Ubuntu

Well after spending a decent amount of time with a pre-release version of Vista and trying out some of the things I would normally do on a computer I was fairly impressed. Although, much was left to be desired from the Aero interface, it was a clean and well-designed more like XP Theme+ than a new interface. After Vista had released I kept getting annoying messages urging me to upgrade to Vista Ultimate every time I logged into Vista. It was quite annoying. I drew the line when I tried to apply an update to some part of Windows and it said I couldn't do that because I was using a pre-release copy of Vista. As anyone who has a bit of technical knowledge goes, using any version of Windows not fully (or at least close to fully) patched is asking for trouble, so I decided to cease using Vista. I decided to give Ubuntu a go. It seemed like a fairly straightforward release of Linux, focused more on easing the woes of first-time Linux adopters. So I installed newest release Feisty Fawn. Let me tell you, it's very nice. The first time I fired up the media player and tried to play an mp3, it gave me the standard "You don't have the right codec" message, but it asked if I wanted to download them. I said yes and within a minute I was listening to my mp3. GAIM which is a kind of like an all-in-one messenger application, was really easy to set up, it doesn't have all the features of MSN Messenger, but it includes things that are not in messenger such as a message to auto-reply if you are away. I also spent a decent amount of time trying to get Beryl working. I finally did, and let me tell you it's a very nice piece of software. It is everything I wish Vista's Aero interface would have been and more. http://www.beryl-project.org/features.php Here are some screens and descriptions of features in Beryl. The only things I need now are an audio mixer and a audio loop program. I will probably just use Alsa as my mixer because it seems to be easy to install and include the basic functionality I am looking for. I also think I will give LMMS a try as it looks somewhat similar to Fruity Loops. I just hope that the samples I have are compatible with it. In any case I have had a wonderful experience thusfar. I will not lie. Linux is definitely not for everyone. If you are happy with Windows and paying for software that is fairly stable, then stick with it. For those of you who want more functionality for free and are willing to put a bit more time into it as well as helping others when you can on forums (this is what the open source community is all about) then I urge you to test it out. Sadly, I must admit that I have not completely forsaken Windows or Microsoft. I have two reasons for this. First, my job is working with Windows and Windows apps so I need to have them on there in order to be efficient at my job. Secondly, there is no solution yet for the PC Gamers out there. Cedega works, but not nearly as well as I hoped. Anyways, gotta get going,

Signing off,

Turellius