Imagine you had two vehicles.. a minivan and a customized sports car. Your minivan is the standard vehicle on the road, it is just like everyone else’s. It sometimes won’t start or get you to work, and it has some weird noises that the mechanics just can’t find a solution for. You can get lots of upgrades for your van, but it will cost you.

The sports car is one you have worked on a bit to get it to look and run just the way you want. It is fast and sleek, with lots of options. Sure, it took some work to get it the way you want, but it is what you wanted, not the mass market minivan. If you want to install more options, they are quick and easy to add and the parts store gives them to you free.

In fact, the whole car is free.

Both vehicles will get you most places you want to go, but, only one of them is fun to drive! [Trust me, for a while I owned both a sports car and a minivan.. big difference in the driving experience]

Lets call the minivan Windows XP, and your customized sports car, Ubuntu Linux.
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A year ago I installed a new operating system on my home computer. I wanted to try something new. XP had been out since 2001 and I was tired of it’s buggy software and lack of improvements (why innovate when you have a monopoly? but don’t get me started…). So I decided to set up a second operating system on my computer. I didn’t replace Windows (yet) but I made it so that I could start the computer in either operating system, Windows XP or the Ubuntu brand of Linux.

I was able to try it out before installing by using a Live CD. You simply put the CD in your computer, reboot and it starts up Ubuntu without copying any files to your computer. I liked what I saw and just a couple of clicks more and I had installed the new operating system.

If you follow computer/tech news at all, you have likely heard of Ubuntu. It is currently the number one user version of Linux, and it is completely free. It comes with lots of full featured software (also free) that are as good or better than what you can purchase for Windows. OpenOffice is an example of a free office suite (word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, etc) that is available free for XP, Linux, and Macs. In fact, I use OpenOffice at home and at work.

My old Ubuntu desktop

My Ubuntu 8.04 desktop with Compiz 3D visual effects

Visit Troy Johnstone Photography

Here are a few excerpts from recent articles about Ubuntu:

Unlike Microsoft, Canonical releases new versions every six months, despite the fact that these releases are nearly as comprehensive as Microsoft’s and the changes more dramatic in structure. Surprisingly, Ubuntu Linux supports even more combinations of desktop and server hardware than Microsoft does, since it supports a huge variety of Intel-based platforms and peripherals (including specialized 64-bit and AMD versions), PowerPC systems, and a variety of other architectures. Ubuntu bundles literally thousands of programs in with its releases, including OpenOffice 2.0, and downloads of tens of thousands of programs available to users at the click of a mouse. Ubuntu’s latest cutting-edge graphics capabilities rival those featured in Windows Vista. Ubuntu installs on everything from your five-year-old PC to the latest and hottest hardware in about 10 minutes. And it’s all free for anyone to use.

The company that makes billions of dollars a month and has a $7.5 billion R&D budget is the one that can’t get a release out in five years. The tiny South African company that supports Ubuntu is the one that does releases every six months like clockwork, using software developed all over the world.
http://software.seekingalpha.com/article/19286

South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, not satisfied with being the world’s second space tourist and the first African in orbit, has created Ubuntu, one of the most user-friendly versions of Linux yet available for desktop and laptop computers. Shuttleworth is using Ubuntu to take on Microsoft globally, but especially in places where low incomes make paying Microsoft’s licensing fees impractical.
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Shuttleworth and his team at Ubuntu have done something amazing–they’ve created a truly usable desktop operating system that rivals WindowsXP in ease of use and features, accomplishing finally what many of us so long felt impossible. They’ve mirrored the simple elegance of the underlying system with an interface and applications that make it a delight to use.
Personally, if I were setting up a company, a school, or a non-profit organization tomorrow I would use it on nearly every desktop and laptop.
From the article Ubuntu: The Seabiscuit Of Software

Every day in our office our poor, overworked IT guy gets swamped with new problems our Microsoft computers are having, or problems they have communicating with our Microsoft servers(!). Meanwhile, I’ve quietly been working with Ubuntu on my office computer almost exclusively for a couple of weeks now and really enjoying it. After all, sometimes it isn’t just about getting to your location, sometimes its all about the ride.