This past Thursday I made another attempt at switching to Linux. This time, being a bit more adventurous, I tried the 64bit version of Ubuntu. I must say, I am impressed.

Now I know most of you would never consider a beta Operating System…and for the most part, the fear is somewhat justified. They can be buggy and prone to crashing. However, I was not too worried for a couple reasons. First, this is not Windows. Even a beta version of Linux can be rather stable…even more stable than a release version of Windows. Secondly, this is Beta 4, rather far along in the beta line so I was pretty sure it would be alright. Lastly, I fully support the Open Source and GNU/Linux community and wanted to help in bug testing and improving the product.

Install went flawless. It is the ONLY distro I have tried that detected and configured my nVidia 8300 GS video card straight away. This has been a major sticking point and has been wahat was preventing me from making the switch sooner. This time, not an issue.

After using it for a few days now, I have had no real issues. Nothing that is the fault of Ubuntu anyway. Being a Beta release coming close to final release…updates are coming fast and furious. I like an active development community…it’s a good thing

The only complaint I have is the lack of a good WYSIWYG blog client. There seems to be nothing in the vein of MS Live Writer or Qumana for Linux (two of my favs from the Windows world), and the one’s that are available seem to have problems with Wordpress blogs. Reasons for this escape me… I will likely be using Drivel which seems to be the best of breed for Linux bloggers…we’ll see how it gord.

Am looking forward to this foray into the “open”. I will be sure to post anything I find interesting along the way.