Ubuntu!

I finally got tired of trying to get linux to work with my graphics card. I even tried Mandriva after SuSe.. still didn't work. So the only option left was Ubuntu.. and my cd was spoiled! Fortunately one friend of mine also had a cd so I made a copy.
After removing SuSe and installing Ubuntu, I suddenly realised. Why do I need my graphics card for linux? Instead, I can run it on my onboard card and even the soundcard will work then. So then I had a lot of other options in the hostel like Mandriva, Suse, Fedora Core, Red Hat but I decided to stick to Ubuntu.. and I am glad I did!(explanation comes later)
Everything was running fine.. but there were 2 things remaining which prevented me from using Ubuntu regularly:
1. Internet: I still hadn't figured out how to get my CA-42 datacable and nokia 6020 phone working.
2. Music and Movies: The codecs don't come by default!
To start out, I just connected my data cable and went to device manager. It was detected as a Serial Communications Device.. and the surprising thing is the publisher was mentioned as Nokia! It was listed as /dev/ttyACM0. I created the wvdial.conf file as follows using "man wvdial.conf" for help:
[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Baud = 117965
Phone = *99#
Username = ""
Password = ""
And then I tried the wvdial command. Lo and Behold! I was connected to the internet. I didn't imagine in my wildest dreams that this could be so easy. After all, even windows xp (and even Vista!) required seperate drivers for the CA-42 modem!
With internet, there was nothing stopping me from downloading whatever I wanted for linux. Using Synaptics Package Manager, I downloaded VLC media player for linux and amaroK. I really don't need to say much about VLC: it's one of the best media players around even in windows. The only thing is the File listing in the Open Dialog is a bit cramped.. but thats okay.
I was delighted to see amaroK. This is SO much than the other linux player I tried.. xmms! It was originally made for the KDE environemt and I just had Gnome but it was possible to install and run it(the package manager installed the kde library files so I can run kde applications.. hmm not bad!) But the files were not playing! Gstreamer was the only engine available so I went ahead and downloaded xine and then it started working.
This was far better than what my friends using FC5 experienced. I was able to connect to the internet my the friend's computer by Firefox was acting as if there was no connection. And where is the Device manager? I found several things in Ubuntu which were missing in FC5. Ofcourse FC5 has tons of applications on its DVD which I don't get from Ubuntu(after all, Ubuntu is distributed in a cd) but I can EASILY download and install all that in synaptics package manager. There are tons of interesting applications just waiting to be downloaded and installed.. making me wish I had a faster internet connection! Perhaps this is why Ubuntu is still one of the most popular and best distros available. Ofcourse I hadn't tried SuSe and Mandriva but the ratings say that Ubuntu and FC are the best so I won't bother with those. Maybe I will try them later after using it in my friends' computers.
Now, I have using Ubuntu for 2 days straight without shifting to windows (except when my friend came to play a game).
So maybe its time to take back my words... Linux isn't so bad after all. Infact I really like Ubuntu! It rocks! It inspired my to go to the IRC channel (#ubuntu on freenode) and help out newbies to install linux... something I wouldn't think of doing before as I always used to criticize linux!
Perhaps you will see a lot more posts related to linux from now on :-)