This weekend I was testing some of the new operating systems in the market and some virtual machines on my Macbook OS X 10.5.8. I was really eager to try the new google OS "Chromium" and my beloved Ubuntu's newest version "Karmic Koala". Although I had some reluctance in testing the new "Windows 7" after the memory hungry Vista but I still gave it a shot from some of the better reviews I have heard of the system. VMware fusion was my trusted virtual machine for all these systems and I think in comparison to its competitors Parallels and Sun microsystem's VirtualBox this piece of software is somewhat more stable and reliable.
My first test subject was Chromium and although its not much of an OS but just a modified web browser I had a lot of expectations from google after seeing some of their other products. But unfortunately this OS is a big disappointment. Although it boots up quite fast, approx 10 secs which is much faster than any other OS, its quite sluggish and looks quite an infant as compared to Microsoft and Macintosh. Even though its just a browser it takes up quite a bit of RAM, which is not very good if you run this as a virtual machine. The typing speed is not coordinated well with the keyboard speed and the mouse keeps bouncing off the corners. Plus installing customized software is not much of an option on a web browser. It has all the google features such as documents, calender, gmail etc. but for someone like me whose bread and butter depends on computers I don't think it is much of an option.So overall I feel that this is not for people who use the computer but for the ones who simply use the internet.
The next guinea pig was my favorite linux distros Karmic Koala. All my linux training has been done on Ubuntu "Hardy Heron" which is one of the most user friendly and stable linux distributions. Hence I had a lot of expectations from Karmic Koala especially because it was said to have graphics to match a Mac. But this time Ubuntu has failed me miserably. This system has more problems than solutions and I think should still be in the Beta stage. Although it has amazing graphics and the entire system is made more user friendly by adding software like Add and Remove programs and System manager(Quite similar to Task manager) overall its a formidable task to get this system up and running. It took me nearly 4 hrs to install this system and to solve its sound and graphics problems before I could actually use it (This is compared to 10 mins of installation time for Chromium). But once this koala is up and running its quite easy and beautiful to watch. Overall I would recommend this to people who know their linux and who want the power of a linux system in the most beautifully designed GUI.
Next up was Windows 7, to be frank I had no hopes from this system after looking at Vista. After Vista I have always questioned myself, Why did people at microsoft have to compromise on the stability of Xp just for the sake of graphics and some additional security features? (which most of the windows users don't even care about.) Apparently I think that they did realize this and their answer is Windows 7 which is quite a gentle monster. This OS took less than 1 Gb of RAM with all the graphics. The task bar is quite changed with some of the Mac features creeping into the Windows 7. Also most of the bugs present of Vista have been removed and the system overall doesn't crash much but still there is much more refinement required in windows 7 to compete with its biggest competitor Mac. Overall I would rate this system much better than Vista and its predecessors but still I feel windows needs to do much better if it needs to stay in the market especially with competitors like Ubuntu and Mac.
Overall my weekend was nothing but a wast of time over these highly disappointing OSs. But I still feel that Karmic Koala can outshine the other if its bugs are taken care off and Chromium can be a great OS for the offices where the main work is on the internet. But as of now Windows 7 wins hands down although it comes at price... But after all all good things come at a price don't they?
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