by Timothy Justice

Created on: February 05, 2009

A few years ago, I had a friend give me some good natured ribbing for loading up Ubuntu on one of my PC's. He made the coment that Linux was a hard to use operating system with a lot of limitations.

My response? If you haven't tried Linux in the last two years, you haven't tried Linux.

When Ubuntu 7.10 came out, I took it a step further. I took a Dell Optiplex GX 260 and did a clean install. From CD boot to surfing the Internet took right at 28 minutes. All of the audio codecs and drivers were installed, and I was online with less trouble than I had ever had with Windows...and without the lengthy delay for activation.

My "experience" with Linux technically goes back to 1998 when I attempted to load a version of Red Hat onto my computer. I didn't know what I was doing and there was not a lot of writen material to help me, and this was before broadband had become very widespread, so I didn't find a lot of forum help. It didn't go well, and I was soon rolling my computer back to the faithful Windows 95 that worked (I thought at the time) so well).

I didn't touch Linux again until 2006, when open source software was re-emerging and becoming less scary. My first "modern" attempt at a Linux install was Ubuntu 6.06, and I had very few problems. The NIC card I used had Linux drivers, and everything else installed by default. The only problem I had was in trying to play some audio CD's, and that was solved in less than 15 minutes' time with the installation of EasyUbuntu, a utility I was directed to from the Ubuntu forums.

What I like about Ubuntu is that it is everything that older operating systems used to be, while still incorporating some of the best features of newer operating systems (and even CREATING newer features that end up in use in the "mainstream" operating systems). Ubuntu is lightweight, functional, and fun. While it's true that many Windows applications will not work natively in Ubuntu, it is equally true that there is no NEED for some of those applications. Every recent version of Ubuntu comes preloaded with OpenOffice, an office suite that can save files in MS Office format. For IMer's, there is GAIM, which, like most modern imstant messaging software, integrates fully with popular messenger services like AIM and MSN Messenger. And most audio and video codecs come installed in newer releases of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu offers greater security than either Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X. Because it is open source, Ubuntu is constantly improving and offering more and more features, and best of all - it's FREE! While you don't get the "live" support as with the "big two" operating systems, Ubuntu has a very active forum community, and it is rare that you will wait longer than 15 minutes for an answer to a technical question.

There are many Linux distributions from which to choose, and I've used several. Ubuntu is my distro of choice because Ubuntu, to me, is the operating system that has made computing fun again. If you haven't tried it recently, go to their site and download it or request a CD. You should be pleasantly surprised at what this open source operating system can do!

Learn more about this author, Timothy Justice.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.