Does your computer make you feel good?

Let me ask the question in the title one more time - Does your computer make you feel good? I know you are saying right now "what is this hopeless geek trying to say now?"... well, I will tell you, just give me a little of your time and some leeway (sp?)

I used to not feel good about my computer. It ran slow, it was infested with viruses, and once those were removed, it had so much anti-everything on it that everything else did not run well at all. Not to mention that the Operating System I had was, um, not.... well... it wasn't mine. Since I always constructed my own machines, I sometimes had to load things for which I didn't have a license. For that I am sorry.

But that has all changed now. Enter UBUNTU! Ubuntu is a version of the popular Linux operation system, which is rapidly becoming a viable contender to traditional Microsoft systems. Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I am because of who we all are'. They take this philosophy because the whole of Linux itself is a community effort; skilled individuals donating their own time to improve a product they believe in. As such, Ubuntu is free, as in "you never have to pay a DIME for it". That is a big factor in my appreciation of it. Here is a list of several of the reasons I prefer to use Ubuntu over XP.

• Free - no money down, no money ever. No licenses, no registration, plain and simple. You can either download it from their site [ http://www.ubuntu.com ] or you can have the CD shipped to your address free of charge ( they will even throw in some extras if you want to hand them out. )
  
• Try it first - Ubuntu and several other Linux distributions make use of a "Live CD"; this is where the entire system can be booted off of a CD without overwriting anything on your existing system, letting you test drive the operating system. If you don't like it, you take the disk out, reboot the computer, and your computer never knew anything happened.
  
• More Free Stuff - Need a word processor? Photo editor? Games? Look no further, as you can install all of this and more off of the main menu under "Add/Remove". ( Also, Ubuntu by default installs "Open Office.org" - a MS Office compatible suite of application for all your Document\Spreadsheet\Presentation creating needs. )
  
• Support - The Ubuntu Forums is a huge user community and can answer many of your questions regard Ubuntu. You can search through their countless posts, or post your own question if nothing seems to match your own question. Again, all of this is free
  
• Secure - Although there is some Linux "malware" out there, it is exponentially less frequent than on a Windows machine. And Anti-virus scanner are mostly free for Linux machines. ( FYI - Spyware on Linux is virtually non-existant. )
  
• Major Players - Dell computers is even offering computers from their site with Ubuntu pre-installed.
  

Ok, so, this is starting to sound like an infomercial or something cheesy like that. But, what I am really trying to say is that I like it, and I don't feel shackled by software restrictions or guilty because I didn't buy a license. Here is a picture of the graphical capabilities of a FREE software package called Beryl that plugs in seamlessly to the desktop.



Speaking of the desktop, there are numerous desktop environments, like Gnome, KDE, Xfce, Fluxbox, and many more.

Anyway, it's good stuff, check it out.

But for now, my computer makes me feel good again.

Until then,
skybro