Switching to Linux
Mar 15 2008 - By George Webster
I've been wanting to switch to linux of quite some time now, but never made the jump for various reasons. First it always seemed to difficult to do even the simplist task, i would have to break out of my conditioned GUI ways and do some dreaded command line entries (oh the agony!). Second, what about all my software I develope with, will linux support all the tools needed? Third and most importantly how will I test my code in internet explorer! Even after years of standards advocacy buy countless individuals and organizations more than half the market is still viewing the web in IE 6! Needless to say this is far from a standards complient browser, however as developers we numb to the pains of cross-browser compatablitiy and accepted our fate, well at least for the next few years as IE 6 dies out.
So I have been pleasently surprized to find that linux has grown leaps and bounds in usability. Now with a little effort, and some good old googling we can easily install all we need on linux. After trying several distributions I have found ubuntu to be extreamly user friendly, and frankly easy so use.
After a quik vist to the ubuntu site, a free downloadable copy can be found and easliy burned and a quik restart and we are rolling. Simply click on the install icon when the GUI boots up and follow the simple install screens until violla installed and quik restart and we are now runnning ubuntu linux!
Though I may seem to have been overly simplified, i assure you it is just that easy to get the OS installed and running.