*Red Squirrel casts: Great Wall of Text. You take 200 damage.

I've always been a Linux fan for server stuff as I always loved how it's easy to automate tasks in Linux, and you have better control over everything and it's actually more friendly in such an environment.

For the longest time I wanted to switch to Linux for my desktop too, but it was just such a big change I was not really willing to undertake. In fact even going from XP to win7 was hard. But as some long term preperation, I tried my best to ensure that every app I use on my day to day stuff is either web based running off my server (I don't do the "cloud" thing, I like having control over my stuff) or has a Linux version/equivalant. That made the transition smoother when the time came.

Recently I built a new machine, which meant it was finally time to upgrade from XP to 7. I used 7 for maybe a month, and while I'd say it's a good OS, it did nothing extra special for me but be more bloated than XP. It ran my programs and did what an OS is suppose to do, but no wow factor. I thirsted for more, especially with such a high end machine. (core i7, 12GB of ram, SSD etc) It was just another Windows with a more flashy UI, and everything shuffled around forcing me to learn silly things like how to get to network properties or other places that should be at my finger tips. I dont see why they keep changing that stuff around just for the sake of changing it. Then I realized, why don't I just take this learning curve a step further, and go with Linux! At first I wanted to dual boot but trying to dual boot 7 and Linux made me end up with a broken Windows install (Windows really does not like having another OS on the same drive!) so I ended up saying screw it and put just Linux. Went with Xubuntu.

I could go on and on but long story short, I found the learning curve was not that steep, and all my day to day stuff was quickly and easily setup, such as email and web (Thunderbird and Firefox, even imported profiles from Windows!) and coding (setup NFS to share my server files over and stuff, and use Kate). There's still a few things I need to figure out such as video/photo editing but there's a few apps for that I'll just have to learn. I can't stand gimp but maybe I can try to just live with it and figure it out. Be nice if it was at least one window and not 3948458.

For stuff like gaming I ended up buying a second SSD to put windows on so I dual boot for that. I wish games could just be written for Linux...

Even things like setting up dual monitors was pretty easy. Only downside is Linux and Nvidia do not mix well, and the install graphics were terrible. Constant screen flickers and crap, almost got epilepsy while installing, but those issues seemed to go away once I was actually booted into it. But live CD on a nvidia video card is a no no unless you want a seizure.

The biggest thing though is I just can't believe how fast this is. The SSD plays a big role here, but even Windows is not even half as fast as Linux. Even doing silly tasks like trying to open 40 folders at the same time is nearly instant. Booting up is the best though, there is zero startup lag, like in Windows. The longest part of the bootup process is waiting for the slow UEFI bios while it dicks around doing who knows what till it finally decides to start to POST and boot. Once it boots I see some standard console startup text flash on the screen, then the login screen. I login, I see my desktop as soon as I hit enter, and I can immediately open a program and start using my computer, unlike Windows where there's always a lag the instant after you log in. The login process itself took a good 10 seconds to a minute too in windows even on such a high end machine. It's instant in Linux.

Even after a few months of using it it's still this fast. Windows is that fast for the first week or so but seems as more stuff gets installed (even if it does not run in the background) the slower it gets. Linux is just fast all the time.

Overall, I'm really happy with Linux so far as a desktop. Been a couple months now.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux on the desktop!

I used to get kick out of that perennial question, "When will Linux be ready for the desktop?"

As far as I could tell, it was ready for the desktop when I started with Slackware v. 10.0, except for the two Achilles heels (back then) of printers and wireless.

From what I've read on these forums lately, new release of gimp is just one window now.

The new release of GIMP has one window as an option under the "Window" item on the menu bar.

I played with the one-window view for a while, then went back to the detached toolbox. I guess I've gotten adjusted to it.

Hmm seems it's not available in 2.6 which is the latest release for Xubuntu. I really don't want to deal with compiling manually and dealing with all the dependencies and crap. Hopefully they update the repos soon.