I’ve recently installed Ubuntu Linux on my spare desktop machine and I have to say, this is light years ahead the last time I tried installing linux onto a personal machine. Ubuntu, which is an African word meaning “I can’t get RedHat to work on this machine,” just worked right out the box, if not completely flawlessly. It still requires some bit of computer savy to configure everything, but nothing compared to my previous experiences. With one or two additional packages I have internet, video, instant messengering, bittorrents, you name it – all working. I am having some problems with video chat – but I think I’ll be able to figure that out. Once I have that, I seriously thinking about dropping Windows from my normal machine. Hell, Ubuntu will even run on my iMac 3G. Since I’ve upgraded my iMac to the newest OSX I’ve noticed a tremendous drop in speed, and I’m thinking linux would be much quicker.

So far I can recommend the following apps:

• Kopete: Yahoo!/AIM/MSN messenger client. It even does webcam but I can’t get incoming video to move past connection – it just freezes. The other party can’t connect to my cam either. I’m thinking it’s a setting somewhere that I need to fiddle with.
• Firefox: Of course.
• Wine: Allows you to run Windows apps under Linux. I have yet to experiment too much with it, but there are a few things that I’d like to try… uTorrent and Trillian (portable version) come to mind.
• Automatix: Automatix2 is a graphical interface for automating the installation (and uninstallation) of the most commonly requested applications in Debian based Linux operating systems. Currently supported are Ubuntu 6.10, 6.06 and Mepis 6. Get your codecs here quickly. Much like EasyUbuntu, although I can’t get EU to actually run.
• Frostwire: Like Limewire.
• Thunar: File manager. (Like Windows Explorer)

If I can get the kinks worked out with the camera and perhaps add some cool eye candy like Beryl… I may leave Windows behind as well. (for future reference)