I had my last bout with malware today... I decided to leave windows for good.
I pulled my OS drive and stuck in a fresh 160gb I had on the shelf and loaded linux. I tried to run linux back in 2002 for a desktop and there just wasn't much software support for it at that time. So I figured I would give it another shot now.
I must say, things have come a long way in the linux world. In about 6 hours, I was able to completely replace my windows life with linux. I got it installed, customised, got all my hardware working, got all of my XP files copied back over, got my email client up, and got my printers shared back to my other PCs.
OpenOffice seems to handle my MS Office stuff fine, and GIMP will get my by on my graphics needs. Firefox and Thunderbird are already familiar friends.
So far, so good! My only gripe so far is- there is no screen resolution between 1024x768 and 1920x1080. The first being too low and the last being too high. Oh well, I'll figure something out.
Check your monitor drivers. Sometimes not all monitors are listed to change the resolution between resolutions. I'm not sure I'm ever going to go full linux, but using my android phone for web, I feel is a step in the right direction.
What distribution are you using? I dual boot XP and Ubuntu, I don't really use my computer for any serious computing, but I do play games. XP is for games because Open GL doesn't have the same support as Direct X, and games tend to run far worse on linux compared to Windows.
Linux is pretty nice once you get over the learning curve and figure out how to tweak things under the hood. But it's not perfect. Things as simple as Java become quite a c to install and get working.
Yeah, I chose Ubuntu too. It seemed to get good reviews for desktop use. I have a lot of experience with Unix and Linux (redhat, debian, etc) as servers, but I have never tried to use Linux as a "daily driver" so to speak... So far everything is going fine. All this PC is used for is online bill paying, spreadsheets, basic web design, and a handfull of forums.
I keep XP on my laptop for Visual Basic and Microcontroller programming. I don't do much gaming (except for the occasional console emulator).
Firefox and Thunderbird FTW:D
You'll be wanting this too... http://ubuntu-tweak.com/ Makes life just a bit easier.
I've been using Linux off and on for at least I long as that and I think it's finally gotten to the point where I won't have to go back to Windows. The only gripe I have is the drivers don't appear quite fast enough or support the piece of hardware I want them to. I'm also still looking for a desktop I really like but GNOME seems to get the job done.
I like Debian better than uBuntu, but pick the distro that you like the best and works for you. If you get really adventurous, you could run freeBSD, OpenBSD or even OpenSolaris.
...the stone rolled aside, and out of the tomb came my post in it's burial wrappings...
On a side note, a year and six months later, and I am still running Ubuntu. I have yet to have a single problem out of it.
I am running a pc with CENTOS. It's not my primary pc but a good alternative. Linux has come a long way.
There is an interesting documentrary on net flix re: the early days of open source/Linux...if you are into that.
Revolution os
Good luck.