In the last week, since I’ve made the full switch to Ubuntu, I’ve started asking myself this question, do I need Windows.

So often when I had that other boot option my though was Yes, I need Windows. “I need this program or that, I need to do that thing that only Windows can do.”

As the week has progressed without the handy fallback, I am beginning to realize that I have never in fact needed Windows. What I had needed was the comfort of the only operating system I have ever really known. I started with PC’s back in the days of DOS 2.0, and have since been staring the Microsoft brand in the face nearly every day of my life.

Over the past week I have found that 75% of what I do on the PC includes a web browser, a media player, and a graphics editor. All of which are quite handily accomplished with the likes of Firefox, Amarok and GIMP. (Among other alternatives) So with that in mind I can easily say that that at least 75% of the time, I don’t NEED Windows.

Of the other other 25 percent of my PC activities, at least 15% is dedicated to general fiddling, scripting, programming, poking around and messing things up. Activities for which Linux grants more than ample opportunity. Far more than Windows…So much in fact that that 15% may rise dramatically for the foreseeable future.

What’s left? 10%. This 10% has been perhaps one of the prime reasons I have stayed with Windows for so long. I have for a number of years been an avid casual gamer, floating from one virtual world to the next, slaying dragons and delivering packages for any number different elves, dwarves, mages, thieves, etc… Gaming has kept me in the Windows world for a very long time.

Since the birth of my daughter, whose images pepper my site frequently, gaming has become a distant priority. That time being replaced with time playing with her. Gaming at it’s best in my opinion. There may come a time that I want to get back into it, and here I must admit that I don’t know where Linux currently stands with this type of activity as I have not explored it in the least. (Unless TuxRacer counts…)

All that aside, I would hesitate to say that I need to game at all at the moment. I just want to from time to time. But even if I were to say that Linux does not handle gaming at all…I am still left with having no real need of Windows 90% of the time. (Or 100% of the time as I’m not currently in gaming mode)

I am really beginning to see that much of the pain people have in switching to Linux is not really based on what Linux can or cannot do, but rather, what is different from that which they have become so very accustomed to. Be it a specific program, a specific way of accomplishing a task, or maybe just that ubiquitous Windows startup sound that so many of us hear multiple times daily in our cubicle farms and homes.

If people were exposed to Linux in it’s current state (as a desktop operating system) from the start, it would be Windows we would look at with dismay and suspicion, and wonder quite loudly “Why in god’s name would I want to PAY for THAT? And PAY for virtually any program I want to run on it? I can do all that and more for free…”