Linux/Vista Rant

Most of my acquaintances are surprised to hear a use Linux on my laptop full time. "Really? All the time? Why?" is the most common reaction. I could go on about modern operating system, security, scalability, bleeding edge technology, blah blah blah but that would be a waste of both of our times. So I give out a simpler answer.
"Vista", I say. They then understand.

Everybody knows Vista is slow. But what surprised me is that after using Linux, I found the XP system at my office slow.
Now before you say it, let me tell you my office desktop is a decent system. And I wasn't playing games on it, or watching movies, just office stuff. The occasional web surfing or gmail checking.

'Occasional' can be made to mean different things.

Anyway, I then realized that what I was looking at to see how fast a computer is, is not the speed at which programs are actually executed, but how fast it gets back to me. I click an icon in Linux, the cursor starts spinning. Soon my application is launched. At all points you get all onHover events. You click an icon in XP, the cursor turns into an hourglass. Then, depending on the application, it is either launched immediately, or takes some time.

Openoffice.org does that on Linux, but come on... why would I be doing office stuff on my personal laptop?

You click an icon in Vista, and nothing happens. Then the cursor starts spinning. Then the application is launched.

Vista rated my laptop a '2.8 out of 5' on performance. Well Mr Vista, If my laptop can run compiz, If it can run 3 virtual machines in parallel, then it to be more than '2.8 out of f***ing 5'.

And this is the thing I hate most about Vista; as soon as I switch it on, what do I see? "Please do not turn your computer off". As soon as I turn it on. Everytime. What does this tell you about the rest of the sytem?