My desktop computer has not run Windows for over a year now. It has been running one flavor or another of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a version of Linux designed to be accessible to everyday people. Almost everything can be done using graphical tools instead of typing commands into a console. It is also comes with programs that do pretty much anything you can do with Windows right out of the box. It has an office program, a photo editing program, an email client with a calendar, a note-taking program, a web browser, a movie player, and a music player. If you need support, often you can get in contact with the people that wrote the program or the community itself will help you.
All of this comes completely free. Free not just as in it costs no money, but it is also free as in you have the right to do pretty much anything you want with the programs. You don’t have to buy licenses from companies to use the programs or anything like that. You also don’t get monitored by whoever created the program.
Linux has other benefits, like the lack of serious viruses for it. Its security setup is to disallow anything not explicitly allowed, whereas Windows likes to allow anything not explicitly disallowed. Which do you think is safer? Ubuntu also requires you to enter your password to change anything about the system. If a program wants to install itself, you have to allow it. It can’t do it be installed behind the scenes by another program.
Overall, I’ve been very happy with Ubuntu. Click here to either download a CD image or here to have a CD shipped to you completely free.
