I replaced Linux with Vista

Three years ago I decided to do a test: Could I install Linux on my work-laptop instead of Windows and still do everything I needed to do on a daily basis? Recently I went back to Windows Vista.

Three years ago I installed the free Fedora Linux, which is not only an operating system, but includes Office applications, a Photoshop clone and many more applications. My background is UNIX systems, so I was familiar with the command shell, and the general way of working. Since I was trying to get my RHCE certification at the time, I wanted my work-laptop to run Fedora Linux, which is based on Red Hat Linux. Three years ago, not everything worked easily. There were no good graphics drivers, no modem support, etc.

Later I wanted to get LPI certified, and changed from Fedora to Ubuntu Linux. The user experience of this setup got better every month. With the recent versions of Ubuntu Linux, everything works out of the box, including Compiz-fusion, Beagle desktop search, wifi, etc.

In September 2007 I joined Microsoft's LEAP program. This was around the time Vista came out. After running Linux for so many years I was curious how the Windows world was improved over the last years. Of course, I used Windows on a daily basis in offices at clients I work for. But these were usually running Windows 200 or XP and Office 2003 at best, and could not be used for experiments or tests.

I decided to re-install my laptop with Windows Vista, Office 2007, and the latest versions of Visio and MS-Project. I also installed the following additional free software:

• GIMP - a Photoshop clone for editing photo's
• Inkscape - a vector drawing program
• Acrobat reader
• Winzip (not free by the way)
• Google desktop search
• Nokia PC suite - for syncing my phone with Outlook
• VLC - for watching DVD's
• Wireshark - a network sniffer

Because I was running Windows I needed a virus scanner and spyware protection as well. Linux users generally never have to use these, as Linux worms and viruses are very rare.

For testing purposes I have used the free VMware Server for years under Linux, so now I installed it under Vista as well.

I have been using Vista for 4 months now. The following is a list of positive experiences with both Linux and Vista.

Positive about Linux 

• Linux uses 4 desktops, instead of one. This means that if you are interrupted by for instance a phone call, you can switch to an empty desktop to do some work, leaving the original desktop intact. Using Compiz-fusion in Linux, the four desktops are placed on a rotating cube. I think this is the feature I miss most in Windows. There are commercial solutions for Windows available however.
• Every item on the desktop is customizable. Not only colors of windows, but also their appearance, the way de desktop interacts with the user, etc. The user has all freedom. I have had my Linux desktop look like Apple's MAC's for some time and like Vista, but I liked the Compiz themes.
• No advanced graphical card is needed for the eye candy of Compiz-fusion. The demands for Vista's Aero are much higher. Compiz-fusion worked fine and fast on my on-board 32 MB ATI-video card.

  Linux has a extremely powerful command line interface (CLI). Windows Powershell does not come near it.
• There is no need to buy or install extra tools, like Winzip, Putty, Acrobat reader, Gimp (Photoshop clone), Office, Network sniffers, etc. They are all included in the operating system, or they can be installed easily. Ubuntu has a list of hundreds of free applications that can be installed in one mouse click.
• Linux uses much less memory for the same functionality as Vista. I actually needed a newer laptop to be able to run VMware efficiently under Vista.
• The firewall in Linux (FWbuilder with IPtables) is a clone of Check point's Firewall-1, which is very powerful and easy to configure. I found Vista's firewall very limited.
• No need for virus scanners or malware removers.
• For every technical problem I encountered using Linux, I found an answer or solution on the Internet quite easily.
• Beagle desktop search is natively installed, which searches inside all types of files, just like Google desktop search does (which is additional software in Vista).

• Compared to XP or Windows 2000, Vista has very good anti-aliased fonts, not only in MS-Word, but also in the rest of the operating system, like the menus. These fonts are now comparable with those on Linux or Mac and are very easy on the eyes.
• Microsoft Office is the de-facto standard for companies. Although OpenOffice.org is improved very much in the last years, there is nothing like the real thing. I also like the new Ribbon menu in Office 2007, although it took some time to learn using it.
• Wireless networking works very simple, with detection of networks and all types of encryption supported (WPA support is very hard to configure in Linux).
• There are many applications that are not available in Linux, but in Windows alone, like iTunes, Nokia sync, etc.
• Bluetooth works out of the box (this is somewhat harder to do in Linux).
• Encryption of data in user's home directories is standard functionality (this is a separate product in Linux and takes some tweaking to work).
• I found that many features that I liked in Linux are now also available in Vista (like IE7 with tabbed browsing, Burn DVD's and CD's from within Explorer without the need for a separate burning program, "Save as PDF" in Word (to be installed for free separately), nice fonts, use of Widgets, eye candy, etc).

The bottom line is that I am very positive about Vista, although it needs more hardware and a lot of license fees.

International Lecture about Business Intelligence and SQL Server 2005

Since some months now, the Hanzehogeschool in Groningen organizes weekly guest lectures about various IT related topics. I am not always available to visit these lectures, but recently I visited one given by Fernanda Barbosa, MSc from the Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra ISEC Coimbra in Portugal on Business Intelligence and SQL Server 2005.

Very few people showed up, there were only 4 people attending the class (a previous lecture had an audience of 60 people). The lecture consisted of showing more than 120 Powerpoint sheets full of text in just 90 minutes.

The first part of the presentation was about what Business Intelligence (BI) is and what parts is consists of (copying data from OLTP systems using ETL to a data warehouse, then use OLAP cubes to report the information), and the difference between data warehouses and datamarts (datamarts are typically used by one department, data warehouses span the complete company). She also spoke about typical BI problems like denormalisation, drill-across, data quality problems, surrogate keys, Star and Snowflake schema's, etc.

The second part was about Microsoft SQL Server 2005. This part was actually not much more than a recap of some Microsoft sales factsheets. She presented the various parts of SQL Server related to BI (like Analysis Services, Reporting Services and Integration Services) and what they do. Because SQL Server 2005 is from, well, 2005, this is also not very innovative, a focus towards the new possibilities of the forthcoming SQL Server 2008 probably would have been a bit more interesting.