I recently put Windows 10 onto my little Acer. It was a practical decision. I enjoyed Ubuntu but had a real problem with the impact on battery performance. After 40 to 50 minutes the battery would generally be depleted.

So, I downloaded a Windows 8 ISO from Microsoft and began the installation. It took a loooooong time (it’s not a very performant laptop). Eventually I got Windows 8 installed, upgraded to Windows 10, sorted out activation issue with Acer and Microsoft. And… how is it?

• Battery is better, maybe even 50%+ better. That’s pretty great,
• I can now actually run Steam,
• Web pages are more responsive,
• I can now VPN into the office no problem,
• Bizarrely, it just works,
• Performance is improved, considering the quality of the processor on the laptop.

After a sabbatical from Windows since Vista I am pleasantly surprised to find Windows 10 a nice OS to use.

What does this mean for my Linux experience? For my development work it is still my main OS. I have done what I can to make Windows good for remote access to Linux machines. This mainly involves Putty, SourceTree and WinSCP for me.

Linux as a desktop though isn’t at the races on this laptop. The drivers are inferior. This is not the fault of Linux, but it is still a fact. The overall experience is one of stress and ‘how do I get that to work’. The core development experience is still great though. The Frankenstein effect is too prevalent with Linux on the desktop, too many bits cobbled together in weird and wonderful ways.

For the next while I think Linux will be restricted to the server version for me.