I’ve been meaning to install some form of Linux, as it has been quite a long while since I’ve worked in a Linux environment, but I actually got around to it this morning for some strange reason.

I don’t know what prompted my renewed interest in Linux, but I typed ubuntu.com into the Firefox address bar and hit enter, and here I am.

I decided to go with Kubuntu 8.04 LTS with KDE3 instead of KDE4, and I’ll wait for 8.10 final before I switch to KDE4.

It was actually a difficult decision for me, as to which version of Ubuntu to go with. On one hand, the simplicity of the Gnome environment of Ubuntu would make it a bit easier to transition from Windows to Linux, but I would always be missing out on the advanced features available with KDE in Kubuntu, and going with Xfce in Xubuntu would just be a waste of my computer’s potential. In the end, I made my decision based on my most recent use of a Linux environment.

I had been using Knoppix to repair issues or recover data on my Windows drives for a long time, and KDE was the desktop environment of choice for Knoppix, so that’s what I went with.

I think I’m in for an adventure, and if you’ve never used Linux, you are definitely missing out.

I should also point out that I have not abandoned Windows XP in my Kubuntu adventure, as I have installed Kubuntu using Virtual PC 2007. If you’d like to do the same and see the wonders of Linux for yourself, but you don’t want to leave the familiar Windows environment, leave a comment and I’ll post instructions. As it turns out, parts of installing Kubuntu in VPC are troublesome, and usually require some tweaking to get it to work.

Now I’m off to see if I can crash Kubuntu!