I have been a long term Microsoft/Windows user ever since they had DOS (3.2 I think), back long ago, using a 386 and 5 1/4 floppies.
I had gotten to know DOS and Windows quite well, from DOS to Win 3.1, 3.11 groups, 95, 98, ME, and XP.

Although, they seemed to be a nice system, I felt like trying something different, a linux operating system.

At first, it was slow, spending little time on here playing "lbreakout2" and maybe another game, then going back to Windows.
I slowly saw myself turn towards linux.
I had a list of things I wanted Linux to do, print, listen to CD's, email, fix a scroll bar issue on a website, and get the graphic card to work, DVD, and play Descent 3 online.
Little at a time, I found out how to get some of these working, thanks to mandriva.com forums and this very one, linuxquestions, I was able to play CD's on the system (needed that cord going between the mainboard and CD-ROM), I fixed the printer issue, solved the scroll bar problem, got the DVD to work, etc.
The only thing I haven't solved yet, from that list, was playing d3 online.

Anyways, back to why this is, in my opinion, a successful story.
As I used this more, email, internet, music, printing, etc, I gradually moved my files from windows onto Linux, and soon learned even more things, little things, but nice things; how to erase certain history, an easier (faster) way to get to my personal files, etc.

Amongst the several things I solved, thanks to so many on here and mandriva forum, there are two things that really impressed me the most.
Granted, you can email others here, and there is internet, music, DVD, so on and so forth, a lot in a sense, like Windows.
But two things were very different and very nice.
The first was editing pictures. I prefer 1024x768, but not all pictures are this way.
For windows, if I had a picture set at 1050x780, I would have to resize that down to 1024x768. It wasn't as easy as I wanted it to be.
I'd have to say, "resize 89%", check to see if it was close to that, and if one is lower in number, I'd have to go back and hit "undo" and try 90%.
Now if I get 1030x768, I'd have to move the picture to the left if I wanted the right side saved more than the left. I'd have to take chunks at a time, trying to move it in place, without goofing up, which has happened a lot.
Then I came across "showfoto", a linux program.
That saved my life!
I could just type in "1024", and see if it's 768 or greater. if not, set the other side to "768", then edit the picture, and using the box, I can set to 1024x768, and whatever I want, or could get, would be in the box, save it, and done. No more moving sections at a time, guessing if this picture should be reduced 80% or 82%.
That sure saved me a lot of headaches. It's so much nicer, quicker, easier, and practical.

Another thing was CD Covers.
I'm basic, I'll just type in the text on the left side, product nubmer to a game, or an IP address list for game servers for quick access, on the side, the title so when I put it in my CD rack, it's easy to tell what it is.
Nero was not that much fun to deal with.
Unless I did it wrong, I was most displeased with it.
I had to open up a text box to type in what I wanted, but when I printed, I saw that box.
On the side of the CD, depending on what I typed or how long it was, it affected the size of the font.
Just terrible.
Then I found "kover", a linux program.
There are two boxes, one for the side, one for the back, and let me tell ya, it was soooo easy, and soo much nicer, and fancier than Nero.
All I had to do was type in what I wanted, it's all automatic, looking great.

I'm sorry if this was a little off topic, not what you're really expecting to see posted.
I would have had one successful story, but, lol, it never happened. I tried for months to get a nvidia driver installed under mandrake 10.1, but I could never get that installed. no matter now, being im on mandriva 2006.