The Ubuntu Adventure
Some days ago I was recovering my Windows XP system on my laptop, but something went wrong during the installation process and the windows boot loader was non existent. Then I searched the net for some solution for this, but the solutions I found didn’t really work well. So I came up with this home made solution. Put some Linux distribution onto the computer and trash Microsoft Windows. So I did.
When I bought my first computer (year 2001) it had Microsoft’s Windows ME pre-installed, at that time I didn’t know anything but basics about computers, which was what I had learned in school (most of it by myself due my curious mind). Thus I didn’t know anything but Windows systems, I didn’t even know anything else existed.
Then I started in high school and learned a lot about computers from my roommate. I got to know that there is something called OS (Operating System) and that windows was not the only desktop OS. I tried some Linux distribution, but I never really got the idea, I was too far down the road of Windows systems to understand this system, that seemed so strange to me. Occasionally I have been trying different Linux distributions since, but never got the feel.
What kept me away from Linux has mostly been hardware driver troubles and the fact that most games is only developed for windows. The wireless network drivers has been hard to configure and that, especially, kept me away.
Now that I installed Ubuntu(Ubuntu is a linux distribution), I had no problems with anything. Everything worked out of the box. So I am gonna stick with this. Applications doesn’t work for both windows and Linux, but some has been compiled to both systems, e.g. Mozilla Firefox and OpenOffice.org, which both are part of the ubuntu package.
Most importantly to note about this conversion, is that most Linux distributions are free. Actually, you have to look hard to find one that isn’t. And there is so much software for linux that is free. In windows I had some programs that I have used a lot and they dont exists for linux. But doing a little search( only a little search, it takes no more) and you have found an application that does the exact same job for you in Linux.
Conclusion
If you have any kind of troubles with Windows, just install Ubuntu, it works out of the box, and probably wont cause any problems if you work with it as a home desktop for internet browsing and office packages.
Just install it. In fact, you can now install Ubuntu as an application on your Windows desktop, so you have no longer any excuses not to try it it out 
Note: I will keep posting about my ubuntu experiences when something comes up.
I only have very little experience with Linux from a programming class at the university, so I haven’t tried it for real. This looks kinda nice though, and not very complicated.
How well does it perform compared to Windows XP? Slower or faster?
The main reasons for me not to try it would be that I can’t be asked to install a new OS right now and also, most of the games I play are only made for windows, but I don’t play a lot of games at the moment anyway.
The performance is better than with XP. That is what i have experienced. The startup time is better than when I had XP. Standard usage of the system is very smooth and so far I have not experienced anything to complain about.
As for the gaming, I have another computer that I use for that purpose and that is a Windows XP system. But there is a project called Wine(http://winehq.org/) which is an open source implementation of the Windows API. I haven’t had time to test it yet, but I will.
All the console stuff, the command prompt and alle the commands that one might think of when considering linux, I have not used a single one so far
Everything is very user friendly.