UuuuuuBuuuuuntuuuuuu!!!!

I have been warned that the ubuntu would eventually get me and so it has. Ubuntu, for those non-'it' people out there, is a version of the linux operating system which has been making huge inroads into the linux world and is specifically targeted at the desktop - and area that linux has traditionally been very poor at. It is not that linux couldn't be used as a desktop OS it was just that you had to be quite technically competent in order to get it working and keep it working. Ubuntu is like linux for dummies, unbelievably easy to set up and unlike windows it comes prepackaged with pretty much all the applications one would normally use. If you don't like a particular package like I prefer Thunderbird to Evolution as a mail client, installing Thunderbird is a breeze just do the obvious and click on Applications -> Add/Remove and in no time at all it's installed.

There is one problem with linux which hasn't been sorted out and I'm not sure that there is a solution. The problem is that each distro (ubuntu in this case) comes out with a new version pretty much each year so it means that you should be upgrading your system each year. The upgrading isn't so bad but getting ones' data from one to another can be quite a pain and of course there is the risk that if you do something wrong when you backup your data - you might loose it forever. For myself, the solution lies in having two harddrives which I use alternately so at any given time, the one harddrive has the old operating system on it with all my data and the other has the new operating system on it with all my data as well. When I need to upgrade again, I simply reformat the old hard drive and install a clean operating system on it and copy all my data from what was the new drive but is now the old drive if you get what I mean. For real backups I just use a USB drive and copy all my data onto it once a month. KISS.

So, all in all I would highly recommend that anyone tired of paying for software whose capabilities far exceed one's requirements give ubuntu a go.