Ubuntu three four.

the challenge:
Get work done using Ubuntu as the primary OS.
Disabled:
Mac OS 10.6
MacPro Tower - 8core - Adobe and other commercial Apps including Lightwave, Maxwellrender, Photoshop, and the usual things found on a media designers toolbelt. 

The replacement:
Ubuntu 10.10
Intel Q6600 Quad core - 4GB RAM.  Benchmarked at about 45% the processing power of the above mac. 

About a week ago, in the afternoon, I remember it clearly.  My Mac was acting strange; it was feeling very slow and plodding.  I rebooted several times over the course of an hour or so.  Then...upon reboot #4, I got the spinning 'thing'.  Eventually it became clear, this was all I was getting.   I'm no neophyte, so I didn't completely panic, or initially assume there was anything seriously wrong.  I have been cursed with multiple hard drive failures over the past few months so my trust of computer gear was at an all time low.

When I put in the OS disc and it eventually - after much considering - spit it out and flashed a I told you I was sick folder with a question mark on it.   
See!?  I can't find my brain now!  I hope you are happy.
I was far from happy, as I was only hours away from the completion of an animation project.   I had a RAID on there... I had everything on there.

Why am I writing this?  Perhaps I have learned a few things that might be useful to other people in a similar situation.

Over the years I have found that in order to be truly versatile and to take full advantage of all the tools available to us as artists, one should really become well versed in all major Operating Systems.   I have used almost every flavour of both Windows and the Mac OS, and now Ubuntu.  I would honestly say that all three major food groups have their 'charm'.

Windows.
Must have flavour - XP pro. 
Powerful, stable and clean, it's the least baffling and most unencumbered by frivolous features and glitz of all the flavours of the Window's rainbow of flavours.. such as they are.
Windows7 is getting up there, for sure, catching up to the Mac OS if only a little.  Though, it still seems to be plagued by Vista's tendency to develop performance cancer.  Once diagnosed, the result is almost always fatal.  Laptops are the worst sufferers, leading to extreme fever, delusion, and eventual drive failure.  Ok, perhaps not that bad... but honestly.. the laptop I use was GIVEN to me because they mistook it's poor performance - glacial really - and continuous crashing and incessant updating to be a measure of it's physical prowess.  I installed Ubuntu and dispelled that cobwebby nonsense straight away.
No... XP is the only form of Windows I would want to be stranded in an underground bunker and forced to save the world in less than a month... OS.  Assuming of course there were no other choice.

Mac OS. 

The breakfast of stylish champions.
There isn't to much I can say about the Mac OS these days.  In the bad old days I used to respond when asked about my choice of platform with, " 'scusie? ingris no talkie."  To most of the computing world happily spent $4000 on a machine without a mouse, without even an operating system really... A mac was a strange beast indeed.  A little box with a little screen that was controlled by an upside-down trackball, had strange symbols that you could drag around.  Things have changed a lot, but mostly, Microsoft is still playing catch up.
The Mac OS is really a very sophisticated skinning of an all time freedom fighter's classic.  Linux.    I think the Mac is the ideal choice for the everyman.  The kid, the grandma, the creative person that just wants their computer to work like their iPhone... It just works.  Extremely simple and by comparison way more stable and powerful than Windows.
I realize such statements can result in mutilation and death in some states, but it's the truth as I see it.  I have seen it in others also.  Several of my friends have witnessed the MacOS first hand and have later purchased their first Macs.  Every one of them thank me for it.  One even used a term similar to something from one of the first iMac commercials.  "It's like I have been released from computing jail".

Ubuntu.

The connectively challenged, committee-built amalgam of altruism.
At first Ubuntu can feel like a strange land.  Anyone entering the country from the bordering land of Mac will feel a strange familiarity.  If they have a belief in digital reincarnation, they may find themselves predicting which rooms they have been in before and... OH MY! this key combo does the same thing here!

Though Mac users will take to Ubuntu's interface like a duck to tartar sauce, I'm guessing based on my experiences with most mac users that the more obtuse developer oriented elements of Ubuntu would appear to these - the average mac users - roughly how early man would have looked at an ipod.  That causes a lot of fear and trepidation in mac users.  The dreaded CODE!   I admit, I had the fear of the CODE.  I even had the code dreams.  You know, the ones where you are being chased by giant hash marks, and curly brackets.  You keep tripping on dots, and after doing it thirty times you realize you are stuck in a subroutine!  You keep yelling STOP and BREAK but nothing works...   So.  Ubuntu is traumatic for a lot of people, even to LOOK at.
That's why fellow Ubuntu users must support those looking for the land of Ubuntu.  Where all are equal, and everything is free!  There is no sickness, and no want.   The days are filled with endless peaceful updates... and the nights, blissful productivity.
Surely, if such a utopia existed it would be common knowledge!  Well, alas, this is at least partially true.  Yes, a partial computing utopia is a reality.  People from all over the world give of themselves to bring these products to 'market'. 

So, At the moment, I am recovering from the death, or death-like coma that has befallen my beloved Mac.  Rather than depend on XP, though it is the familiar... I have decided to see if Ubuntu would allow me to work at a professional level and get professional results.

I don't want to get into the platform war territory.  I more so wanted to record the results of my exploration of the question, "Is it possible to use Ubuntu and compete with other designers in the land of paid software, the land of Adobe, Apple and Microsoft products." 

More to follow.