Dual-booting again after 30 months

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After 30 months of exclusive use of Linux as my desktop environment, I decided that it was about time to refresh my knowledge of Microsoft Windows and Office. This is not about switching back to Windows. Actually, having used open-source software exclusively for such a long time, I’d say it would be quite impossible to go back to a closed-source operating system. It is a matter of trust and control.

Why I decided to do this is quite simple:

  • Refreshing the knowledge of MS Windows and MS Office is the primary goal. Don’t forget that Windows is still the most popular desktop OS worldwide and, sincerely, I do not see how this situation could possibly change in the near future. This is not a flamebait, but rather a strong belief of mine after thorough and objective evaluation of the Linux Desktop and many of the companies/organizations/people surrounding it during the last 30 months. Obviously, this statement does not involve Linux Servers, whose popularity, security and quality are undisputed.
  • Before using Linux as a desktop OS, I was using lots of open source software under Windows. The secondary goal is to check how much the quality of that software has increased and how it can be used in order to secure the Windows environment more effectively than in the past.

So, my OEM version of Windows XP Home is currently the second desktop operating system in my PC. [editor’s note: Do not underestimate home editions. They become quite powerful when combined with software like cygwin] I have also downloaded a 60-day trial version of MS Office 2007 to check out and a bunch of software from Sourceforge and other sources.

I hope I find enough time to test all these things. Also, time-permitting in the following weeks, I will try to publish 2-3 articles about how one can effectively secure Windows with open-source software. This, of course, is entirely possible and I hope this info will be useful to all those who have to use Microsoft Windows.

Dual-booting again after 30 months by George Notaras is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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About George Notaras

George Notaras is the editor of the G-Loaded Journal, a technical blog about Free and Open-Source Software. George, among other things, is an enthusiast self-taught GNU/Linux system administrator. He has created this web site to share the IT knowledge and experience he has gained over the years with other people. George primarily uses CentOS and Fedora. He has also developed some open-source software projects in his spare time.

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4 responses on “Dual-booting again after 30 months”

  2. Artem Nosulchik Permalink →

    But why not to run M$ Windows in VMware Server (for example) under Linux to renew your Windows skills? Why dual boot? :) Are you slowly returning to Windows as primary OS, aren’t you? (joke) ;)

    P.S. Shame on me, but sometimes I have to run XP in VMWare to work with MS Office too…

  3. George Notaras Post authorPermalink →

    My desktop machine, being powered by a P3 1GHz CPU (yes I know that I need to upgrade at some point), is out of the competition when it comes to virtualization. :D
    Otherwise, I would run Windows in a VM for sure :)

  4. Artem Nosulchik Permalink →

    Yeah, you’re right, 1Ghz isn’t enough to run any Windows (except 95 and 98 of course :) ) in VMware locally. But it’s always possible to run VMware server at any other machine and access it from your Linux powered by P3 1Ghz :)

    P.S. It’s too heavy task for my laptop (with AMD Turion 2Ghz) to run Linux and Windows in VMware locally too. Thanks to heaven we have Wine and VMware server :)