So I've tried out my Linux Distros, and more than I intended to do at first. I tried out Fedora, FreeSpire, Ubuntu and some of it's derived projects; Kubuntu and Edubuntu. I also wanted to try Xubuntu and Gobuntu, but my Xubuntu Live CD was defective and I didn't feel like making a new copy of it, and Gobuntu itself does not have any Desktop Live Media yet, therefore I could not test it.

I'll make some short paragraphs about them, and how I liked them or not. Note that every Linux Distros have several desktops, meaning you can open for say, your web browser in desktop 1, then click on the 2nd desktop icon to have a free of any windows desktop. Nice little feature for anyone who always have a million windows up at the same time. Each of them are also entirely customizable, even highly customizable.

Ubuntu: I start with Ubuntu since this has been a favorite amongst Linux users for a while now. And in all honesty, I don't see all the hype about it. It is a pretty typical Linux distro, good for the all around user. It just isn't the one I've tried that felt the most comfortable, although in terms of features it is complete. What I definately liked about a Live CD of Ubuntu distros, each of them, is that you can perform an integrety test to check for any errors on the disc before actually booting the Live OS. It's just a nice little touch, since it prevented me from booting Xubuntu and get a bunch of errors while trying to run it. Nonetheless, Ubuntu is a good distro for newcomers to the Linux world and to those who don't want a single little thing having to do with windows. That includes MP3's, since most Linux Distros will work with OGG format instead. Of course, you can download the different codecs required for it to read basicaly anything that Windows can. OGG often has sounded better anyway, but it's MP3 that is widespread. It comes with every programs for what you would expect; Browser (FireFox), Email client (Evolution), Instant Messenger (Pidgin), Paint (Gimp, OpenOffice.org Drawing), Text editors (OpenOffice.org, Text Editor), Music and Video playback (Totem video player, RhythmBox music player) and some pretty occasional games such as Mines, Sudoku, Mahjongg, etc. The interface itself feels good and smooth and LOOKS good too as with most Linux distros. I just found it to be too typical with nothing truely special, out of the blue, for all the hype it gets amongst Linux Users. Oh, and for a clean looking taskbar, the menus are situated at the top of the window, and every windows you open will appear in aa thin taskbar on the bottom.

Edubuntu: Plain and simple, Edubuntu is Ubuntu, all the way from A to Z, if you add a new letter to the alphabet after Z. Edubuntu, as the name implies, is aimed at education and it does a pretty good job at it. It has absolutly all the same features as the primary Ubuntu distro, with the added Educational parts. For example, it has what they called Kalzium, which is the full table of molecules, atoms, whatever, I don't remember what it is, although I did learn it in school and although it was my strongest ****lol. They even have an app called KStars, which is the full solar system, with the constellations and everything. They have a BUNCH of other applications as such, all aimed towards education. Some are more typical education stuff. But all in all, the rest of the OS is exactly the same, works the same, does the same as Ubuntu. Still, it felt better.

Kubuntu: Ah, Kubuntu. The Ubuntu derived distro that is nothing like it's original product. Kubuntu actually feels empty, yet feels much smoother, much prettier than Ubuntu, for some strange reason. Now, the default apps are different this time around. Browser (Konqueror), Email Client (Kontact), Instant Messeneger (Kopete), Multimedia playback (Amarok and Kaffeine which works as multimedia themselves, instead of one for each), Text Editors (OpenOffice again, also Kate Advanced Text Editor) and that would be it in terms of similarities to the other Ubuntu's out there. Now, I did not say anything about Paint, because I didn't see any. Of course, Gimp could easily be downloaded from the net once Kubuntu is installed. The OS does not have any games either. That's typically where it felt empty; Games and Paint. But that's not such a big matter. Instead, Kubuntu have an IRC Client (Konversation) and a PDF file viewer (KPDF) which is a nice addition. All of these seems to work pretty good, and Kubuntu, in my opinion, looked and felt better than the 2 others I have tried. Note that this time around, it's a windows like taskbar situated at the bottom only.

Fedora: I personally did not find Fedora all that good, despite the hype I've seen about it within Linux magasines. It's pretty much Ubuntu, which I was disapointed since I was looking forward to something different. The only notable differences I could find are the Text Editors, which Fedora provides us with a simple Text Editor, AbiWord and Gnome Spreadsheet. Basicaly nothing that OpenOffice doesn't do anyway. You are greeted by a beautiful welcome screen though. For those of you with support for good 3D can activate 3D effects in Fedora's desktop, which for some reason did not work for me other than mess it up entirely. It's probably the only note worthy difference in my opinion, assuming it works for you. Otherwise, it's basicaly Ubuntu under a different colored scheme.

FreeSpire: Now, that was my favorite of them all. Why? Because it is so widely addapted for anybody and for whatever you want. The OS comes pre-installed with different codecs allowing a playback of many different media formats that other distros do not offer. My W-Lan worked without the slightest issue on this one, straight off the Live CD, unlike any of the past distros I had tried. Just this felt already better. The interface is beautiful, works like a charm and feels comfortable. The taskbar, like Kubuntu, is at the bottom. It comes also comes with my favorite browser (like most of them) but especially with my favorite Email Client. Browser (FireFox), Email Client (ThunderBird), Instant Messenger (Pidgin), Paint (KolourPaint which is a basic paint program), Text Editors (OpenOffice, Kate, Kwrite), Multimedia playback (Kplayer, RealPlayer, Lsongs). If you miss anything basic in this one, you have a big problem. You can also have desktop widgets, download additional widgets, themes, applications entirely free with a simple click, through CNR which is provided on your desktop right when you start the OS. It looks very good and feels very smooth. You are also welcomed with a nice, 2-3 pages wizard setup which allows you to change settings such as timezone, username, etc. and also setup your master sound level from the start. Every programs worked like a charm. Definately my favorite of them all for it's wide range of utilities that will be avaible, all because of the many different codecs that comes pre-installed on it, which other distros lack.

That's pretty much it, in short terms anyway. I will never know what Xubuntu really is like most probably, and Gobuntu is Ubuntu, but entirely open sourced. Most Linux distros are open sourced, allowing you to do mdoficiations and create your own distro out of it. And Gobuntu does just that with Ubuntu.

I tried to make it as short as possible. These are all good distros, if one of you is looking for Linux or would like to make a Dual Boot machine, I strongly suggest to check out FreeSpire, Kubuntu and Ubuntu. Eventually, once I get down to learning in an efficient manner how to Dual Boot, I plan on doing so with XP and FreeSpire, since I have a couple programs that are specifically windows based that I need to keep, therefore can't change entirely to Linux, which would be much more simple than Dual Booting, but sadly, not every company out there realises that Linux's user base is growing each day very fast, very quickly, and that one day it'll simply hit them in the face. Bow to the penguin!