I suppose that if I were a Windows or Mac fanboy, the title of this post would read “Ballin’ With Bill,” or “Surfin’ With Steve.” As it stands, the alliterative properties of “Linus Torvalds” make “living” the most obvious choice — and the most accurate, given the all-consuming nature of my computer habit. Ask Dina. If I had it my way, I’d sleep with my arms snuggly wrapped around my laptop.

Yes, living. Because that’s what I do now . . . I live with the operating system that Linus Torvalds built back in the early 90s, Linux–or more specifically GNU/Linux, though my distribution of choice, Kubuntu, uses neither “GNU” nor “Linux” in its name. I first tried Linux four years ago, when I installed Mandriva (back then it was Mandrake) alongside Windows XP. I wasn’t prepared at the time to move. Some of my hardware components didn’t work, XP was relatively new, and I didn’t consider Linux to be a serious OS for serious people.

I moved to Linux on my server about a year and a half ago, when I again installed it alongside XP (which by this time was, itself, about five years old). At the time there was a lot of internet buzz about Ubuntu, which was being touted as the first viable desktop Linux distribution, and I was curious. XP, by this time, was running agonizingly slow on my aging hardware, and I was sick of waiting for 5-minute boot-up times and constant defrags. I was pleasantly surprise, as it installed mostly without a hitch on my aging desktop server, and cut my boot time down to a minute or so. I followed a guide for sharing with Samba, and I was up and running with a file and music server.

About a year ago I installed Ubuntu alongside Windows XP on my laptop, and began playing around, and got comfortable enough with it that immediately upon graduation I dumped XP entirely. (I needed to keep XP until then because of compatibility issues with other students and shared work in grad school.) This winter I installed the KDE desktop alongside the GNOME desktop, and found bliss. Though GNOME had treated me well, I wasn’t entirely satisfied with it. It lacked the polish that I wanted in a desktop, and its efforts toward simplicity were wasted on me, as I enjoying tinkering and customizing and whatnot.

My reasons for wanting something other than Windows run along the usual lines espoused all over the intertubes. XP is an aging operating system that will soon be phased out; it is often attacked by script kiddies and virus authors, requiring constant security monitoring; defragging sucks; XP and Windows software costs money; Microsoft is an infuriating company with a huge ego and monopolistic practices; and I desire the intellectual freedom that comes with open source software. To top it off, Vista was proving to be even worse than XP in many regards, and my time at work with it had proven frustrating at best.

Today I can honestly say that KDE is the best GUI I’ve used, and I can’t image ever going back to Windows. Or Mac. Or even GNOME.

That’s the story. Now for the good stuff. Here’s what I like about Linux (Kubuntu, in particular):

• APT is an amazing tool for managing software. Essentially, all your software is managed in a single place and updated for you automatically. If you want new software, you simply open up a program on your computer, search, and click install. No need to go to thirty different websites for thirty different programs. One stop–and it’s all free.
  
• There are a lot of programs that come with any Linux distro by default that will never come with Windows (due mainly to licensing and legal issues (unless you buy from an OEM like Dell)). For example:
  • CD burning software (K3b)
  • Partitioning software
  • A complete office suite (OpenOffice.org for me)
  • A robust photo editor (GIMP)
  • An excellent BitTorrent client (KTorrent)
  • A multiprotocol IM client (Kopete)
  • A lot more available for quick download . . .
• Canonical–the company that distributes Ubuntu and Kubuntu–releases new versions of the software every six months, which means that while XP is nearly 7 years old, I always have some of the newest software available right at my fingertips. (And with each release it gets better and more polished.)
• Kubuntu comes with EVERY driver I need for my laptop. That’s right every single one. I reinstalled a month ago, and the entire process took just over 30 minutes and required no additional downloads (other than for any additional software I wanted). The two times I reinstalled XP on my laptop, it took hours and a separate computer for downloading drivers for 7 different pieces of hardware disk.
• The little touches. Like hover states for photos (and notice the thumbnail on the desktop? Yes!):
  
• The file manager. The new one is called Dolphin, though some people use Konqueror. Both are very good, though there are many strong opinions about both. My favorite features are the split screen and the amount of detail shown for files:
  
• Amarok, the best music player around, is only available for Linux. Yes, best. I don’t miss foobar2000 anymore.
• No need for virus/spyware/adware scanning. And since no ports are open, save a few for web browsing, no need for a software-based firewall (and my hardware-based firewall protects the network otherwise).

And, my favorite programs:

• Amarok
• Firefox
• digiKam w/kipi plugins (photo management – as good as Picasa)
• Qtpfsgui (HDR photos)
• GIMP
• Kate (text editor)
• Kopete (instant messenger)
• Open Office
• KPDF (for PDF files)
• FileZilla
• VLC (movie player)
• Miro (free TV!)

Two final notes:

1. Much has been made of WINE, which is a program that allows you to run Windows applications within Linux. Whereas I can see the utility in using this program (especially if you’re a gamer or a slave to Photoshop, foobar, or utorrent, as some are), I personally won’t install it. It feels like bloat, and if I want to game, I’ll fire up my Wii. Otherwise, GIMP does me fine.
2. Some people won’t install GNOME applications within KDE, and vice-versa, even though they work fine. Generally, you must install extra files to do so. So, again, the bloat argument. I will. I don’t see this issue as being the same as running Windows applications under WINE. In the OS world, we’re one big happy family.

That’s all. If any of my peeps ever want to make the switch, let me know and I’ll assist.