Windows: out the Window

Well my Windows machine started giving me problems last week. Some kind of corrupt file in the NTFS filesystem that chkdisk won't fix. It happened soon after I installed another antivirus program that I got off the net, if you know what I mean. Now if I do almost anything, I get some error from the system.
I've had it with Windows, I want out!
I've decided that when I reformat my hard drive that I'm going to install Ubuntu linux. I've played with the live CD and it worked with no problems, except for my Wacom tablet and my dual monitors, which I will need to configure by hand it appears.
I suppose the big reason I haven't gone to linux before, is because of PC games, but rebooting once in a while to Windows really isn't that big of a deal. Plus there's a fair amount of games that work on Linux (Enemy Territory, Doom 3, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, etc.) plus emulations of some game boxes (SNES, Mame, etc).
Ubuntu has most of what I need or want. I'll have to install a few things separately: scite, and wxPython, come to mind.
The docs for Ubuntu are very nice and readable, even though I'm quite knowledgeable of Unix systems. The unofficial guide is a good read too since it hints what they think the best tools are for each time of job.
I'm a little confused about these desktop managers like Gnome (pic), KDE (pic) and Xfce (pic), but here's a good guide. I think I'll probably stick with Gnome since it's the default for Ubuntu , as as I research more I see a lot of Gnome feet on people's screen shots. If I could I would go to the Symphony OS, but it's still in Alpha, and there's a good chance that parts of it can be added later.
Linux, here I come.

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