Switching to Linux: One man’s personal experience

“I spent several hours trying to fix the problem, but in the end
was forced to format the hard drive and start over. Worse yet, that
was the second time in four months. By the time I saved my data,
formatted the drive, reinstalled Windows XP Pro, removed the
junkware and installed my programs, I’d wasted more than two
days.

“This time I decided to dual-boot, running Linux Ubuntu as well
as XP. Everyone had the Ubuntu password, but I kept the XP password
to myself. There was perhaps a tinge of revenge in my strategy – if
the others couldn’t use the computer responsibly they would be
forced to endure what I thought would be a less friendly operating
system.

“I knew Linux offers robust security with very low risk of
viruses. It’s also powerful and scalable, widely used in science
and web servers. Google’s massive servers, for instance, run on a
custom version of Linux. But what about for the average desktop
user? Is it too “geeky”? Are there problems finding and installing
drivers? These were my expectations.”

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