Vicki made a good introductory post about her fresh new Kubuntu installation. I have to say that she’s facing the usual limbo state of standing between the joy of having something that works well and the feeling of not being fully used to or comfortable with the changes.
It is a feeling that will fade in time.
I too felt the same way at first, after being a Microsoft user for 20 years. Even today I’m still a slave, chained to the window that is my only gateway to Interactive Worlds.
The next step is to get comfortable with the programs in U/Kubuntu that do the things that you want to do. For example, right after I made sure that Firefox works as it should, the next thing I look for is a good music player, once I get that the way I want, then onwards to a movie player (which may even be the same as the music player previously) and so forth. Each step of the way, slowly going through the different options available as there are usually more than one program that does the same thing, confidence growing with each move forward.
It is a journey and while it is not always easy, the community feeling of Linux ensures that you’re not alone. And when you use the power of the things that you have learnt to actually increase and improve your own personal computing experience, beyond the worry of spy-ware, virus and strange degenerating systems/programs, it is then that you feel you are actually in control of a tool. And not at the mercy of a machine.
I have added up a few more screenshots of my Ubuntu desktop up on flickr just to give the other view different from the blue.
and uhm.. what about gaming? lol
Dude. You’re way too ‘kuel’.
Merv> yeah…see the part about still being chained to Windows. I don’t forsee parting (pun heh heh) with my Windows partition anytime soon because of the games. There are some native games that are great on Linux. Emulators for example are particularly robust. I’ll post about what I found soon.
Spiro > thanks dude! you’re pretty ‘rad’ yourself