Raring Ringtail

Just installed Raring Ringtail (Ubuntu 13.04) on my laptop.  I have been using Ubuntu at home exclusively for a little over a year.  I started with Precise Pangolin (12.04 LTS) and then upgraded to Quantal Quetzal (12.10).  If you are comfortable with Mac OS X you can pretty easily make the transition to an GNU/Linux system especially Ubuntu.  It is pretty user friendly.  There is a small learning curve -- about the same as going from Windows to Mac.  You can download Ubuntu from: http://www.ubuntu.com/download

Once you install I would recommend immediately running this code from the terminal:
sudo apt-get update

I think there is enough Free and Open Source programs that everyone can now use a GNU/Linux distro.  I use LibreOffice as a replacement for MS Office.  I do have Matlab, but have been using Python with NumPy and SciPy more (just as good and free).  For word processor I like LaTeX with Texmaker editor.  Here is a quick desktop screen-shot.  I use Conky to display real time system info.  I also have a terminal open.

Here is also my conky file (put into ~/.conkyrc)

# UBUNTU-CONKY # # Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus) own_window yes own_window_type normal #own_window_transparent yes own_window_argb_visual yes own_window_argb_value 0 own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager # Use double buffering (reduces flicker, may not work for everyone) double_buffer yes # fiddle with window use_spacer right use_xft yes # Update interval in seconds update_interval 3.0 # Minimum size of text area minimum_size 200 800 # Draw shades? draw_shades no # Text stuff draw_outline no # amplifies text if yes draw_borders no font arial uppercase no # set to yes if you want all text to be in uppercase # Stippled borders? stippled_borders 1 # border margins border_margin 1 # border width border_width 1 # Default colors and also border colors, grey90 == #e5e5e5 default_color grey own_window_colour brown own_window_transparent yes # Text alignment, other possible values are commented #alignment top_left alignment top_right #alignment bottom_left #alignment bottom_right # Gap between borders of screen and text gap_x 10 gap_y 10 # number of cpu samples to average # set to 1 to disable averaging cpu_avg_samples 1 text_buffer_size 1024 # stuff after ‘TEXT’ will be formatted on screen TEXT $color${font arial:size=9} $nodename@$sysname $kernel on $machine${font arial:size=8} Uptime: $alignr$uptime Battery ${battery_bar 6 BAT0} ${color orange}CPU $color #${freq}MHz${alignr}Load: ${loadavg} Load: ${loadavg} ${alignr}Proc: $processes ($running_processes run) ${alignr}${loadgraph 20,250 e5e5e5 F1AA0E} CPU Total:${color} ${cpu cpu0}% ${color}${alignr}Temp:${color} ${acpitemp} ${alignr}${cpugraph 0 20,250 e5e5e5 F1AA0E -l} Core one: ${color}${cpu cpu1}% ${alignr} Core two: ${color}${cpu cpu2}% ${cpugraph cpu1 10,120 e5e5e5 F1AA0E -l}${alignr}${cpugraph cpu2 10,120 e5e5e5 F1AA0E -l} Core three: ${color}${cpu cpu3}% ${alignr} Core four: ${color}${cpu cpu4}% ${cpugraph cpu3 10,120 e5e5e5 F1AA0E -l}${alignr}${cpugraph cpu4 10,120 e5e5e5 F1AA0E -l} NAME${alignr}PID CPU% MEM% ${top name 1}${alignr}${top pid 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1} ${top name 2}${alignr}${top pid 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2} ${top name 3}${alignr}${top pid 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3} ${top name 4}${alignr}${top pid 4} ${top cpu 4} ${top mem 4} ${color orange}MEMORY / DISK $color Total: ${color}${memmax} ${alignr} Free: ${color}${memfree} RAM: $memperc% #${alignr}Swap: $swapperc% ${memgraph 20,250 e5e5e5 F1AA0E} #${alignr} ${swapbar 20,120 } #root: ${fs_used_perc /}% ${fs_bar 6 /}$color home: ${fs_used_perc /home/wlamont}% ${fs_bar 6 /home/wlamont}$color ${color orange}WIFI (${addr wlan0}) $color ${wireless_essid wlan0} ${wireless_link_bar 6 wlan0} Down: $color${downspeed wlan0} k/s ${alignr}Up: ${upspeed wlan0} k/s ${downspeedgraph wlan0 20,120 e5e5e5 F1AA0E} ${alignr}${upspeedgraph wlan0 20,120 e5e5e5 F1AA0E}$color Total: ${totaldown wlan0} ${alignr}Total: ${totalup wlan0} Inbound: ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 count} Outbound: ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 count}${alignr}Total: ${tcp_portmon 1 65535 count} #${color orange}LOGGING $color #${font arial:size=7}${execi 30 tail -n 10 /var/log/messages | fold -w45}