Not so surprisingly I’m ex-Windows-user who recently (little less than year ago) switched to Linux, Ubuntu more precisely. I had been using Windows since 3.11 till Vista. Windows was never especially evil to me, I just didn’t like it so much. But I decided to change because I wanted a lighter and safer system (Vista and 512MB RAM wasn’t so good combination). And of course Linux is way cooler than Windows (or even Mac :P ). Why I didn’t change earlier was mostly because I didn’t have own computer.

Switching was easy. First I had divided hard-drive (how to partition the hard-drive, the first thing I learned because of installing Ubuntu) with Ubuntu and Vista and then only Ubuntu (after some experiments and losing the Vista dvd). Before installing Ubuntu, I had been reading about different Linux distros to know which one might be the best for me. And though Gentoo and Debian seemed very interesting, I thought that it might be better to start from something more newbie-friendly, like Ubuntu. As said hardest part was partitioning which I for some reason wanted to make myself, but actual installing took maybe 45 minutes (and gave a lot less headache than installing Vista).

It should be clear for everyone that different operating systems do have differences. Expecting all the systems to work same way, is too much asked. Sometimes when I surf at Finnish Ubuntu Forum (or the English one) I come across threads saying “Ubuntu/Linux sucks, I go back to Windows”. Usually these people say that distribution didn’t work like Windows and they tell that they don’t have time nor will to use command line etc… Basically they don’t even want to learn. One reason for misunderstanding is that especially Ubuntu is often advertised as very user-friendly Linux distribution and easy to adapt also by beginners. And while this is true, it still isn’t out of the box -distro.

By above I wanted to say that though I find Ubuntu extremely easy to use and I have had very few troubles, it’s not like there wouldn’t have been moments felt bit erm… disappointed. But I’m little stubborn and I have interest to get things working, small difficulties haven’t been problems for me. And when you have access to Internet or/and you know people who have more experience in most cases you will find answers. I recommend using Google (or the search engine you prefer) and checking the forums :D . For example Skype problems were solved when I got external soundcard, it was very cheap solution.

I’m currently using Ubuntu 7.10, I started with 7.04. I have briefly tried also OpenSUSE (with both KDE and Gnome), Fedora, Linux Mint, Xubuntu (the XFCE edition of Ubuntu), Fluxbuntu, Mandriva and I installed almost correctly Slackware :P (I screwed the network configuration few times and then I got tired and decided that maybe some other time). For me Ubuntu (with Gnome desktop environment) has been so far best option. Maybe I’ll try Zenwalk in near future (I have already downloaded the .iso file :D ). I’m still a beginner and I have lot to learn, but that’s not problem for me. And having both positive and negative experiences are useful for learning.

If you happen to be using Internet Explorer or Windows in general, let me know if something looks weird, thank you. :)