And so it happened.

I got a new laptop last year September. It contained windows 8. Not the easiest thing to get around in when you're used to Linux and already managed moderate success with windows 7. Slightly annoying.

Then came windows 8.1. Same thing as above, only more annoying as I still had to look up via Google how to do certain things. Windows 8.1 is probably fabulous, but not very intuitive for me.

Well, I can always install a Linux virtual machine on it, so that is then easier. After installing Ubuntu 13.10 I noticed that it works. Almost reasonably. The network connect was quite unstable, and the VM wasn't fast (uhm, on a 12GB RAM, quadcore 2.6 GHZ processor, running on an SSD). Annoying.

I set up Linux as dual boot with windows 8.1. The set up worked, getting to it didn't. Something in Windows 8x prevented me from seeing a boot menu; even with EasyBCD there was no fun to be had. Annoying. Removed the Linux partition and set that to NTFS again. Still not happy with the wobblies of Windows 8 and lacking something decent in the Linux sphere. Alas, I need that windows thing to update my GPS and the programmable remote.

I tried to load an existing VM on VirtualBox on Windows 8. The VM contains Win XP. That somehow broke VirtualBox, it didn't load well any more, I couldn't run the Ubuntu VM either. Even a reinstall did not do the trick.

Went out on a limb and located iATKml. A nice MacOS image ready to install in VirtualBox. Works fine on my main Linux box. Downloaded and installed the software for the remote and the GPS. Works. Oh, wow. And I don't need to look up via Google how to do things with it. I see why people like Mac OS.

I wiped windows 8.1 from the laptop, everything, the whole bit. Installed Gnome Ubuntu 13.10 on it, it runs super fast. Boots in 15 seconds. (Real boot, everything loaded and ready to log in, not like Windows 8x that shows you a login screen after 15 seconds and then continues to load everything which is obvious after logging in.) I created a new virtual MacOS machine on the laptop through iATKml (ml stands for Mountain Lion, the latest). Works. Hah, wait, let's break Virtual Box and feed it the WinXP VM (which runs fine on the Linux machine). Works. Fast.

It took a fair number of months but now I have a laptop that is fast, that I can use with VMs and find my way in.

I'm convinced many people love Windows 8. Good for them.