I’ve got to say that I’m continuously impressed with the folks over at the Ubuntu Forums. Rather than the stereotypical responses of “RTFM”, I’ve actually gotten helpful replies to my questions there. I had some trouble getting Windows and Ubuntu to boot side by side in GRUB…and someone posted very clear step-by-step instructions that worked like a charm (once I got my HDD issues straightened out). More recently, I’ve had some trouble with my video card under Linux. There’s some issue with nVidia’s drivers and the AGPGART module in Ubuntu. I couldn’t run any 3D applications for any amount of time or the PC would completely lock up. Couldn’t run 3D games, couldn’t run Google Earth, couldn’t run 3D screensavers. It was a real pain. And now, thanks again to the folks over at the Ubuntu Forums, it is working. Someone posted very clear instructions on how to disable the AGPGART and use nVidia’s NvAGP instead. It’s now working better than ever.

Thanks guys!

I’ve been running Ubuntu as my main OS now for about 3 weeks, and it’s actually working far better than I’d ever expected it to. I’m still not having any problems with any of the functionality. It all just works pretty much the way I think it should. It’s stable. It has all the software I need.

I’ve still got my Windows partition hanging around for games. I freely admit that Windows is vastly superior to Linux for gaming… Although that’s primarily because my games were written for Windows in the first place, and I’m having to emulate Windows in order to run them at all. The native Linux client for NeverWinter Nights ran at least as well as the Windows client. World of Warcraft…not so well. There was definitely a noticeable decrease in performance. Looked fine, but the framerate just wasn’t quite there.

But, I’m dealing with Windows far less now, and I’m a happier person for it. It’s very nice not to have to deal with all the assorted oddities of that operating system… All the little bugs and issues I’d run into on a daily basis… And I really like not having to run any antivirus/antispyware just to keep my PC healthy.

Slashdot | One Laptop Per Child Gets 4 Million Laptop Order

Sounds terrific. Very happy to see this project doing well, and I’m thrilled to see the undereducated in these countries get a shot at a functional PC. My only question is whether this is really the best way to be spending the money… Seems to me there might be more pressing matters than getting these folks laptops.