About a year ago, I blogged about installing Ubuntu and not liking it. I was installing it as a Web Server and I found it to be "restrictive" with the root account disabled. At the time I read the misconception that root is "missing" and you have to use sudo for everything. While the misconception is still very prevalent on the Ubuntu forums, I can assure you it's false and you can activate the root account. You can even enable logging in with it from the Gnome login screen. It doesn't matter anyway. After 12 hours I am used to putting sudo in front of any root command.

The coolest thing about it has to be Beryl. If you have a NVidia or ATI graphics card, you can support the super cool 3DDesktop provided by OpenGL . There are many ways to configure OpenGL. I find Compiz to be hella buggy. Beryl is the way to go.

On Sunday, my homie was kind enough to hook me up with a brand new Maxtor 300 GB drive. He wasn't using it and knew that I was about to put it to good use. My Windows XP install was actin a fool. On boot up it was coming up with all 16 bit Subscript error. I haven't seen something like that since the day of Win95. It was time to reformat…and that I did. I was hesitant to use my Windows drive as I was still unsure as to how successful this Ubuntu install would be. Well…there is no reason to put a 40GB drive back in here. I now have 2 300GB Maxtors.

My second drive is a data drive, formated in Windows NTFS. This was one of the first things I worked on after getting the 'buntu up and running. I found a great tutorial on booting up with NTFS mounted drives and allowing users read/write access. With drive mounting, I now have my MP3s. The Add Remove Programs is extremely powerful. While only touched to remove a program in Windows, this GUI Repository Manager has tons of free and powerful applications. The Synaptic Package Manager has everything else you might possibly need. Missing MP3, DVD or the Divx codec? You can search and download it right from this built in tool.

WINE is a Win32 emulator. You don't have to install any Windows files. It works well — once you get the Windows fonts installed. So far I have found a replacement for every program. I guess iTunes will be one I will have to use WINE for. Possibly Photoshop, although I have heard great things in the advancement of GIMP.

Ubuntu + Beryl + NTFS + WINE =