thoth's Journal: Ex-Linux Notebook

I've decided to wipe out my linux notebook (a System 76) and install... wait for it... Windows 7. Sorry.

The reason why comes down to 3 things:
1) The system would be more useful to me as a backup/spare game machine. I play games (now and then) and would like to have an extra system for a few Windows-only games I have, another system for Steam, etc. It'll be handy for the occasional dual-box scenario (rare for me but I'd like that option), and for travel situations.
2) The system would be more useful to me with wireless. It's frustrating, and I just feel that in 2012 a notebook or any portable system should have the wireless option. I could not get my wireless going on the system. Yes, I googled a lot. I downloaded wireless driver source, built it, tried to load it, etc and on and on and fiddled endlessly and I couldn't get it working. It was fine since I kept my system connected via cable, but recently I've been wanting to move that system to another floor... basically I want wireless now.
3) I want to run at least 2 linux distributions (Fedora and Debian), and tend to experiment with others a lot. If I were running N linux distros, N-1 would have to be in a virtual machine anyway, since I don't want to partition and reboot constantly.

So, I dug up a spare Windows 7 DVD I had and installed it. Once all the patching is complete and I'm done installing "base" software (OpenOffice, VLC, Virtual Box, Steam, some other games, etc.) I'll install Fedora 17 (beta), and Debian Wheezy (testing) for starters, and configure those just like they were installed directly. Previously that system had run Ubuntu (what it came with), Mint, Debian, Fedora, and Qubes for a bit (it error'ed during the install so I didn't do much with it).

I plan to use Fedora and Debian, so I'll be installing software from languages to libraries to databases and all sorts of stuff. In fact, even though the host system will be Windows 7, I'll probably have that system largely running virtual machines in full screen mode. I do have a primary Windows 7 notebook for gaming and development; this configuration will let me fiddle with linux all I want and be more useful due to #1 and #2 above.