Linux

Before I start to talk about Linux, you should know that i have been using windows for a substantial length of time. I have not yet used Vista as i have had no reason to do so. If i am lucky i may be able to bypass it all together. I am a reasonably experienced user. I can do a fair bit without assistance though there are some who would disagree with that comment. You know who you are!!! Seriously, I wouldn't consider myself a super user but I know enough to end up fixing most things that may go wrong in Windows (a reboot usually fixes all ;-)
I first came across Linux some ten years ago. At the time I knew less about computers, software and hardware than I do now. At the time it was far too complicated and difficult for me to use. It did not have a desktop view and everything ran from the command line using Unix. Then and now I know next to nothing about Unix.
I got interested in Linux again some time last year. I installed Fedora on an old notebook. Got it running but then gave up on it as the notebook had hardware issues. I did not have the time to get going on Fedora probably which would involve me first having to fix the laptop.
Fast forward six months and my wife was and is hogging the main computer. At home, I usually need to do a little bit of browsing and check my mail through a webmail account. I got my hand on another old notebook (about 5/6 years old) which just could not run windows xp anymore. It kept falling over. So I installed Ubuntu on this machine and voila, I had a second working machine at home. I did have a few problems with Ubuntu (about which more later). I was reading a copy of Linux magazine (i think) and I found a big write up on the new distro from opensuse. Better still it was available on the dvd which came with the magazine. So I installed this on the notebook over Ubuntu. I enjoyed playing with that till I came a cropper on an automatic update. So its back onto Ubuntu.
Well now you know how I got here. I am going to write separately about my experiences with both Ubuntu and Opensuse in separate post's.