I recently installed Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon), and have been using it for a few days now. It had been quite a long time since I last used Linux actually -- my work has been quite Microsoft-centric, and when I use my computer outside work, usually I am switching between web browsing, gaming, listening to music, and watching movies (National Library premium membership + an account at nearby movie rental = cool :p). The gaming part is something Windows still excels at, and when I want to switch to something else it's easier to open another application than rebooting to another OS. Thus I wasn't very inclined to dual boot.
Why dual boot now? Curiosity, mostly. After all, I have the hard disk space to spare :)
Back to the topic. As a “returning newbie”, the good thing about getting Ubuntu is the low cost to try. Like a typical Linux distribution, it's free and lean, so there's no need to purchase any license or upgrade any hardware to use it. From official Ubuntu site:
"Ubuntu is available for PC, 64-Bit and Mac architectures. At least 256 MB of RAM is required to run the desktop install CD. Install requires at least 4 GB of disk space."
In fact, there's an even leaner version called Xubuntu, which can run on 1.5 GB hard disk space and 64 MB of RAM (although 128 MB is recommended).
The installation process is quick and quite user-friendly. There is only one 1 CD image to download, and this already includes a number of applications. Burn the image onto a CD, boot using the CD, run the installer, and in no time I have Ubuntu up and running, complete with applications such as OpenOffice.org and Firefox. Thus, one can become productive straight away instead of spending more time to obtain and install additional applications.
I did experience some quirks related to graphics and sound (the sound part has been solved by now). Slightly annoying, but then again, I can understand the situation. Support for particular piece of hardware in Linux often has to be added by the open source community themselves, using whatever public information is available. This is unlike in the Windows world where drivers are usually provided by the manufacturers. As greater level of cooperation between hardware manufacturers and open source community are formed, this situation will surely improve.
Anyway, kudos to the open source community, and thank you for the software!
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