He means FreeBSD I didn't find it very easy to install...but I was using a 98, 8 year old computer!

You're right -- sometimes I'm a little dyslexic. And it doesn't matter how old the computer is, FreeBSD is still terrible to install.

Make sure you take advantage of the text editors and IDEs that are availible for Linux. Assuming you installed KDE, you have the Kate text editor at your disposal. A good KDE IDE is KDevelop. You can also download these others:
Code::Blocks
Anjuta
And lots more

Well, I finally decided that os is not for me afterall. Its fine for someone who just likes to play games, surf the web, but leaves a lot to be desired for programmers. It didn't have any of the X11 header files, so after downloading them, the build failed with several errors in *.c files. So I finally gave up, went back into XP, deleted the partitions that Ubuntu had created and reformatted as NTFS file system for XP use.

Oh humm.

You shouldn't have given up on Linux so fast... maybe Ubuntu just wasn't made for you (I know it wasn't made for me!). I know it's frustrating when things don't compile, so you can actually go to the trouble of making it compile, or you can get distros that compile stuff out-of-the-box. 2 I could name right now. Slackware and Gentoo. Both are not the easiest to install, but they're rewarding the sense that they both compile stuff really easily.

If you want Slackware, head over to http://www.slackware.com/
Gentoo's availible at http://www.gentoo.org

Please try one of these before quitting on the penguin!

Although I don't like to be seen as a Windows bigot, I don't think Linux is for anyone who has limited time in their hands. I have tried god knows how many distributions of *ix, (Gentoo, Linux from Scratch, Ubuntu, Knoppix, Redhat 7.3 to 9, Fedora 1 to 5, Turbo 10 Japanese version, FreeBSD 4.*, 5.5, 6.*, Debian, Mandrake, CentOS 4.1 -4.3 the list is endless ), but I couldn't do anything worthwhile using any of those. It was only the CentOS 4.3 that I came at least came closer to sticking with. Mandrake is the best if you want to get things up and running fast, but some geeky friends ( who are Microsoft bashers of course ) of mine said that Mandrake is slow compared to the others. Maybe they do not see anything elite in using a distribution that is easy to use. Even now, as I rummage through my CD collection I get really mad thinking about the garbage that all this has generated.

Before the Download managers like APT and Yum came in to play, installing software was pure hell. Even now if the dependencies are not in the repository, good luck if you are trying to install a software that does not come with the distribution. (Realplayer for instance). Oh and how about configuring firefox and java so that you can chat? So ultimately I decided that all this is a waste of time and energy, and switched back to XP, and have been happily doing my work using it. 24 hours online, No spyware, No virus, no crashes, No dependencies nothing. Since I have a lot of command line tools and scripts that I need for executing daily builds, I use cygwin which compensates for the not so powerful Windows Command prompt. It let's you even compile *ix applications too. So nothing lost there. I am going to try MingW soon as well. Switching back to WindowsXP was like coming back home after a long trip through a desert, and sure increased my productivity. Linux maybe good as a server environment (I am not a Network administrator so I don't know), but as Dragon said, nothing for programmers who needs a system that is quick to setup, code and go. Dragon if you really want to use a linux system for programming, I'd recommend Mandrake. It will make your life easier at the cost of a little less power.

I have found Mac OS X to be a good environment for programming. It's like Linux multiplied by Everything Just Works, plus decent fonts, thoughtful UI, better support for the keyboard, better support for everything, and a nice version of Carbon Emacs. Of course, you can't install it everywhere...

How can you say such a thing! Linux has far less viruses and spyware than Windows!
I agree. Xcode 3.0 is about the only thing I'm excited about in Leopard (Apple's next-gen OS). And you're right, the only reason Mac OS X doesn't take over the world (well, the OS market at least), is because Apple's kept out the third-party computer manufacterers. Too bad.

Yes. But With the AVAST antivirus in action, and no spyware catcher, my system has done well to keep them out. Considering the ratio of malware available for Windows, one would be expecting to see swarms in any windows machine. I think there was a time when that was true. There was a time, when if you installed your windows os with your machine plugged to the network, chances are that within seconds you will be infected with a virus. A friend of mine used to tell about how he left his system unattended while installing Windows 2000, and when he came back, the installation was over, but the system had been infected and was restarting itself again and again. My opinion is that most of the spyware comes because of the fault of the user. Go to crack or porn sites, and download illegal cracks or porn finders, who knows what you are downloading? I am not that conversant in OS security, but I have only been infected with a spyware once; A dialer got into my Win98 OS and made a couple of calls to cyprus. No virus attacks. And I still am to use the Hijack Logs (I took a look at the Malware forum and I can't make head out of tail of these things) to restore my system. So as you see, if I can keep my system secure with the most basic methods available, I don't see a reason (although I certainly like trying new things) to move into an OS that makes life harder in return of added security that I may never make use of. And I wouldn't be exaggerating when I say that if I ever find need to use a *ix machine, it will be cheaper for me to hire a personal computer administrator to set and maintain the system for me. It is much beneficial if I use the time needed to configure the system to do something I am a bit better at; programming.