I haven't been using computers for long (3-4 years), but during that time I always used Windows. The first big incident I remember having was a couple of years ago when IE stopped working. Well, after about an hour of tech support, I said "screw this" and hung up. Later, a friend told me about Firefox. I installed it and have used it ever since. Another frustration was having MS Works on my home computer, but with MS Office on all the comps at school/library. So...I switched to Open Office. Eventually open source, freeware, and trial sharware made up the bulk of my programs.
Things were going well (aside from three-day-a-week malware scanning) But there was still one major incident to come. When I bought the computer, I also signed up for a two year subscription to one of those anti-virus software. Two years later, time is up and every day for about a week, it keeps popping up a nag screen to renew. I procrastinated, figured I'd get around to it. Which was apparently a bad idea
. So yeah, my computer crashed. I gave it to my friend (the same guy who recommended FF), and he was able to get it back up and running. But I wasn't about to let that happen again.As you can probably guess, this is when Ubuntu came in. Downloading and burning the image was a breeze. Partitioning the hard drive, and installing Ubuntu was similarly easy. Making it completely functional took a little longer, but I was still able to get through it alright. One sticking spot were the codecs, and various other gobbledygook needed to get things like audio/ video formats, flash, java, DVDs, etc. working. Luckily, that little tool called Automatix really helped automate the process (no kidding, right?) Also, as stupid as it may sound, I had trouble getting 3D games to work because I didn't install the graphics card drivers. I searched the Docs up and down, and even asked on the forums (:roll:). It was super easy after I figured it out, but you would think that could have been better documented.
Aside from those little speed bumps, everything has been moving smoothly in about the week period I've had it. Admittedly, I haven't tried everything. Hopefully I will get more into it over the next few weeks. And now some of my personal pros and cons.
+ The GNOME Desktop - It is very minimalist, but still very functional. I used to have my desktop littered with icons. Now, I don't feel the need.
+ It's very customizable!
+ It doesn't nag you much. The first time I went back to my Windows partition, I was greeted with a message from both my anti spyware program, and HP Updates ::?
+ It's secure. I installed a firewall, but other than, I don't think I have to worry.
+ It's stable. It was always a struggle to keep running smoothly. Furthermore, it seemed to get slower as the years went by. I've heard this won't happen in Linux.
[I'll continue this later]
