I have been using Linux for 10 years now.  At first it was only as a diversion from using Windows for day-to-day work.  I would boot it up, and spend hours learning how it all worked, figuring out how to recompile the kernel to get sound working, tweaking here, adjusting there... basically playing.  When the real work had to be done I would boot back to Windows.

As time went on, I became less and less dependent on Windows, and used Linux more.  Why?  well, simply because I had to do less and less twiddling in Linux to get it to work.   Linux matured and it actually became easier to use than Windows for most things.  A couple of years ago, I dropped Windows altogether and am 100% Linux on my home computers... with no feeling that I am compromising anything at all.

Over the past 10 years I've tested out a lot of different Linux distributions... SUSE, PCLinuxOS, PuppyLinux, DSL, RedHat, Gentoo,  Ubuntu/Kubuntu, Knoppix, Slackware, etc etc.  Each distribution had its finer points, but I was always drawn back to SUSE.  There was something I liked about it... it was well polished, professional, and worked well compared to its peers. 

Sometime around the release of openSUSE 10.0 things started to go awry.  It's not any one thing, but a combination of things... with the result that I am now starting to do a little experimenting outside the openSUSE world, looking for something else... something that suits how I use my computer... as a home desktop, but also as a webserver (serving web pages, Wiki pages, multimedia , and mythweb), an entertainment center (with MythTV managing my movies, and TV tuner), and for playing games (I am a self confessed World of Warcraft addict)... as well as all this it should provide decent administration tools (eg in openSUSE, there is YaST).

What fits all that?  Tough to say really. 

In the past few days I have started looking at Ubuntu again... particularly the latest 8.04 Beta.  I have previously avoided Ubuntu partially because of all the hype around it.  It is just another Linux distribution after all.  I have used it in the past... one former employer used it on all the software developer's computers.... I had it installed on my home system for about 4 months... but I was always underwhelmed when I compared it to openSUSE.  That opinion has changed though.  When I fired up Ubuntu 8.04, I was rather surprised.  That rickety "training wheels" feeling was gone.  In its place... a well thought out, easy to install, easy to use version of Linux.  You might say I am quite impressed with this new release...

It is difficult to pull myself out of my distribution rut though... do I hang in there and see if the upcoming openSUSE 11.0 release is equally as good as the soon to be released Ubuntu 8.04?  Or do I take a deep breath, back up my MySQL databases and webserver and move over to Kubuntu (I prefer KDE over Gnome, especially KDE 4)?  It's a tough call...