As per my last post, I’ve made the move to Linux. Previous attempts to move away from Windows to Linux have usually resulted in having to revert back cause I needed some program to do something, but since I last tried, Linux has come along way.
Anyway, I decided to give Linux another go as my WindowsXP install was getting rather slow, and was in need of a format and reinstall. My decided to go with Ubuntu as my chosen distribution as I’ve had previous use of it and found it to be rather easy to use. Rather then trying out the latest stable version, I decided to jump in head first and try out the latest beta 8.10 which from the Live CD seemed to have a lot better support for my hardware then the latest stable 8.04.
The main problem that was holding me back was to be able to stream media to my Xbox 360. Previously there were many ways to achieve this, but usually required some long confusing process that I never really wanted to try as I’m only a novice to Linux. Following this tutorial, I managed to get Ubuntu talking to my Xbox 360 just like in WindowsXP.
Wine is a great program for running some Windows program. uTorrent would have to be my favourite bittorrent program, but so far, everything I’ve seen for Linux comes no where near the feature of uTorrent. Using Wine, it is now possible for me to continue using uTorrent, and it works great!! 
Even the web interface works, so I can continue to check up on my downloads via my iPhone.
The only things that I haven’t tried much of is GIMP. I don’t really like it, but as Photoshop doesn’t run on Linux, I guess I’m stuck with it. I just have to work out how to use it.
Other then that, I can do everything that I previously could do in Windows, and it’s faster!! The only exception is that I cannot sync my iPhone3G as Apple haven’t made it possible. Hopefully this will change, but for now, I just use my Vista notebook with iTunes. So for now, I have no intentions of switching back to Windows any time soon for this PC. Besides, I still have my Vista notebook, should I need something.
What are your thoughts on Linux? Have you tried it? Have you made the switch?
Photoshop does indeed run on Linux, using Wine.
You need the very latest wine from winehq.org for best results.
Which version of Wine and of Photoshop are you using?
See http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iAppId=17
for more info on running Photoshop on Wine.
Thanks Dan, that’s interesting to know, but looking a bit further shows that it will run rather slow. It ran really slow on my PC in Windows, so I’m not going to bother trying with Wine. Besides, I have it installed on my Vista notebook if I need it.
I’m running Wine 1.0.1 according to Synaptic.