#7 The grass is not greener, you're colour-blind.

So, I have a new pinch of salt to add to my praise of Windows 7.

To start from somewhere after the start, I recently tried to install W7 in a dual boot scenario on my HP Compaq nx7000 and got a winload.exe failure after reboot. A quick google showed many people have reported the same error trying to dual boot vista on my machine.

Step back a little way, before I attempted this, indeed before Windows 7 even came out, I ran the compatibility checker. The only significant thing it told me was my WLAN driver would need to be downloaded separately, and that Aero etc wouldn't work. The thing came out in 2004, no surprises there!

So I booted back into xp and copied off my files, then used GParted to format the drive. Fingers crossed at this stage cos I just wiped my HDD hoping that the reason I couldn't continue with set up was the dual boot thing.

Turns out I was right, and set up continues with only W7 installed… But, and this is a big 'but', it turns out, W7 is not compatible with my Machine's graphics or WLAN card. Sweet as, I don't need better res than 700x560, and who needs wireless these days, the internet is overrated…

So I spent about a day looking on the net for different drivers, I even emailed HP, who kindly sent me an email back, stating my machine is not compatible with W7. Oarsome. Thanks a bunch Windows Compatibility Checker, you wouldn't know if Windows was compatible with yo' momma's left titty.

After trying everything I could think of, I decided the best course of action was to install GNU/Linux. So I chose Ubuntu Karmic Koala (and yes, before you ask, when I the time comes, I will probably install Lesbian Llama).

I'll update you on how the ubuntu install goes soon. In the meantime, here's a list of things I've learned up to today:

• Sometimes, even when you are confident you know what you are doing, you don't.
• Emo kids with bright orange hair who mutter 'Death' under their breath as you walk past them are infinitely less preferable to the ones who busk outside the supermarket singing, 'I don't know what I'm doing wrong' songs (am I a bad person because the first thing I thought to do was tell him to cut down the wrist, and not across it?)
• Commander Sulu has a really, really cool voice: "Actually it's my first attempt."
• In order to re-crystalise the lithium in my laptop battery I just need to steal some photons from a nuclear reactor, preferably from the US(N)S Enterprise.