Last week saw the release of Ubuntu's latest Linux release, 8.04, or "Hardy Heron."
Ubuntu has made great strides in turning Linux into something people can actually use, rather than the command-line driven operating system used only by the most esoteric computer geeks. And the Hardy Heron release takes a further step in that direction. Most users will get by just fine, and it's certainly worth the effort to try out; you can view tutorials on how to give it a go without removing Windows at www.ubuntu.com (you can also download it from there).
Of course, it's still not perfect. Power users might have hardware problems (for example, Linux doesn't work well with RAID devices), but most people won't run into that.
So why delve into the world of Linux? For one thing, competition is good. With some people still unhappy with Microsoft Vista (legitimately so or not), Ubuntu helps drive improvements in Microsoft. Also, it's less of a system hog than Microsoft. If you have an older computer, there's a good chance it'll run faster and smoother with Linux.
Oh yeah, and Linux is free. That's always a big plus.
For the adventurous, living a week or so with Ubuntu is a great experiment.
Ubuntu has made great strides in turning Linux into something people can actually use, rather than the command-line driven operating system used only by the most esoteric computer geeks. And the Hardy Heron release takes a further step in that direction. Most users will get by just fine, and it's certainly worth the effort to try out; you can view tutorials on how to give it a go without removing Windows at www.ubuntu.com (you can also download it from there).
Of course, it's still not perfect. Power users might have hardware problems (for example, Linux doesn't work well with RAID devices), but most people won't run into that.
So why delve into the world of Linux? For one thing, competition is good. With some people still unhappy with Microsoft Vista (legitimately so or not), Ubuntu helps drive improvements in Microsoft. Also, it's less of a system hog than Microsoft. If you have an older computer, there's a good chance it'll run faster and smoother with Linux.
Oh yeah, and Linux is free. That's always a big plus.
For the adventurous, living a week or so with Ubuntu is a great experiment.
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