Ubuntu,
i’ve been running ubuntu (7.10) for about a month now, and i dig on it. alot. i’m almost brand new to the linux side of things (i still have my placenta with me), but so far i’m pretty comfortable. i’m currently dual booting with vista (which is what finally pushed me away from windows), and i find that there’s very few things left for which i boot back into windows. so i guess i should thank you windows for turning me onto linux lol. of course, in truth, i’m also grateful to the ubuntu linux community for putting out such an awesome product.
out of the gate, ubuntu covered all my immediate needs with the terminal window and software like firefox (obligatory) and the open office suite, but what really impressed me was up front was synaptic. most every kind of application i’ve needed so far can be fetched from one single package manager which also conveniently handles all the updates for everything i have installed in one sweep. this is very convenient.
some of the other apps i’ve found useful:
instant messaging/chat: pidgin. works great for me as it connects to all the messaging protocols i need (msn, yahoo, irc).
audio player: rhythmbox. some swear by amarok, and while functionally it is nice, i like the basic look and feel of rhythmbox more. i’m a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. though honorable mention here is songbird. i’ll be keeping an eye its development.
video player: mplayer.
firewall: firestarter. though guarddog is nice too.
programming ide: eclipse with the cfeclipse plugin. probably soon to be accompanied by phpeclipse so i can learn php.
other apps i’m interested in, but haven’t yet had the chance to try are gimp (the photoshop equivalent for linux) and digikam (a supposedly decent photo manager).
all in all, linux feels pretty good right now. i dare you to try it.
