpenGL has no built-in functionality for vector/matrix/quaternion/etc math, loading images, loading models, and that I need to go and find libraries to do so. Also, the extension system irks me too. Both DirectX and OpenGL are used in my classes, though. (Random: Anyone know of a nice list of deprecated OpenGL features?)

-Not much that can be done about this, but at my job, C# and C++ are the languages that most of the programming is done with. Most of the website tools are also done with ASP .NET. There are two JSP tools, but they are really slow and awkward to use. (Though maybe that is because the developer didn't know what they were doing?)


3. Other
-Maybe this is just me, but Ubuntu seems to have graphical / ui glitches on my machine. This is especially true when Ubuntu is starting up. At least this version doesn't have weird artifacts whenever I open a window, but it does occasionally position items in the notification area on top of each other.

-Office. Everyone else uses Microsoft Office, and iirc, OpenOffice does not always correctly display MSO formats. I don't know too much about how the features compare, though.

-I love the WinKey+Up/Down/Left/Right keys for quick docking of windows. Also, the windows restore to the original size after undocking them.

-I've had issues in the past where if I spam the refresh desktop key (because I feel like it), it seems to get stuck generating the PDF thumbnails for forever.

I forgot a few, but perhaps this is a good start?
Thank you.

i like windows 7 for one reason and that is dx11 support and combined with powerful hardware, windows 7 is a kickass OS for gaming if you want the ability to play any game you want. I played GTA4 on my computer, cranked it all the way up (even over the limit of 1 gb of my video memory it was at 1200mb) still ran flawless. the only problem i had with win 7 is compatibility with older hardware and older applications that arent supported by win 7. Also i heard a lot about ubuntu and i head its a great OS very customisable, i played around with it a few times, just isnt something for me or maybe i want exposed to it enough.

Nor does DX. DX's maths is provided by D3DX - a separate library. GL's maths can be provided by SGL or GLM for example.

Don't have grudges against using additional libraries. The point of DX and GL is that they are as low level and general as possible. So using a library for functionality it doesn't provide as-is (like D3DX, SGL, GLUT etc.) is the whole point



I had this problem with my tablet PC.

Do you have an Intel GPU chip by any chance? I found using i915.modeset=0 in the boot parameters fixed it completely (although you may want to replace i915 with a different model, depends on the chip installed)

Windows 7 is nice. I find myself plugging a mouse into my laptop more often for the middle-click shortcuts on the quicklaunch bar.

Why do you have to switch cold turkey?
I'm running a MacBook Pro. I startup Windows 7 for XNA development, DBPro/DGDK, gaming, Wwise, and for playing with VS2010. And then I boot OS X for web development, music production, and Flash game development. When I'm just browsing online for nothing specific to a platform I'll just boot OS X, and that's also where I have my email sync set up.

I run an Ubuntu 10.04 machine, but the computer it's on is old as hell, and barely runs GNOME. That's mainly my server toy.

Be diverse.

I actually just installed Ubuntu on my laptop and like you I have yet to find any reasons to switch over from Windows 7. It just doesn't offer me any real advantages.



You can look at this reference card (all deprecated functions are displayed in blue), but it's useful to simply remember that the fixed-function pipeline, immediate mode rendering, and the matrix functions are all deprecated, as well as some other bits here and there.

Niiiiice! I've been using Windows 7 for over a year and didn't know this! Thanks for the tip