I was a Windows Vista user for like 2 minutes.. but not anymore

So I bought a new laptop yesterday. Try as I mighted, I had to buy Vista along with it. I bought this laptop with the sole purpose of doing work on it (its replacing an older machine that was for that purpose).

What this means is that I wanted decent ram, decent CPU, but I really don't care about graphics performance. That is, I have no worry of ever playing games with this machine. Thus - if I don't need it for games, then I don't need windows either. I considered a Mac but to me Ubuntu is at least, if not more, functional as a mac (you might be different I understand - but for me, this is the truth) - and I get many many more choices for hardware possibilities.

Anyway, like I said, I was forced to buy Vista with no intention of using it. I got the laptop home and thought I might boot-up Vista just to see it before I wiped it clean. As it started up, I got visions of it asking for my personal info and despite the fact that I would not of course actually enter it, it would somehow still get my name, address, and food preferences sent into some database somewhere being tagged and locked in as a forever Vista user slated to have to pay over and over and again and again for.. um.. I dunno.. something that I didn't want but that all locked-in/slated people have to pay for.

Vista got as far as the "Preparing your computer for starting for the first time" message and my paranoia became too intense.

I shutoff the machine. Put in the Ubuntu CD and wiped the drive. Phew. Its really amazing that when I buy a laptop (desktops not as much given I usually build me own) it feels like I don't really own it. After Ubuntu was installed however, the laptop is now mine.

I think I'll leave the Windows Vista sticker on it though. It's pretty and I did pay a lot for it.

Digg!