So, it finally happened. I had to throw out Ubuntu from a laptop and install Windows instead. My girlfriends laptop.
My girlfriend has a ASUS Zenbook ux32vd laptop. Don’t buy ASUS Zenbooks by the way: The marketing claims the laptop to be a top-of-the-line high-quality top-notch product but the reality is that it’s just what it looks like: a cheap knockoff product. The ASUS Zenbook is shitty both in build quality and Linux compatibility. This post will focus on the latter quality aspect of the zenbook.
At first, she really liked Ubuntu 12.04 even though she had to get used to it a bit first. Unity was pretty and usable. The quality, the usability, the user interface design wonder that is GNOME, was quickly appreciated. They’ve done it well on that front. Nobody beats GNOME’s user interfaces. They know their shit.
Everything’s FAST. Booting is fast, chromium is fast, Google Docs (sorry Libre/Open/ZealotsOffice, you suck too much) is fast, Chromium is fast. Everything’s so delicious-looking, responsive, and fast.
There’s no need for clunky virus protection, or getting harassed by “plz update me” popups from various apps, or fearing that she by accident installs some McAfee malware while installing Adobe Reader malware. Yes I say malware because those two really are malicious. The first is piggybacking on the second which allows other malware to further infect the machine.
But then the issues started. Whenever she’d turn on the laptop, there was an 80% chance that the screen was black. It’s a known issue but nobody knows whoever’s responsible and everybody who’s able to fix the problem is pointing at “THAT GUY” over there.
Chromium started crashing constantly. The fan just revved up to full RPM and never stopped (even though the laptop was idling). No solutions for both problems. She started being ashamed of her laptop, really regretting the expensive purchase, begging for a new one, envying all the lucky problem-free Mac users. Something had to be done.
Just like that, I backed up her home folder, wiped the entire disk, installed Windows 7. Even though the initial setup takes a little longer than Ubuntu (messing in command line to modify the system to use all hardware VS double-clicking ten installers to install drivers), the system works perfectly now. And it’s pretty. Too bad she lost out on the awesome GNOME UI.
Errata: It turned out that the cache SSD in the laptop was broken and unleashed all kinds of hell on the laptop. Yes, this little 24GB thing is what Ubuntu was installed on.