neurological dryer lint

my latest experiment with linux on the desktop hasn't exactly been a stunning success. i decided a few days ago to install fedora core 2 on my laptop in 5GB of spare space i had. the install went great, as it usually does, and dual-boot to XP worked perfectly. i installed a slightly modified version of the 'Workstation' option, which has some admin tools and more client connectivity apps (things like SMBclient to talk to windows shares, etc).

after about 30 minutes of work i got wireless working... something it's sorely lacking is the ability to have dynamic scanning of access points and the ability to auto-connect to whichever one you're around. as it stands now you have to manually modify your configuration file, drop the interface and bring it back up.

firefox and thunderbird and their crucial extensions went in fine, i got my touchpad working, and using their up2date tool i got XMMS + MP3 (the linux version of winamp), the flash plugin, NTFS read support (so that i could grab files from my windows partition), and ogle (a DVD player) installed. so close enough to being comparable to my windows machine, i figured i'd run some tests.

boot: windows takes ~32 seconds to hit a login screen. fedora took ~75.
login to desktop: windows takes about 10 seconds, fedora's about the same.
finding wireless and establishing connectivity: windows was within five seconds of loading the desktop. fedora took about a minute to modify wireless settings and down/up the device.
loading firefox and thunderbird: windows took about 8 seconds. fedora took 22.
loading DVD player and starting playback: windows took about 7 seconds. fedora took 4-5.
system shutdown: windows took about 15 seconds. fedora took about 20.

conclusion: things still aren't as easy as they could be. until it's practically effortless to switch and use a new OS, widespread adoption of linux on the desktop is a distant dream. i didn't get a chance to test out ipod support, because somehow my /etc/inittab file vanished between reboots and fedora wouldn't boot anymore. so i may reinstall, i may not.