Transfer to new dimension complete

I have (almost) completed the switch from XP to Ubuntu Feisty Fawn on my two main machines (a Dell SX280 and an Advent laptop). It was no big deal really: XP was barely functional on my desktop machine anyway (probably a function of way too many programs installed) and I had had plenty of time to get used to Linux. What’s left to do is transfert a few gigs of archived emails from .pst files to the equivalent for ThunderBird, I have already done that in the past so that should be no problem. It feels as though I have bought two new computer, with double the processing power, so I remain impressed with the core tech at work in Linux.

Here is the list of programs I have decided are keepers:

* ThunderBird 1.5 to replace Outlook. Too bad 2.0 isn’t out in .deb format yet, I would have had some use for the two-way Google Calendar hack that is available out there. Evolution is, as far as I am concerned, complete crap.
* FastMail.fm, which has a very good IMAP service, to replace my existing account with an Exchange provider in the US.

* OpenOffice to replace Office: this one is a no-brainer, as GNUmetrix couldn’t even import my Excel files. OO is okay, not great, but okay and definitely improving very fast (I tried it out a few years ago and it was unusable).

* Grip to replace dbPowerAmp (I will miss that piece of software…), OGG encoding anyway (that was another good decision, BTW)

* RythmBox to replace Windows Media Player: simple, works great. I considered Amarok but: I run Gnome, the whole KDE philosophy is pretty much visible in Amarok and I just don’t have the patience for that sort of stuff. RythmBox has a lastfm add-on so I am happy!

*Gaim for MSN (salut Julien!): gets the job done and is way faster than the latest XP-based version of Live Messenger.

* Skype.

* Automatix for a few packages that are difficult to install (flame on).

It has been only a few days but so far, pure bliss.