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Linux on the Desktop II

The New York Times is featuring a story of Linux on the desktop – see picture below:
nytimes
Now what makes this article interesting is that it says clearly and distinctly that the Ubuntu version of Linux that Dell is offering on its notebook s and desktops is just as easy to install and use as Windows XP or Apple Mac. The chief attraction of the Ubuntu desktop is that there are literally hundreds of good programs that can be easily found, downloaded and installed at no cost and much easier than Apple or Windows freeware.

And given the cost of Microsoft Office on both the Mac and Windows, there are hundreds of dollars to be saved as well as time and aggravation. It is articles like this that will resonate with students and youngsters who are familiar with downloading free music and now can easily extend that to the OS – at big buck savings and equivalent if not better and faster service – remember Vista is bloated, slow on start-up(latest Redmond promises, promises – “we will have this fixed real soon now, by March 2008, promise”), has more peripheral interfacing problems than Ubuntu….

But the kicker is that the VM-Virtual machine wares available for Ubuntu will kick in and with at least 3-4 approaches allow users to run the must have Apple or Windows programs. 2010 – Linux on 40% of all desktops is not out of reach.

Linux on the Desktop II

One of the reasons beyond cost that Linux is finding a place on desktops is the simple fact that Linux can run on desktop and laptop machines that Windows simply cannot hope to run on – Windows XP needs a 1GHz 512MB in memory machine to run 2-3 apps well together. And Windows new Vista really needs a 1.5GHz dual core machine with 2GB of memory. So there is a growing hoard of older desktops and laptops in organizations that still can be very useful for their ability to connect to the Web, run eMail, and the free and easy to use Open Office word processing, spreadsheet, database and presentation software (which can save to all of the Office file formats including the new Office 2007 OpenXML format – see Novell Suse Linux for details).

So organizations with perpetually pinched budgets can rescue those no-longer-Windows capable machines and put them to good use. Here is an article which shows the broad range of Linux distros that are available:
Linux

and starts to sort out which are most appropriate office use and why. This is an excellent article on a site that is an excellent resource for getting more out of your desktops with the help of Linux.


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