I’ve made the decision. OK, it’s not a total move, only partial. I’ve decided to install Ubuntu Linux, and give it a bit of a test for the blog, as well as potentially moving over to it myself. First a bit of history:

I’ve used Unix before a *long* time ago and used to enjoy the flexibility and very geeky nature of it all. Since those days, I’ve been toying with the idea of installing a distro of Unix or Linux on my PC. However I was quite daunted by the install process, as most windows users would be. However, ubuntu (dubbed Linux for Humans) is an altogether simpler process. Not only am I dual booting to XP as well, but the whole process was actually easier than installing Windows!! If you’ve ever installed Linux before, you’ll know what a breakthrough that really is!

Anyway, install went well with only a minimal amount of questions for the user; language, keyboard type, time etc.. Once installation had finished I only needed to tweak firefox to get the internet to fire up (after consulting some very helpful people at the Linux Users Group in Google Groups) but after that tiny hickup, all is working well. Ubuntu also comes bundled with loads of open-source programs including OpenOffice (a very good MS Office beater) as well as art programs, a bit torrent client and all sorts of other essential things (that are probably already part of your Windows setup)

All in all the package makes it easier for us Windows users to transfer what we know into a new operating system, without re-learning the wheel. However, I would still stress that this project is probably only for the medium to high skilled PC user, just because you’ll be re-partitioning hard disks, which if you don’t know what you’re doing, could quite easily remove your current Windows install!

I will post when I feel the need to share some of my n00b experiences with Ubuntu. Wish me luck!

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