So, I’m writing this from KDE 3.5 on the Kubuntu distro. So far so good. Things are going as well as can be expected with switching to a new operating system. I had to install a few times as the memories came rushing back. Things like not forgetting to make your /home a separate partition, and installing the 64-bit kernels to take advantage of the RAM I have… But, after a few installs I got everything it a nice start state.

I’ve spent most of the weekend re-touring all the apps that I used to use, trying to find a new set of defaults for going forward. So far ‘ve got the following going:

Obviously, I’m using KDE for my desktop environment and window manager. I’ve used many others, and I always come back to KDE. I remember the good old days when I was really into WindowMaker. Man, that’s a really slick window manager if you want something with a low footprint. I just took a look at the WindowMaker homepage to look at screeshots. I can’t believe they are still on 0.92!! Then when you wanted to get REAL geeky, you went to Enlightenment, but you soon found out it was less geeky, and mostly just flashy. Then there’s Gnome, which is basically KDE’s arch nemisis. One of the great Linux divides. KDE vs. Gnome, QT vs. GTK, vi vs. emacs, yadda yadda. I used Gnome for awhile. It’s not a bad alternative, but I just found myself drawn more to KDE. I’m certain I will be switching over to Gnome to check it out again…

I’m really digging my Amarok. It seriously has to be the best music player out there — all platforms considered. It was one of the things I missed most when I moved back to Windows this last time. So nice to have it back.

Kopete for IMs, though, I’m not sold on it. I wish Pidgin had a 64-bit release! Come on guys! If Trillian had a nice Linux binary, I’d definitely keep paying for that.

KMail for my email… I’m teetering on this one. I may be switching over to Evolution. Evolution is a VERY sweet PIM client. I’m trying to support KDE by using their PIM suite, but, it’s not really impressing me much. I can’t get my GMail account to work on it, and well, I need my POP GMail! So, I have a feeling I will be moving to Evolution here in a bit, but they are kind of in bed with Novell SUSE and Novell is starting to rub me the wrong way.

Other than the KMail/GMail hitch, the only other real challenge I’m having is finding a 64-bit Flash Player… Yes, that’s a pretty big hitch… But, I have found a nice plug wrapper that will allow me to wrap the 32-bit player into the 64-bit environment. It will just take a bit of doing…

I’ll keep ya posted with my new Linux adventure. It feels so good to be free again!