Tadaima!

I am now officially a Linux user. I have had Linux on my box since my last update (though this is a newer install), and have only used XP three or four times since then.

Currently my only complaint is lack of software support. Wine runs windoze programs very well, but games and such that require hardware integration have some annoying bugs. Supreme Commander crashes after 60 minutes of gameplay, for instance.

Aside from the inability to play my favorite games, I'm completely in love. My system acts like it's far more powerful than it really is. I usually have so many windows open that I can't easily find the one I'm looking for, and Compiz-fusion provides wobbly windows, tranparencies, particle effects, reflections and more. The average person doesn't notice I'm not running windoze, but they see that everything looks very nice and smooth. For those of you who know what Vista is like, Compiz easily beats Vista's polished look any day.

Codec support for mainstream video and audio is also tricky. The codecs you get with windoze or OSX are licensed from their owners: Fraunhofer owns MP3, for instance. If you wish to encode a file using that technology, you must purchase a license from Fraunhofer for the right to use their proprietary technology. When you buy your copy of windoze, part of that cost goes to paying for the licenses.
Linux is free (as in free speech), and the open source community is based off the idea that software code is a form of speech, similar to a book. It's not about money, but ownership. Modern copyright law forces people to assume ownership of something - but you can't own an idea. The open source initiative, stemming as it does from the hacker culture, believes that ideas are a resource and should be freely usable as such to the public.
But I'm getting sidetracked. My point is that aside from open codecs like the Xiph.org projects (Ogg Vorbis (audio), Ogg Theora (video), and Speex (streaming speech)) or FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), no codec is actually free. Even things like XViD and x.264, which are free alternatives to DiVX and h.264 technically break copyright law because they perform the same function as the proprietary originals.
The end of all this mess is that the free distros of Linux do not come capable of playing any closed source media, including MP3 and DiVX. You have to add them all manually, during which process you will discover that you and millions of other people are breaking international copyright law by doing so. >sigh< But it's not like the owners are going to come kicking down your door for using these 'illegal' codecs... It just means more work for the user.

However, once they are installed, everything works far, far better than in windoze. I am pretty sure that even the video playback is better. I get better noise control and stronger, more contrasty colors.

The other annoyance is compiling software. I like to jump into something cold and figure it out while I'm drowning. But this time the river won't let me in... I'm actually going to have to ask someone for help on this, because I don't know the first step in rectifying these errors.

Oh well. It's all part of the fun!