Considering Ubuntu

I finally did it, on the night of Labour Day. And the whole process took approximately 53 minutes to complete. On my Dell Inspiron 8200 (yes, it's old).



As far as test runs and familiarisation projects go, this went fine. At least my great (now proven unfounded) fear of Linux is quelled. Really.

All I had to do was go download Ubuntu's latest distribution package (the 8.04 Hardy Heron), burn the .iso into a CD, pop the CD into the laptop and get it to boot, click install and Wah-Lah! it's done.

If you don't really want to destroy your Windows installation, you can even select a "try Ubuntu while keeping your current OS" option.

Really, I'd even consider this a simpler job than getting Windows (XP or Vista) installed.

Once installed, you don't even have to hunt for additional apps to install as the distribution comes with OpenOffice (think open-sourced Microsoft Office, well, StarOffice actually), FireFox, integrated Anti Virus and Firewall.

I think I've pretty much settled on installing Ubuntu on my Eee PC and will probably do a more in-depth review on that when I get it.

Meantime, if you've considering Linux for a long time but have been, like me, afraid of "complications", then I say "Fear no more", Ubuntu is really as simple as it gets.