expriments in home computing

I've changed operating systems and installed the following with my computer:
--Ubuntu version 8.10 which I downloaded, burned to a CD and installed easily.
--Getting it to use wireless card was hard until I found a good tutorial specific for my card and it's chipset from the main ubuntu forum.
--I followed another tutorial from a forum to make restricted "codecs" available, and can now watch videos like on Youtube, quicktime, and video from Conferance. It can play CD's but can't copy very fast.
--wine runs windows programs which I'm hoping to use for Civilization and PrintShop where there aren't linux alternatives. It's slow and clunky.
--Dansguardian is a parental control program that was hard to install but seem to be working but blocks normal stuff too.

I think their business model is sound- give away the product and then offer paid customer support because it's a royal pain to get it going.

It took a lot of time. It's not not as versatile and is frustrating when I can't get something to work like I want.

I like being out from under Microsoft's thumb. It was a blast getting the old worthless computer going well. I don't have to worry about viruses. It seems to work fast for most basic things. I learned a lot from doing this.