Kubuntu – toward a better OS ?
Over the last [ahem] years of mucking about with computers I’ve variably worked on spectrums, BBC’s, desktop VAX monsters, Mac’s in many shapes and PC’s too inumerable to mention. Some of the damn things I’ve even built myself !
Through this all I’ve by and large been a slave to Microsoft…until recently. I’ve been playing for a couple of years with some Linux distros, particularly Ubuntu and it’s KDE fork Kubuntu and I honestly think the latest release is at the point I’d point your average johnny at it and say…use !
The install for me was flawless, put the bootable cd in your pc and reboot and it will boot into Kubuntu (in this case) in a ‘Live’ session completely in memory without affecting your PC. You can play around, open email’s surf, edit photos and amend MS office docs with the bundled free openOffice suite.
At this point I’m going to tell you to go read the Kubuntu forums on how-to dual boot, install etc. But once you’ve got it installed and it’s updated itself with all it’s necessary patches (yes it even does that for you !) you might get something that looks a little like the desktop above.
It’s a pleasure to use, is astonishingly stable and is infinitely tweakable if that’s your thing. Moreover there’s a global OS support framework out there willing and able to answer all questions almost within minutes sometimes !
Kubuntu – you know you want to !