Many customers are surprised at the cost of a Windows licence, and ask whether there’s a cheaper alternative. My answer is yes, there is, and it’s perfectly usable.
Linux is often thought of as a “techy” operating system which can only really be used by computer experts. This isn’t true, although it can be a little harder to get used to than the ubiquitous Windows operating systems. As long as you’re prepared to hunt a little bit further for instructions on how to do things, and put up with the fact you’re going to have to experiment, and learn a different way to do things, many Linux operating systems can give you everything that Windows can. Beware though, when you ask for help online you often don’t get simple to follow instructions as you do with Windows problems, but much more technical responses that assume a much higher degree of knowledge on your part. The learning curve can be steep if you want to do more than the basics.
NB – At this point I should head off comments about how Macs are the real alternative to Windows from Apple fans. This article is in response to the question of whether there’s a cheaper alternative to Windows, not a better one.
Of all the Linux OS alternatives out there, perhaps the most popular is Ubuntu. At the time of writing, the latest version of the Desktop version is 12.04. So how do we go about installing it?
Next page – Before we get started…