I have no idea if people still read my blog after my 15 minutes of fame, but they will again soon–I’ve got an interesting interview with Dr. Bradley Edwards I will put up as soon as I finish transcribing and cleaning it up.
In the meanwhile, I just wanted to write a quick note about how I got a new IBM T-43 laptop as my old Sony was falling apart. I shrunk the Windows XP partition down to as small as possible and installed Ubuntu on it and I’ve now come to love computers again. Here is a screenshot: 
Isn’t it a polished, modern thing of beauty? Note my screen is messier than normal, but I wanted to give a feel for that apps I use, all of which are standards-oriented, solid, easy to use and have the power whenever I need it. (To give one example of the 1000s I’ve noticed, the sound recorder in Windows only records up to 1 minute.)
Here are the apps I’m using:
FireFox
Thunderbird (I want to try out Evolution, but didn’t get it working with gmail yet)
OpenOffice Writer
Audacity (for manipulating audio files)
Synaptic Package Manager (Apps to do anything I want just one click away)
Art Manager (Custom themes, icons, beautiful background images, window decorations, etc. Your desktop a personal computer.)
Totem (with w32codecs extension I can play any Microsoft files I want.)
Bash (way better than cmd.exe)
Gaim (Instant Messenger)
Nvu (For tweaking HTML I’ve composed in OpenOffice)
Gimp (Photoshop)
On my server, I’m using
Apache
Java
PHP
phpBB2
Gallery2
Drupal
WordPress
MySql
The Gnome desktop is beautiful, simple and functional. (I tried KDE and I hate it.) With these few apps I’m only scratching the surface of the tools available, I’ve only been using Linux for a few months.
The best thing about it is any time I run into the problem, Google has the answer. I couldn’t use Linux without Google.
Linux is powerful, robust and I never run into walls. Anything is doable, sometimes it’s just a little bit of work the first time.
Are you a Windows user who has tried Linux recently or thinking about it? Post your thoughts below.
I’m a Windows/Solaris/BSD/OS X user. I used to have a linux box for gave it up for Lent.
Kidding. I’ve used Linux, I like it.
Your list of software is nearly identical to what’s on my PowerBook. I love OS X – if I need the complexity it’s there, if I just want to work (and most of my ‘work’ happens on other machines) then it simply gets out of the way until needed.
“Can BASH use Ctrl-c for copy like the rest of Linux?”
In Gnome-terminal it’s Ctrl+Shift+c to copy and Ctrl+Shift+v to paste. middle-click pastes as well, I think.
I’d be interested by a more verbose opinion of KDE, and what you think of amaroK. Since you write well and have an interesting background. Ta!
Great blog, really enjoy reading your linux/space elevator articles. Just wanted to say i noticed in that screen shot you got some LTJ Bukem, good stuff.
Im using Ubuntu as well, and im really liking it.
I LOVE Ubuntu!!! I run 2 machines via a KVM switch. On the first machine I have WinXP and the second is Ubuntu. After using many different Linux versions including LiveCD versions (Phlak, Slax, Fire), I came across Ubuntu. I find myself using Ubuntu more and more. There are times I dont even turn my WinXP system on.
I’m loving oo-boon-too. I installed from the newest wubi release (thanks DIGG) and was able to get an idea of the interface in a short time, after running into a few snags with the loop back partition necessary with that installation, I decided to remove it and d/l the ISO of 6.10 and jump right in. I’ve been a Microsoft user since DOS 6.22, alpha & beta tester of IE4 & NT5, but i’m floored by the fervor of the open source movement. It’s only been three days since I’ve popped my linux cherry, and I think I wanna join the circus that is this community.
i like windows love ubuntu and HATE mac
i have xubuntu on one computer
win xp on another im considering installing ubuntu on my win xp