You got me interested, what's that program called?

About the wireless internet issue, my wireless device isn't one of those out-of-the-box so I had to go and download ndiswrapper, the driver, and configure them. Afterward, since the preinstalled network manager in ubuntu is pretty crappy, I would either go with wicd or nm-applet.

Btw, there are very few viruses on Linux, but what about spyware and other malwares?

The main driving force for me to Ubuntu is probably because of Windows Vista (although I was interested in Ubuntu even before that). When I tried Vista it was a huge disappointment, and particularly, the UAC is so annoying. Furthermore, I hear more and more stuff about degraded performance in Vista... Hopefully, after a couple of years, they'll improve it. For now, I'll stick with XP, Ubuntu, and on my old PC, Xubuntu.

Synaptic Package Manager. In Ubuntu Feisty, it's preinstalled under System -> Administration.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynapticHowto

There's also the Ubuntu Update Manger which comes up whenever packages can be upgraded. The repositories are not current though, so you can still install the real latest version from the people who make the software.

And as for the wireless... yes, ndiswrapper is a huge pain. When buying a computer, I look for vendors that explicitly support Linux for sound cards, graphics cards, printers and wireless setups.

Spyware and malware is a similar story to viruses really - Linux is an inherently more secure architecture that is patched faster too, so there is a reduced chance of such malware being able to severely damage your system.

Ah, I've used Synaptic Package Manager before. Just that I didn't know it updates automatically for you. I still kinda prefer the terminal method though, since Synaptic Package Manager takes a while to load... I still use each of them as much as I use the other, however.

What vendor are you referring to, btw? For my next computer, I would like to buy parts and assembly by my own... (it'll be my 1st time) I don't know when I'm going to do that but since it'll be my 1st time, I'm afraid I'll have trouble researching parts that would work with Linux out-of-the-box.

So far I've only tried Xubuntu on my old PC (installed Ubuntu on it but ran kinda slow) ... After I somehow able to transfer the 200GB of data in my external hard drive to somewhere safe and reformat it to NTFS-3g, I'm going to try dual booting XP and Ubuntu on this computer and see how Beryl turns out to be. Btw, have you tried Beryl before? How is it?

Beryl: It looks great, but unfortunately ATI has closed-source drivers that don't support it so I can't run it...

Actually, the project is about to be superseded by "Compiz Fusion", a set of Beryl plugins for Compiz (other windows compositor) which will be enabled by default in Ubuntu Gutsy (October release).

It may be free in terms of money. But in terms of time spent downloading, installing, configuring, troubleshooting, testing and getting used to - it is not. And harddrive space it is not "free" either.

That said: you are absolutely right that dual-booting doesn't cost "much" and that it is worth a try. But maybe not in the middle of a school semester.

I wouldn't say everything "just" work. It works amazingly well, however. I agree that it doesn't take that long downloading, installing, or configuring, though. Actually, I would say that it's pretty easy to get used to as well. The only major problem is the little support it gets compared to Windows... In fact, I would say choosing between Windows and Linux is the matter of preference if it's not for the less support Linux gets.

People may say Windows is easier to work with, and that's probably true. But someone on an Ubuntu forum points out that Ubuntu is user-friendly enough, yet at the same time leaving enough detail about how an OS works (the latter part of that sentence may be slightly off, I can't remember exactly what he/she said). I can't agree to it with certainty, but so far I haven't disagreed to it yet.

@Game_boy: Noooo, my computer has ATI graphic card, too. ;_;

I'm thinking of any system. I'm not the casual user who is happy with the default settings. I bought a new mac about a month ago and spent several days just installing, configuring, testing etc. And Mac OS X is supposed to be one of the most user friendly systems! In fact: it's all installed and ready to go as you unbox the mac. But that assumes you are happy with having the factory defaults and all the trial software and shit like that. Which I am not. 

Installing any system is bound to take up considerable time - not because of the install itself but for all those small things you need to do after the install. Setting a system preference - say the default volume of your speakers - may be a matter of 3-4 clicks - but when you combine that with every other system and software setting and preference on your system it builds up to staggering proportions. Just calibrating my monitors took several hours even though I've done it many times in the past. Another perfect example of stuff that takes considerable amounts of time is setting up email accounts in Apples Mail.app. They've done a terific job at making it user friendly - but still I had to go thrue some pretty elaborate hoops just to get my email accounts working.

"Getting used to" is neither the problem (for me) as I have logged several hundred hours on Solaris OS and I even installed and tried BSD back in the 90'es.

Mac OS X is really not  much more user freindly than Windows, in fact there are many elements that are less user friendly than both Linux and Windows(like why files do not maximize to full screen or trying to quit a program, Fitt's law etc). Also Macs require you to buy a new OS every 1 and a half years if you ever want to use the newest hardware. Buying a new printer in a year well good news you don't need drivers but you will more than lkely need to buy 10.5. Not too mention the poor memory management and performance issues that has dogged OS X intel since it came out.

Ubuntu is surprisingly easy to use for linux. On my home PC I have an 8800 GTX graphics card a card not supported in the current ISO for Ubuntu and amazingly Ubuntu recognized it and downloaded drivers for it off the net without me having to search. Something that neither XP nor OSX does. Vista does it though but vista is a noticeable slower OS than Ubuntu or XP. Also the ISO is a great too have since you can run the OS right off the CD and do not even have to install it if you so wish just don't expect full driver support when running for the CD.

Most of the stuff you mentioned their is nothing special. You can get PCs with Linux or Windows and they all come ready rigth out of the box. Many cheaper PCs have a bunch of trial software on them for the windows versions which is really annoying but not all do and as far as I am aware Linux has none. The rest of those adjusted settings well that is pretty much any system and I think you will find that even though OSX is based on FreeBSD it does not have the flexibility in setting that Linux does. Really the issues with setings is really more specific to  how you use a machine however for most people Ubuntu especially a PC with it pre installed is more than suffice for use and not too mention much faster. Even for proffesionals Linux is a really great operating system, Dreamworks uses Red Hat Linux for many of their movies because the type of hardware it can run the stability and the speed just can't be matched.