I’ve tried and tested a few Linux operating distributions but for a beginner switching from Windows, Ubuntu gets my pick based on my experiences so far. It hasn’t always been easy though with previous versions requiring manual configurations of the display config files, manually setting up the wireless network, and crashing the system because sometimes I thought I was God.

Then there were the challenges with the installation of Beryl which provides some really funky 3D effects with Mac style animations on opening and closing of windows, nice thumbnail images when rolling over the task bar icons, 3D cube effect when switching desktops and more. The problem I had was that I couldn’t get it working with Ubuntu Edgy 6.10.

With the release of the Ubuntu 7.04 and even though it is still in Beta I just had to upgrade, and boy was it definately worth it. All the previous issues I suffered with Edgy were gone! A new improved windows manager has solved the majority of problems when running Beryl 3D desktop effects, and the best part is that the wireless just works which is a problem plagueing previous versions.

This is by far the best Linux distribution I have used so far and it just keeps getting better. This release of Ubuntu is so good that I enjoy using it as much as my Apple iMac.

So if your contemplating switching from Windows then my pick is switch to Ubuntu which is 100% Free and should run on just about any Windows based PC.

I’m only a beginner in Linux world so if your contemplating the switch from Windows then follow along. I’m fortunate enough to have a Mac as well so when things don’t work on the Linux machine I can still get things done on the Mac.

So after my initial install of Ubuntu, the main issue I had was that I couldn’t connect to my wireless router using WPA encryption. I spent some amount of time searching for what I expected to be a simple fix. Unfortunately there are dozens of examples on the web that you could try and you really don’t know if they are going to work or not but I did find a fairly simple solution that got my wireless up and running and still maintained WPA security.

A trusty Google search found an article on how to setup WPA wireless on Ubuntu at the Debian admin website. Now to do the fix you will need to follow some fairly simple command line instructions in the terminal window and have a basic understanding of how to do this. You need to edit one text file and create one text file and be able to reboot your system. I don’t know exactly what each step in the process does but it works.

I hope this helps some new Ubuntu linux users save some time in getting your Ubuntu Linux wireless connection up and running.