"I like Ubuntu. With each incarnation I'm seeing improvements and betterments that make the OS better, more robust, more user friendly and more fully-featured. In fact, Ubuntu 8.04 is the first Linux distro that I've come across that I would consider loading onto my notebook to replace Windows. Throughout my testing Ubuntu 8.04 beta has been reliable and performed flawlessly. Bottom line, Hardy Heron is, for me at least, the best Linux distro ever," writes Adrian Kingsley-Hughes.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Like many others here, I have been on that same road. It has been SO long, and full of many twists and turns. I can't even count the number of distros I have installed, including all of the BSD's. The only difference I might add to your story is the ALL of the major distros are moving rapidly towards that point of usability and stability, not just Ubuntu. Mandriva, Suse, Fedora are all very solid distros now. The BSDs grow ever more stable - and PC-BSD is just a beautiful thing to see.
BTW, I had another milestone on my journey away from Windows dependence - I FINALLY got Half-life working under Wine. The secret was to change video cards. I had been using an ATI X1300, 256MB PCI-x. Half-life would always crash after a few seconds no matter what I did (Feisty/Gutsy). All I did was change to an Nvidia 8600 256MB PCI-x. Works beautifully!
So now I have one less reason to boot into my Vista Business partition. For my .NET development, I can just use Parallels. I haven't been able to make the Mono jump yet, but who knows.
I think the snowball is starting to make its way down the hill...
[EDIT: fixed accidental slight to the BSDs]
Edited 2008-03-24 20:54 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
PC-BSD is in fact a beautiful system in operation.
I do however have a few faults with it.
Ports cannot find most applications, and pkg_add fails miserably too.
I cannot get Limewire to connect through the firewall...
Flash not supported past version 7 unless I run Firefox-Wine.
Grrrr it is frustrating, because otherwise PC-BSD would have replaced Ubuntu on this system.
Member since:
2008-03-24
My first attempt to flee the Windows prison was right around when Red Hat 6.0 was released. I was getting the shaft from a Windows Tech, he was charging me outrageous fees to help maintain my Windows system. He preyed on my lack of knowledge of windows as most people will do to make easy money. I needed an alternative and a friend suggested the Red Hat 6.0. O.S. The price was right up my alley...free.
I tried and failed so much I almost had a breakdown. I kept at it though, the partitioning was a nightmare and keeping the system/s running efficiently was impossible at my experience level (lower than a noob). Not to mention adding or removing additional packages or software using .tar. But the thought of going back to windows forced me to keep trying Linux.
I kept at it, year after year plugging away finding flaws and incompatibility issues difficult to over come eventually leading me back to the windows O.S. I would over time try every mainstream distro out there. I ruined machines, crashed hard drives, trashed whole computers in a fit of rage. But always there was a new Distro a new version that would peak my interest and I would slick a drive and give the new distro a go. If it installed graphically and worked fresh out of the box with all my PCI cards I used it. I supported it, I donated money.
I can tell you now with confidence that with Ubuntu and the flavors of Ubuntu I will never return to Windows. There is no valid reason for using a Windows O.S. now. The closest I will ever get to using a non-Linux based system is a Macintosh. I run Ubuntu and Ubuntu based Distros on all my laptops and desktops. I also use it at work. As a matter of fact if I have a problem that I cannot work-around I back up my data and reformat the drive and just re install the O.S. After I configure everything I'm good. It takes more time to make a pot of coffee than to rebuild a system.
Linux is very fluid and that's what I love about it. It's learning and getting better. I see no end in sight for Linux.