Making the switch to ubuntu

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bvnQE1EAEZY

The newest version of Ubuntu looks awesome, and I have become incredibly frustrated with windows. I was on the verge of buying some sort of mac, but then my brother came hope with his macbook pimped out with ubuntu. I always used to think linux was more programmer-oriented, but now it seems way more user-friendly. Linux DEFINITLY needs SOME sort of marketing team (even though it is completely ***free***). Ubuntu has (or can have) all the features that windows or mac has, and able to use them without high end graphics cards and without crashing. I have no idea how such an amazing piece of software that is completely free can go unnoticed in mainstream society (the logic is that it is because it isn't supported... but this is because it isn't popular... not popular because it isn't supported... see the trend?). But anyways, it's very easy to install if anyone is wondering, or so I've heard. My only concern is that my disk drive is broke, so I am trying to find a way to boot from a remote drive. Right now I think I will just buy an external cd drive and go from there. I am so pumped for ubuntu! It has all the amazing software that windows can have in linux equivalents, and it actually doesn't crash when using it! I will update when i actually have it installed :)

from my experience, the less Windows experience you have, the more likely you are to try Linux

There are some people who have such an in-depth knowledge of Windows (particularly the people who have paid for proper training) who take the idea of using another OS as a personal insult

I set my sister up on Ubuntu a month or so ago

I bunged all her photos from her old disk onto her new system, set up her email, instant messenger and WoW
and she's happy as can be

only question she's asked since then was how to sync her iPod, which I showed her how to do

anyway...

Ubuntu is self supported by it's community.

Linux is by far the most stable operating system because there are so many different ideas going into it and there are heated discussions about the best way to do something (process switching is a famous example,) because there are so many people looking at the problem the best is usually the one that is used.

The only thing that Linux lacks is a wide variety of games. Gaming companies are nearly exclusively Mac and Windows. Ubuntu can run from a CD, but of course then you can't save anything. Linux doesn't have a .Mac (or whatever the PC equivalent is) equivalent.

I will hopefully be getting high-speed internet here within the week, and I plan to install the latest version of Kubuntu as a dual-boot setup (with Vista) just as soon as I'm all set up. The only reason I haven't already installed it is because my dial-up modem is not compatible with Linux. I gotta say, I love apt-get... I set up Kubuntu on my sister's laptop awhile back, as a dual-boot with Media Center, and in about ten minutes with apt-get, she had evrything she needed. Not user-friendly my foot. ;)

Wow, I just switched and it's pretty incredible. Works flawlessly and looks great. Definitly recommend it over anything. I would say that I'd BUY ubuntu before buying and of the mainstream OS's (leapord/vista,etc.)

you wait till April, and Hardy Heron hits
going to be lots of awesome goodies in that one

Incidentally, while I think new users migrating to a single distro is a good thing (from the user's point of view)
Support is far better, for one
and it's comforting to have a lots of other new users around
(I remember how I felt when I first gave Debian a spin in '98)
plus, it's a massive incentive for hardware / software companies to start officially supporting one distro, as opposed to three or four different ones

there are other distro's out there
and some are more cutting edge than Ubuntu

If you're willing to experiment (read, willing to wipe the hard-drive if it goes wrong) then take a look at distrowatch.org for a list of distributions, and have a play.