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Ubuntu: Friendly Linux for Human Beings

I’ve been checking out this operating system for the past couple of months. For those of you who do not know what I am talking about Ubuntu is a new distribution of the Linux operating system. I originally heard about this operating system from a friend who suggested I check it out. I have been a little trigger shy to try this operating system out on my new laptop that currently runs windows XP.

I was reading a posting off of Jason Chance’s, jcCommerce Blog the other day who recently installed Ubuntu on his laptop. There are a few reasons as to why I’d look at an operating system such as Ubuntu that include the fact that open source is becoming more and more common place in the world of software.

In the past year Microsoft has started to release what it calls “express versions” which is basically free software. I wrote a little about this free software Microsoft is offering in a past posting. By “Free”, I mean that it does not cost any money to download but you must pay with your information. Microsoft uses this to market back to you based on what you’ve downloaded. Pretty smart idea, right? Well it really is not open source just yet and maybe core applications never will be. Would you give away code you’ve spent billions of dollars developing over the past 20 years? I doubt it! But would you create open source components to work with proprietary software? Sounds like a sweet deal.

Getting back to Ubuntu, you’ve got to think that people in general and people running small to midsized businesses will look at this as a competitive advantage for years to come. I mean that being able to have open-source (FREE) software to run your business that runs as smoothly as Windows but without any of the cost. It’s a thing of beauty for those of you that don’t mind taking the road less traveled when it comes to software that runs your business.

I am wondering if any other bloggers, business owners or people reading this think this I a good idea? Do you have an opinion about Ubuntu? Do you like or dislike Ubuntu and other open source applications? I took Ubuntu out for a test drive yesterday using the bootable preview feature that version 6.10 of Ubuntu offers and I must say that for a Linux based Operating system its very easy to use, fast and intuitive. I plan to install Ubuntu on my Laptop and really start to play around with it. Look forward to hearing from you. Stay tuned for a follow up posting once I’ve have a chance to fully install this operating system.

Luc