Windows 7 has been officially launched after favorable pre-release reviews, but my own hankering has been to eventually replace my Windows XP Pro with some kind of UNIX. After a brief look at PC-BSD, I kind of fell into using Ubuntu 8.04 LTS for most of the year on my testing machine.

Over the weekend I decided it was time to raise the stakes, so I turned my main machine into a dual-boot system with Windows XP Pro and Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope. Now I am in the process of deciding whether the Ubuntu half might cut it alone as a work computer. I got Skype working on it and I got a PPTP VPN connection to my team's Windows server in Atlanta. Those are both essential. I also put gVim on it. As of version 7.0 it comes with Jeff Pitblado's Stata syntax file installed. That will be nice. The ability to use my BlackBerry as a tethered modem would be good too.

So, we'll see. There's not a lot of real pressure to switch. I buy my computers refurbished, from the Dell outlet. I always end up picking a system configured for business use, with one of the better Windows versions pre-installed and no crapware. This has worked out well for me. My little Ubuntu excursion has been driven by curiosity at first, and then I just liked what I saw.