It seems like only yesterday I was installing Slackware 7 for the first time back in 1999 and my Linux journey began.  Onward from there, I went through the usual suspects.  You name it and I probably had it installed at one point.  I thought it was great to have totally free software with the source available for those wishing to tweak it.  I couldn’t at this point honestly recommend it to users.  Installs were hard, drivers were always missing, and getting X to work was a chore.

Fast forward to today!  It’s an exciting time for Linux and open source as a whole.  Firefox is having great success as well as a handful of other apps.  Now is the time where I can let myself recommend using Linux to the non-techie crowd.  The “Windows” crowd or the “OS X” crowd even.  I’ve put together a list of the major advantages to using Linux and in particular, Ubuntu.

  • Installs are almost mindless
  • A few quick scripts can get systems up to old working order in a hurry upon reinstalls
  • Need for rebuilding is far less than that of Windows
  • Applications are free
  • The interface is clean and concise with organized menus
  • The updating application not only updates the core operating system, but all applications as well

I suppose I should link to this site as a more complete list, but I wanted to point out what gets me.