Ubuntu 8.10 / XP

On my study computer I had to do various different things with photos this morning for various church things happening today. To do this I needed to begin with Ubuntu and then switch to XP for reasons I won't go into - on the same PC. I quite liked doing that because it gave me an opportunity to compare the two operating systems much more directly than I have heretofore.

Ubuntu : I started in Ubuntu Linux - and it started up very quickly. Once it came up I went straight into Firefox and Gmail and got the first photo I need to fiddle with. All very quick. I downloaded the photo then though 'Aha, why don't I do this in Picasa ?', so went into Picasa which then proceeded quickly to find all the photos on the PC. Meanwhile I had thought "Why don't I upgrade OpenOffice 2.4 to 3.0 while I am at it ?", so I did. Then I thought "and I could set up some podcasts on Rhythmbox...", so I did that and then it went off and found all the music on the PC. Then I did what I needed to the photo, shut everything down and restarted the pc. All so swift even though some of the things I had done were quite big tasks.

XP. Start-up ... yawn. Click on Firefox. Oho - the PC's not fully started up yet even though it looks like it is and this despite my streamlining of the start-up using CCleaner. OK - there's Firefox - I'll download the picture I need to get and print it out. Meanwhile for light relief I watch some paint dry.

I think I need to do some more fiddling with Ubuntu - for example set up Wine, so I can access Online Bible and the Theology books I have on my hard drive, network the printer and so on... Then I'll switch permanently. But when to fiddle like that... It's always the "fiddling about curve" that puts me off.

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