Good bye Windows! Almost anyway. I have recently replaced my copy of Windows XP with the latest Linux distribution Ubuntu on my computer. I hope and think that Ubuntu will be the first choice of computer operating systems for everyone in the future and there are several reasons for this, some of them I will talk a little about here.

Why Ubuntu?

First of all I got very tired of computer viruses and having to format my hard drive and reinstall Windows when I accidentally catched one. On Ubuntu there simply are no viruses. Sweet!

Second of all, I’m a big supporter of open source software, which is exactly what Ubuntu is. Before I made the switch I had been de-microsofting my XP system as much as I possibly could, removing all programs I could replace with open source ones, for example Firefox for web browsing, Thunderbird as e-mail client, and of course Open Office instead of Microsoft Office. Oh, and this whole webpage is based on Wordpress, which is an open source blogging software.

Open Source is great in the matter that a whole community of users are on your side, contributing with updates, plugins and assistance, making the software much easier to customize for your own needs. The software is constantly developing and security vulnerabilities are discovered and corrected faster.

Why pay for something that could and should be free?

Another heavy aspect is of course the prize. Ubuntu, together with other quality open source software, is completely free. It doesn’t cost you a dime, you don’t need any license, and you can share it with everyone. Download a copy and install. It’s as easy as that! When you think about it, it’s crazy that students and other people around the world with a limited access to money actually use and pay for Windows, considering that there are a totally free option which can do exactly the same things as Windows, but for no cost at all (and probably also will take care of the task better than Windows).

Built on nice values

The name Ubuntu was chosen very carefully and is a name that reflects the philosophy which both developers and users stand behind. Ubuntu can in Zulu and several other African languages be translated as “humanity toward others” or “I am who I am because of what we all are“.

Ubuntu and the people involved share a basic philosophy that guarantees the user certain freedom: software should be available without cost and to everyone, regardless of language or eventual disabilities, and people should have the freedom of modify and adjust their software in any way they want to.

Based on this, here are the promises the developers behind Ubuntu give to their users:

• Ubuntu will always be available without cost and there are no special ”business version” that costs money.
• Ubuntu releases on a regular basis; a new version is released every half year, containing free security updates and bugfixes for at least 18 months.
• Ubuntu contains the best translations and disability support that the open source community can offer, to make Ubuntu available to as much people as possible.
• Ubuntu totally stand behind the principles of open source software.

You don’t see Ubuntu in TV commercials or on the big subway posters, instead they rely on the spoken word, for instance users recommending it to their friends, just like I do now!

The myths

Before I learned about Ubuntu, what I knew about Linux was that it’s complicated, it’s only for programmers and it looks ugly. If you think the same, think again! Ubuntu is very logic, it’s easy to learn and get used to, and it looks great! There are tons of themes, icon sets and applications to make your Ubuntu look and feel exactly the way you want it to!
To the right is a screenshot of how my desktop looks right now; very clean, a dock with the programs I use a lot and a now playing-widget showing the album art of the record I’m listening to at the moment (Kurt Rosenwinkel, Deep Song).

Easy to work with

I’m also very impressed with the smart structure of it, take the process of installing new programs for instance. On Windows you would probably start with a google search, trying to find a program that will do what you need it to do, and in my case I also wanted it to be free, which meant also trying to sort out a free program in the jungle of 30 day demos and stuff like that.

On Ubuntu all available software is gathered within your operating system, you just launch an application called Synaptic Package Manager, find the program you want and click install. No need for activation processes, buying licenses or anything like that. It just works!

As soon as there are new updates for any program you have installed or for Ubuntu itself, it tells you, you click once, and your system is totally up to date.

So, can Ubuntu replace Windows?

For most users yes. In my case, I use Ubuntu for everything, including working with this homepage. I have left a small partition on my hard drive with Windows XP, allowing me to boot up Windows XP when I need to do so. This is because I have some special music software that doesn’t work on Linux and doesn’t have a good enough equivalent (yet). I also have a copy of Photoshop on there, but I have realized I don’t need it, the totally free image editor GIMP works just as good for me, I can do exactly the same things I used to do on Photoshop, only i don’t have to pay thousands of dollars for it.

If I wouldn’t have my special music interest I would say there is no need of keeping Windows, but for those wanting to do the same, the process of installing Ubuntu and keeping Windows was very simple. When installing Ubuntu, which is a very simple and easy procedure, it allows you to shrink your Windows partition to the size you need, and install Ubuntu on a new partition. Then when you boot up your computer, you just choose with operation system you want to launch.

Testing it first

If you would like to try Ubuntu out, but are not sure if you want to install it, there is a very easy way of doing this. You just download a copy of Ubuntu, or you copy it from a friend, and then burn it on a CD. Then you just boot up your computer from the CD, which gives you the ability to try Ubuntu out without installing anything. This way you can see how it feels and really try it out before you install it.

The future

I hope I have convinced you to at least try Ubuntu out. Open source is in my opinion the future, and hopefully the Ubuntu community will keep growing, providing an healthy alternative to the commercial giants. More and more computer manufacturers have also started looking this way, for instance you can now get a Dell Computer shipped with Ubuntu as operating system. In Holland the government have set April 2008 (now) as deadline for their start of using open source software, as a way to be less depending on individual companies like Microsoft, and to save a lot of money.

Sources

I have written this article straight from my head, based on information I have collected while surfing the web and while using Ubuntu. The part about values mainly comes from Wikipedia. If you have any questions or want to make a point, please leave a comment. Have fun using Ubuntu!

(Here’s a link to intressant.se, hopefully this will help people finding this post easier.)