My first introduction to Linux wasn’t a very successful one. In early 2007, I downloaded a copy of Ubuntu, hoping to try it out and see what it was like. I didn’t get very far. I couldn’t get the thing to boot and I left the disc to gather dust.

A few months ago, my interest was reignited when I got the latest PS3 version to successfully install on my PS3. It was cool to see that hey, this doesn’t look so bad and there’s more to it than blank screens that leads to nowhere. So, when I heard that the latest version of Ubuntu was released just weeks ago, I decided to give it a shot on my desktop.

To help you understand my situation a bit more, I do quite a bit of computer work at home, primarily in the areas of web design and graphic design, writing and a bit of gaming here and there. So, I was thinking, what if I can do what I do on Windows XP just as well on Linux?

So, I’ve looked around a bit, read about Wine and a few other things and I finally took the plunge today. In fact, as I sit here and write this, Ubuntu 8.04 just finished installing from the Live CD.

Now, this is not a hard break with Windows by any means. I happened to have a sprace 20GB hard drive sitting around so I figured, what better thing to do with a piece of hardware that might not be used otherwise than to experiment with it. So, that’s exactly what I have done. I still have my Windows XP drive and the I have my Ubuntu installation. Can I live without XP? Time will tell, right?

Anyway, it’s prompting me to reboot so I guess it’s time to take a peek and see if I still have something that functions.