Well, after playing with Linux on my home system on and off for the last few years, I think I have finally reached the point where I can convert from Windows almost exclusively!

I updated my copy of Mandrake 9.2 to 10.1 today, and found that it has overcome most (if not all) of my issues I had with it prior, including easy access to the NTFS partition of my hard drive (I dual boot with XP). So now I can access all my photos (I am a professional photographer) and listen to my mp3's without having to migrate them via a stack of CD's to my Linux partition. Now I just need to master Gimp and get Mandrake to recognize my camera card reader, and I'll be all set.

It's a small thing, but I really think this is the point where I can stay out of Windows 90% of the time (the other 10% being to play games, lol), so I thought I would share.

Well, good luck using Linux. I have to say that Mandrake is a good choice for those making the initial transition from windows to Linux.

I recently reached "enlightenment" too. Feels great, doesn't it? I've tried almost every distro out there, and I decided to go with Debian after several years of sporadic Linux usage. I've started programming in Bash, made my own Fluxbox, XMMS and xdm skins, and I've compiled my own 2.6.9 kernel. It feels great.

Good luck with Linux in the future!

Welcome to Linux ajslideways & Paiway!

congratz

Welcome!
And we both know that there is no way back

I've fiddled around here and there with various Linux distros over the past year, and I too have reached the point where I can say I'm a convert, too! In my case, I didn't have much of a choice with my computer, as I shall explain:

The motherboard in my system, which I bought and installed almost a year ago after my other motherboard bit the dust, has an AMDK6 1.2-GHz CPU, 256 MB of RAM, and an integrated soundboard in it (for the record, it's an SiS7018). Sounds powerful enough to run Windows XP -- except when I first learned of the activation system in Windows XP back in early 2003, I decided right then and there I didn't want it on my computer. Not that I advocate stealing or anything, but I thought "yeah, but what if something goes so horribly wrong that you have to repartition the drive and reinstall Windows XP?". To me, that makes such a scenario, should it occur, an even bigger pain in the patoot, not to mention it sounds a little too big-brotherish to me. Right then and there I vowed that I was gonna eventually switch completely to Linux, although I didn't know just when.

Well, fast-forward to just two weeks ago. I had since upgraded to Windows 2000 due to a Visual Basic.NET class I was taking at a local college (I've been between jobs lately), and you need either XP or 2000 to run the .NET architecture (and like I already said, I was not about to install XP on my computer due to my opposition to the forced activation system in it). There were also times I'd be goofing off in the computer lab downloading a few Linux distros here and there and burning 'em to CD's and fiddling around with 'em at home.

Well, starting last fall, my computer started developing problems of random crashes and, without warning, rebooting on its own, and in one case, at a very inopportune time, as it left me unable to access my work on my church's website I had just finished the night before on a zip disk. :-(

I eventually got to where I had enough of that (and I thought Windows 2000 was supposed to be more stable than that!), so I decided to back up everything and wipe off the drive and start all over. Well, during re-installing drivers in Windows 2000, it did that spontaneous reboot AGAIN!

At that point, I had had ENOUGH. As far as I was concerned, Bill Gates should be FIRED!

I went looking around through some CD's I had burned of a few Linux distros, and I had burned some CDs for Mandrake 10.1 but hadn't used 'em yet, and I've heard so many good things about Mandrake, so I thought I'd give those a try. So I did, and I had everything up and running in 10 minutes! To make a long story short, I was IMPRESSED.

I've only been using Mandrake in earnest for a couple weeks now, and since it's a whole new world, I too have been left feeling like an idiot at times trying to figure things out on here, but I've persevered and already done quite a bit with it, and I think this is gonna become THE official operating system of Yours Truly.

Fred from the Ozarks

I converted after 1.5 years messing around with dual boots, then one night i was on here reading a thread "Can you live without windows" and I read that for like 2 hours.. and just got all excited and opps.. deleted my Windows XP off of my drive ;-P lol But I am fully converted.

GoD SPEED

~Bryon