And I must admit. It is nice to not think about viruses and such, not that this is something that worries me when I am using a computer with Windows installed. It is also nice to have a stable computer that does not show me the blue screen from time to time; and lastly: It is very nice to not reboot every time you have installed a new program or updated your system.

How ever: There are reasons for not using Linux for me anymore:

• I am developing in more than just PHP. I am also doing some C# development for the Windows operating system.
  Yes. I can use Mono for this type of work, but as the .Net framework is more known and better distributed (aka: Installed) on most systems, it is better to use native .Net and use Visual Studio.
  Also. When it comes to PHP-development I am moving from writing directly on the test-web server (aka on the laptop) and in stead write in the defined workspace of the IDE, and then move the code to the test web server. This because I don’t want to clutter my test web server with SVN-directories, nor do I want to accidentally upload SVN-directories to the production web server.
• Better PHP development tools
  If I move back to Windows I can choose from a wide range of programs. Like for instance PHPed or the PHP Delphi plugin which is a Rapid application Development tool. PHPed shall work on Linux under Wine, but I haven’t installed Wine, and I am not sure if I want to install and run wine.
• I need access to a clients network which is using a closed VPN-system.
  My client is using CheckPoint VPN which there was a Redhat (RPM) package for back in the days. Now there isn’t any such thing. And if you search for it, you’ll see that I am not alone here. To fix this I have borrowed a computer from this client which is a tad bit older than this one and quite a lot slower.
• Limitations in Open Source software
  As I am working on a database project that is soon to be launched, I need more than one type of export/import into this one. Currently the importing is CSV-files, but as Excel can export in XML, this is a serious alternative. This is also something that I can instruct partners on how to do. This way I can normalize external data.
  The alternative in Open Office is creating an XSLT document and transforming the sheet. The benefit with this solution is that you have more control on the outcome.
  And it would have been an option if most partners out there used Open Office. They aren’t. They are using MS Office.
  I’ve also read that the XSLT-support in Open Office isn’t really that easy to work with. There are very few messages that shows if something is wrong, and the only way to find out that there is something wrong with the XSLT-document, is that the program freezes. Now that’s user friendly… Not that XSLT document transformation is user friendly to begin with…
• I need accounting software and invoice software that supports Norwegian standards. I have found a Norwegian invoice program, but has failed to find accounting software.
• Quality: I really don’t think that the quality on Open Source software is that great. Yes, it cures and itch – mostly for the developer(s), but that’s pretty much it. (I believe I have written posts regarding the “business”-model behind Open Source Software before, please check).
• Linux based Desktop OS isn’t really that stable.
  I have had a few hard freezes and I have had soft freezes. Hard freezes is where the LEDs on the computer is blinking and everything is either black or frozen. Soft Freezes is where there are parts of the OS that works, while other things have stopped working. Like when I am writing this: The mouse pointer is frozen to the side of the screen – and it is impossible to move it around. So X or Mouse support has frozen… sigh.

As I am looking at my list now, there are less reasons for me to stay on Ubuntu and more reasons for me to move back to Windows. But I’ll give this a few more weeks and months and then we’ll see what happens.

It is interesting to follow the discussion on the ieblog which is oh-so-long. Which is not so weird. IE is of great concern for web developers. We have to code for it so that the website looks correct even in IE6 – which really is making us go mad. Many times I have spent hours and hours to make the website work in IE6 – both HTML, CSS and Javascript wize.
It is more than annoying to say the least.

One suggestion that comes up in the comments is for Microsoft to move Trident out of IE and in stead start using Webkit. We all know that’s not going to happen. And there are a few reasons for this:

1. Trident is Microsofts own rendering engine and is used not only in Internet Explorer, but also in other applications – not only from MS. Since we also know that IE is tightly connected to the OS, Trident is most likely used in other applications – like for instance Explorer.
2. Because the IE is so tightly connected to the Operating System they can’t change the rendering engine. It will take up a lot of resources, time and effort to make changes in the OS and then in a lot of MS applications that it won’t make sense.
3. MS don’t really want to follow web standards. They will invent in order to fix problems at hand in the Operating System which isn’t really Web related.
4. MS has spent much time and effort on the rendering engine. And since they want to say that they have won the Internet (according to Steve Ballmer, source not found (yet)), they don’t want to give in.

I really wish that IE could be decoupled with the OS. It would mean that I – as a Linux user – could download and install IE-X on my Linux Laptop to test out the site on the crippled browser. Now I have to run Windows in a Virtual Machine just to make sure that it works properly. And not only do I have to have a VM. I also need to have multiple versions of Internet Explorer running on the installation as well. This so that I can be sure that it works “perfectly” on IE6, IE7 and IE8 (and soon IE9).
I am not sure I want to go down that route.

One thing I am sure of is that I am not supporting IE6. That browser is as old as the dark ages, and less people are using it. As more and more people are moving to Vista and Win7 IE6 will fade and hopefully it will be gone.

And hopefully in 2010 we will have a MS-browser that supports CSS3, CSS2.1 and HTML4 and HTML 5.

I do hope that MS keeps on being innovative. But I hope they do this participating with the Web development community and not against them.

Reasons:

• OpenOffice is slow and not as good as MS Office
• iPod sync is not stable
• Laptop uses more battery than under XP
• Not getting enough debug/crash data when Linux Ubuntu freezes (and really freezes)
• Not enough pro level programs (Photoshop is one of them)

Reasons to stay:

• I’m mainly a PHP-developer. Having the server with you all the time is a nice thing
• Compiz is far better than anything on XP
• More stable