Converted to Linux

The Thankgiving Weekend Switch
During a long weekend of family, turkey and football I decided to make the switch from familiar Windows to Linux. Whoa!, you say, why such a drastic change? Why not just upgrade to Vista if you wanted something new? Well, I just decided to throw caution (but not much because Linux is reportedly pretty safe) to the wind and try something new with our old hardware. Our PC is about seven years old and was pretty slow while running Windows XP. I was looking for more functionality, less risk of viruses and other Internet intrusions and FREE SOFTWARE. Some of the mystery was removed before making the switch because Russell downloaded and created a bootable CD so we could so how it worked. We also watched some good videos that demonstrated how easy the install would be. I was especially impressed that the CD version connected to the Internet (ethernet only - couldn't get wireless working quickly) with no setup by me.

How It's Going
So far, everything's working pretty well. The actual installation took less than one hour. The longest part of the process was backing up the data I wanted to save to Russell's laptop over our wireless network, 4.5G worth. After getting the system up the first time, I felt like I had a new toy. There is so much to learn about and play with!

Problems
Setting up our printer was a little bit of a challenge even though a wizard was provided and HP drivers were already installed as a result of the original install from the downloaded CD. Our printer is the same age as the PC, so I'm sure age was a factor. I have not found a solution for converting Outlook email archives to Thunderbird yet, but I'm not giving up. I installed Google Earth, a program I never had working on Windows due to it running too slow. However, it doesn't run on Linux for me either, due to the graphics card. I am also looking for a way to listen to streaming audio feeds in the Windows format. The radio station we listen to for the Missouri State Bears games are on such a station.

What I Installed
I installed the KDE desktop for Linux, called Kubuntu, a Ubuntu derivative. The desktop looks somewhat like Windows but has many more features that you can change. I've seen a lot of screenshots on the Internet that show me that you can almost do anything with it. The Gnome desktop is also popular and looks a lot more like a Mac. Russell and I experimented with a GPC CD also before choosing KDE.

Outlook
I plan on installing new software to my heart's content (and as time allows). I'm finding there's a lot of information about how to do everything with Linux on the Internet.

What About You?
Will any of you join me? I know Uncle Dennis has a PC with Linux already (he started convincing me to convert while I was in Sacramento in September) and Russell wanted to switch before I did. But are there more of you that will join the growing Linux crowd?

"Come on in, the water's fine!".