I've tried Ubuntu, just tosee what the fuss was all about, I did not like it much, at the time I was running SUSE as well, and Linspire (now Xandros owned). First off on ease of use Linspire topped the list, all my kids were able to use it with little or no help, sadly it is now part of Xandros, which I do like. I use SUSE, which I find works well straight out of the Box, has everything I need and like Linspire, dected the resolution correctly, linked through to Windows and delievered a platform that everything I needed straight away, both distros set up my wireless network without any trouble, as well as my cable broadband. I found with Ubuntu I had to spend time on all these to get them to work. Don't get me wrong, Ubuntu has done a lot for linux acceptance in the wider marketplace, and maybe I need to have another look, but currently I do think it is way over rated.

I use Ubuntu on my Dell Mini9 and love it. I don't require wizards for everything, and ease-of-use isn't critical to me, but overly complex is also not desirable (*cough* Gentoo *cough*). Ubuntu does what I need, is stable, easy to update, easy software repository access, and flexible enough for my needs. Also Ubuntu offers a support forum that's one of the most active I've ever seen in the open source community. Just about any issue you might experience has already been addressed with instructions on resolving it.

Are there better options out there? Perhaps. But I find Ubuntu is a good balance of everything, and their community is by far the best.

That's all from a workstation perspective though. For servers I strongly support FreeBSD. I'd take FreeBSD over ANY other OS for server functionality, stability, security, speed, and usability.

I considered to use Linux, Ubuntu or even Mac. But it seems that I'm doomed with Microsoft. My problem is software compatibility. OK, if I where only to play Blizzard's games I could use Mac. They always program for Mac, too. But hell, the rest of my software wouldn't run on other platforms. And I'm not sure whether I can find a replacement for them.

Actually, Cedega (formally WineX) runs on most linux/unix platforms (especially Ubuntu) and will run 99% of Windows applications flawlessly, including advanced games like World of Warcraft, SPORE, The Sims, Command and Conquer, Half Life, and many, many more.

Transgaming charges a few dollars a month for their system, but it works great.

If you'd prefer a free alternative, and you don't mind a lot of manual configuring and tweaking by hand, you could try the plain old Wine.

Thanks, Komodo!

I will have now a closer look at Ubuntu, beside of Windows 7. I mean my XP is kinda getting out of date and must be replaced in one way or another.

I just installed Ubuntu and played around with it a bit. And as a fanatic Windows XP user, I must admit it is really impressive work. It is for free too!

I don't know other Linux version. I only once tried something some long time ago when Linux first came. It was a nightmare! So, Ubuntu is indeed very promising. It looks very nice and is very well organized. I have yet to find out how stable it runs and what compatibility it has. But as a long experienced Windows user, I really have to wonder now how Windows 7 will be? Because honestly I thought Linux was a failure!

... well, I guess I was wrong in some way at least ...

I've tried all the versions of ubuntu and even suse,ulitmate edition 2.0 and the easiest I've found to use honestly out of the box is linux mint. This is as far as 64 bit goes. 32 bit though I was happier with ubuntu 8.10. It seems when it got to 9.04 and 9.10 some of the usability was replace with looks.

I stick with ubuntu on my main machine simply because its the easiest for my wife ( a windows user ) to actually use when she needs to.

As a Linux operating system, Ubuntu is for the beginner in Linux. My Ubuntu 10.04.1 detects everything I need. My only problem is the gdm log-in issue, other than that I have no problem. I feared using Windows because of antivirus and spyware issues but with a Linux system I have no such worries. Everybody uses Windows and the bad guys go where there is money to be made. Ubuntu may be targeted eventually because of rising usage, so I hope everybody will stay with Windows--unless they get wise and switch.