On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 10:26 AM, Jason Hsu <jhsu802701 at jasonhsu.com> wrote:
> Ubuntu has now caught up with Windows in the bloatware department and can no longer make this claim.

Recent versions of Windows (where recent = Windows 7+) do not bear out
your "bloatware" statement (unless you're including the crapware-laden
OEM installs of Windows that manufacturers ship on their machines).

I run OSX as my primary OS, but use a Windows 7 VM extensively for AD
management, for running the VMware vSphere client, website testing in
IE, and a few other tasks. I have it running within VirtualBox with
512 megs of ram. Yes, a half gig. I'll regularly have the VM running
for *weeks* between reboots with zero performance issues. Typically
the only time I reboot it is when VBox application updates come along.
If it weren't for VBox updates, the Win7 VM would likely stay running
until an OSX kernel (reboot required) update came along.

I get it, we like to use Microsoft et. al. as our whipping boy. It's
fun to do - to a point. It does no one good, though, to spread
misinformation.

Anyway, my usage of Ubuntu is primarily on the server side, and I find
it (especially the LTS versions) to be an excellent server OS. It can
be as "light" or "heavy" weight as you want it to be. You get the
benefits of a Debian-esque system, without having to jump through
hoops (a.k.a. backports repos) to get reasonably up-to-date packages.

-Erik