Hey guys!
I haven't been to the boards in a while, and I finished my linux class recently. I actually went through a period of being anti-linux...but I don't know how to explain. I missed it. I missed ubuntu. I have put it back on my lab laptop, customized the heck out of it, and am having a blast learning to customize it, learning BASH, learning to navigate nautilus. I am in love! I lobe ubuntu! I am actually going to migrate I think permenantly to Linux, and use my Windows laptop as a secondary machine for my itunes and stuff. I hope this isn't an appropriate place to rant, but I am just so excited to be a linux user. I am going to buy a Linux tshirt I saw off of thinkgeek.com and wear it with pride. My 6" plush tux should be arriving today. I just wanted to thank everyone here for all of your help, and just proclaim how excited I am to have actually fallen in love with and OS, and let you guys know how much of a blast I am having just trying to learn it. I spent hours last night figuring out how to use custom icons,and use a custom lock screen. I figured it out! Thanks again guys.

p.s. Quick question. I upgraded to Ubuntu 8.10, and it seems to be running a little slower on my machine than 8.04. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a way to go back to 8.04? Is there anything in particular in 8.10 that makes it worth having? Any tips on speeding it up. I am also interested in getting involved with developing thems and stuff for the community. I don't really know any programming languages. Can anyone reccomend some books to learn about making ubuntu secure, learning ubunt and BASH, and learning to make themes and the such in linux in general? I am really looking for that ultimate book to teach me how to use linux as well as I know how to use Windows. Thanks again guys! I love you all!
-Bryan

A suggestion -- I'd post your actual question(s) in separate thread and title it as such.

IMHO 8.04 is much more appropriate for a normal user (who wants to get work done).
8.10 is full of "eye-candy", but isn't too stable, or usable. I threw it out.
Save your personal files (ie backup all of /home/*) and install 8.04 from scratch.
Then restore your personal files.

If you have real work to do, it's best to stay with the release that works for you, meanwhile you can test the next release (that's what dual- triple- n-booting is for!) before you choose to migrate to it.

Several online bash -Bourne-Again SHell- manuals and guides are mentioned in the Newbie to Shell Scripts thread, an additional one would be the Bash Guide for Beginners.

If by your use of the word “themes” you have art projects in mind, GIMP -GNU Image Manipulation Program- has some Tutorials at the GIMP homepage. The User Manual in English and other languages can also be found there. Have fun!

Although I have used it almost exclusively for the past two months, I would not recommend 8.10 to anyone (and I am about to return to Hardy myself). When some fanboy of this or that distro would rehash the same old crap about Ubuntu (noob stuff, unstable, buggs, you name it), I could only laugh and laugh.
But now Canonical seem to have worked hard to lend the bad press some (and then some) credibility. I have had (and still have) firefox crashes, failing Flash player, freezing and crashing nautilus, nautilus occasionally showing severe memory leaks (sucking up an extra 20MB every other second as you watch the system monitor), file transfer speed dropping back to 25MB/s (as opposed to 65-75 before), GDM issues, freezing nautilus tabs, firefox failing to contact an address that it had connected to only seconds before (until restarted), smplayer crashing and failing to play file types that used to work just fine, etc. etc. If Canonical are honest with themselves, they should place a large sign over Ibex that says "failed experiment". Stick with 8.04, the only real innovation in Ibex is the nautilus tabs - and then they don't work as advertised...
I agree with tredegar, it is best to keep a working system and carve out some extra space for test driving new releases.

I had never used Ubuntu prior to needing a Linux OS with a up-to-date kernel in order to get a friend's webcam working. The older kernels were no use.
Ubuntu 8.10 got his webcam working and I was so impressed by 8.10 I have since used it alongside my other Linux OSs.
8.10 is so easy to install and use, plus I have not had a single problem with it.
Based on my own experiences with 8.10, I would strongly recommend it to others.

I agree. 8.04 is way better in my opinion. Seems like 8.10 just ran slower and had a few weird bugs in it.

I had the same thing going on. It just seemed to run alot slower. I burned the 64bit iso for ubuntu 8.04 on a disc last night and reinstalled Hardy. I can't so far tell alot of difference between the 64bit and 32bit version I was using previously. Thanks for the opinions guys. I have a thread up on having some issues installing a thunderbird.tar.gz. Would you guys be willing to check it out. .tar.gz's are the only thing so far I have yet to be able to figure out in linux, and it's frustrating. It bothers me not knowing how to install things on an OS that I really like and want to use. Also, 8.10 wouldn't play dvd's for me. I checked some forums and downloaded the restricted packs and stuff, but still didn't work. I haven't tried it yet though since going back to Hardy this morning (early morning ) Does anyone out there know whether or not Hardy has DVD issues?

If "hardy" is 8.04, then no issues, (apart form installing libdvdcss2 libdvdnav libdvdread etc. of course).

I don't have 64-bit hardware, but the reports I read are that it is (currently) not worth the effort to use a 64-bit distro, unless you have to deal with HUGE databases and such: unnoticable increase in speed, and a whole load of compatibility problems. No doubt this will get better as time passes.

True, most people will not see any difference between 32 and 64 bit unless they use specific applications or they have 4GB of RAM or more (32 bit is limited to about 3GB). However, running 64 bit Ubuntu (I do) is not more complex than running the 32 bit version. Linux has come quite a long way in this respect.

I'm wondering if maybe these 64bit compatability problems are the reason I am having issues trying to install this Thunderbird.tar.gz file. The Thunderbird file won't work if I use ./Thunderbird from within the folder, and if I double click the file, it brings up a window with the option to run, or run in terminal, and neither of the buttons do anything. Is this possible you think?