Linux on Your Household's Primary Computer?

[ikarcuaso]

I got my parents' old computer and am putting Ubuntu on it. Our household computer (XP) is used primarily for surfing the web, email and word processing. I'm thinking a Linux box would be fine for this, when the time comes for a change, for whatever reason.

Just wondering if anyone uses Linux on their main household computer, if there is such a thing in your house.

[slodave]

2 Linux servers, one acting as my firewall/router/primary DNS... The other handles RAID/email/secondary DNS.... 1 dual boot Linux/Windows, 1 XP desktop, 1 XP laptop. There are times when I have another Linux box or two up and running.

P.S. I just retired an old Linux server as well, but it still will run.

[JavaBrewer]

I was running Ubuntu as the home computer for 6 months before I moved to a Mac. I had issues with Firefox on Ubuntu - would lockup/grey out/crash at least 3x a day. Overall it's a fine OS and the installer is top notch.

Since then I have reinstalled the latest Ubuntu, 8.0x, on another PC to play with. It recognized all the hardware minus the wireless lan card. That took 15 minutes of messing around to get working. After downloading all the updates I noticed that Firefox still hangs/crashes on sites like Pelican...

[968rz]

I like David duel boot Ubuntu/XP (some times you just need that windows app) and use the Linux 98% of the time with no issues. It should work fine for what you suggested but be ready to fix it your self if it should cause you trouble.
Example...
I just got a new router and needed to call Linksys as the CD would not run under Linux (Mac and XP sure), all I heard from the tech support was " I do not know Linux; can you not install XP instead?" (that was my best female Indian voice by the way)
Ubuntu does have a good following thought so help is online if you need it.

[Paul_Heery]

I've been running Ubuntu on my laptop since 2005. I have no complaints. My 91 year old mother has it on her laptop as well.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Use Linux on my server. It's bulletproof as a concrete wall. Love it.

The only reason I haven't done it as my primary workstation right now is that I really don't have the time to spend on configuring it and tweaking all the settings for individual Windoze apps to get them to play nice under it. But I know it can be done.

Linux is simply a great, great operating system. My next "workhorse" workstation PC will either run Linux or be some sort of Mac variant. This computer is my last Windows machine ever.

[id10t]

I only use Linux on my desktop both at work and home. Wife's laptop is dual booted. Daughter's Mac (old G3 iMac) runs Linux (bad CD, can't install OS X).

[Seric]

I ran Ubuntu desktop for a couple years with dual boot XP for gaming. It was pretty stable and I'd imagine it's just gotten better. I still run Ubuntu 6.06 server on another machine for web server, database, storage, dev etc. Solid as a rock and easy to maintain. I would run desktop again if I wasn't saving up to upgrade my main box to run OS X.