"At any rate, I've now been using Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron" as
my only work box for over six months, running it on a Compaq nx6325
laptop. I tried running Ubuntu at home as well, thus freeing myself
from the annoyance of having to buy or steal most of the
interesting pieces of software I like, but I pretty much just use
that box for gaming so that wasn't worth it. It was still nice
looking for the short time I used Ubuntu though - my brand new
NVidia card powering my 30" LCD at some ungodly resolution, the
same resolution Windows calls "native" for the monitor.
"On to the work box. I'm a network engineer, meaning I configure
routers, switches, firewalls, and the occasional Unix/Linux box. I
don't write code or script, though I have a little experience in
both of those areas. This means that the tools I need to do my job
can be considered "power tools", but there really aren't that many
of them. In the methodical tradition of engineering, I'd like to
evaluate Ubuntu's performance as a Windows substitute by examining
how it functions for every "core" task, plus the auxiliary ones
that, while not strictly necessary, are pretty common."
