I am downloading Kubuntu 9.04 right now. I have always been curious about trying Linux again (the last time was in high school with Red Hat as a school project.) I am going to be using Wubi to install so I can just see.

What got me thinking about it again is that my friend killed his PC some months back and left it at my place to fix. It won't boot at all and he is sick of XP. With Windows 7 around the corner he doesn't want to waste his time and money on Vista but wants his PC back up and running. If Linux turns out to be a good answer for him, we will put it on his machine.

Anywho, I was just wondering if any of you have any recent experience with Linux, mostly Ubuntu or Kubuntu, and if any of you care to explain your preference of KDE or GNOME over the other.

I had a Linux shell that we used in my computer programing course. It was a pretty basic bare bones kind of thing but the GUI was of Windows ME quality and it had a "start" menu.

It supported Firefox, Netscape, had a simple paint program, and a word editor. There were many things it didn't do that windows does, but all in all, it was a fine little OS, and for me, someone who in more interested in the specs of the hardware and less about what runs on it, I felt that it would be a nice hack free backup OS should my copy of windows ever completely sh*t the bed. The best part was that, as I understood it, the whole thing could be booted off of a 512 USB memory stick.