Linux vs Vista - on the road

Well assuming my battery holds out we're road testing Linux Ubuntu vs Windows Vista on the Costa Brava in Spain.

It's the first time this Acer laptop has connected to a wireless network I don't control and the first time it's had to run on battey for a long time, so how do they stack up:

Battery life: 

Linux claims my battery has 1 hour 30 minutes from 100% charge, and this counts down in real time, this is with power saving set up and screen at it's lowest brightness.

Conversly, in power saver mode, Vista can squeeze 2 hours 35 minuets.... and yes it does actually manage it. 

with linux claiming I have 30 minuets left I have switched to Vista and now have 50...

Wireless:

Although both OS's can see and connect to the hotel wireless, which is hardly surprising... Vista has better signal strength (assuming one can belive it's own estimates)... it is, however, a little more annoying to connect to this alien network. 

Linux has already connected to the strongest wireless network by the time it's booted up, Vista requires you to ask it to - fair enough, but then having to resure it you meant to connect to an unsecure network is a little niggle, as it having to set what type of network this is (private, public etc)

All these features are there - of course - to stop your average numpty who baught a computer at PC world from getting their computer fux0rd by someone/thing/themselves. Where as it takes  a fair amount of computer litteracy to install linux let alone install the relavent network managers to get the wireless working... so no need to assume your user is to stupid to look after themselves online.

Misc 

Linux does have a nice feature with it's time/date in that once told where you are (picked from a list of cities) not only does it adjust it's time settings for the local difference, but calls up a weather report and other local data that can be got at from the task bar. Cute.

Over all I've been switching between OS's at will but favoring Vista for it's better battery life. Once again the biggest thing seperating these two rivals is MS's need to make a computer that protects the dumbest user from themselves, to the slight annoyance of those with common sense.

Now, if only I could find why Linux has eaten an entire setof files and directorys from my desktop...