for those of you who are interested in giving linux a try, ubuntu is great. infact, out of all the linux distros i have tried, i believe ubuntu is the best.
you can make it look any way you want. if you want it to look like windows or OSX, you can, but ubuntu's default environment, GNOME, looks better than both of them to me.
one of the biggest reasons i see people hangin' onto windows and OSX is all the programs that are made for them. you can use those programs through a program called wine, if you really need them. and even if that doesn't satisfy you, you can mount your windows partition, and have read/write access to all the files!
you don't have to just trash your windows/OX partition either. you can have a dual boot system... which means you can choose which operating system to boot from.
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ANYHOW............
that's not what this thread is about. that's just a few pieces of information you should all know!
i've done some research on different makes of ubuntu... i found edubuntu (no idea what that is), kubuntu (uses KDE instead of GNOME), xubuntu (has really low system requirements, like pre2k), and all sorts of other ones... but there was one that caught my eye: ubuntu studio.
ubuntu studio is a version of ubuntu designed for people who want to edit multimedia. it's free (like all other ubuntus) and it comes with a bunch of free software *surprise* that is very similar to expensive programs that many users pay for already. the programs it comes with have high quality audio editor/mixers/all that jazz (looks quite like audacity, might be alot better, however), 2d editing programs similar to the adobe cs suite, a nice web design program similar to dreamweaver, high quality movie editors with special effects, 3d programs, flash programs, and many other types of media programs.
i am very intrigued about many of these programs, as i never knew they existed. i knew of a few, which come with the regular ubuntu distro, but there are so many useful programs. users can also save files that are compatible with photoshop and other programs, too!
it's only available for i386 processors right now, though i imagine it will be available for others very soon... and if you didn't know, i386 is basically a class of processors that include only amd and intel. which means any mac with a powerpc is ****ed and can't use ubuntu studio... but regular ubuntu is available for all.
i'm downloading ubuntu studio as i'm typing this. the download is already halfway done, and it's been two hours.
if you have any questions about linux, operating systems, or computers in general, feel free to ask them here. i'd like to cover questions about ubuntu too!
you can also pm me if you do not wish to post. thanks