This is a small point, but regarding Ableton Live not having an analog on Linux: anyone who wants to do pro audio editing on Linux needs to try Ardour. It's a fantastic project that represents the best of the open-source tradition, and it is in constant and active development. Right now it's better than it's ever been. It's not always simple to get it running on Ubuntu, but it is well worth it; while Ableton Live might have some performance perks that few other DAWs have, in terms of strict potential for pro audio engineering Ardour matches it on every point.
<p><pre><code> What you probably meant to say is "I'm so old and decrepit
that I can't learn new things so I can't acclimate to an
environment without some shitty Adobe or Microsoft application".
Don't get me wrong, there are some pieces of software that just
don't have an equivalent for Linux (*cough* Ableton Live *cough*)
</code></pre>
The primary examples of "shitty Adobe or Microsoft application"s that keep people from Linux are Photoshop and Office, respectively, both of which are far superior to the closest Linux equivalents.
- I just can't tear myself away from Windows as my primary system until Wine becomes less of a pain to use. While Linux has alternatives for most of the software I use, the 10% it doesn't keeps me rooted to keeping Windows on my primary partition.<p>-With VMWare performance getting better and better with SSDs and multicore processors, I hardly notice a delay when I'm developing in a virtual machine.<p>-I hate dual-booting just so I can spend 10 minutes playing Angry Birds on my break. So I just stay in Windows.
After years of being away from Linux, I decided to give it another go with the latest Kubuntu a few days ago.<p>After a painless install I ended up being at the computer all day and up until 2am, obsessively tweaking and trying new stuff. I can't believe how much I miss it.<p>Btw, I was into redhat (circa 5.2) and Slackware, reconfiguring and recompiling the kernel over and over. Making the OS wicked-fast. The experience is even better now. Awesome!
> So I downloaded some source and can't figure out how to install it<p>I don't think he's being fair here. Go to the website for a software package that has a version that runs under Linux. You want to install it. What does the website tell you?<p>Chances are, it says, "Download this tarball ...". Failing that, it generally gives you a list of command-line stuff to type. A big chunk of these are available via the standard GUI under Ubuntu. Why don't the websites mention this? I have no idea.<p>As a semi-recent (4 years ago) returnee to Linux, it took me some time to learn this: that, when installing software, I almost certainly want to <i>ignore</i> <i>what</i> <i>the</i> <i>package</i> <i>website</i> <i>tells</i> <i>me</i> and just use the Ubuntu GUI.<p>I can't imagine why anyone expects new Linux users to understand that.
So do sound and wifi work out of the box yet? I come back every couple of years with that in mind and it's always been problematic.<p>Device driver issues are really the only reason I haven't become a convert.