A little digression here - from the subject of web sites and Drupal training - but please forgive me - as I do believe I might just be able to wet your appetite for an alternative operating system especially if I mention it is superior to Windows and costs nothing, nada, zilch, zero.

I have long been a user of Windows - on the desktop and on the laptop. Just the other weekend my 5 year Dell desktop gave up (motherboard gone) and presented me with the issue of replacing it or fixing it. I decided to salvage the pretty good hard drive, optical drive and card reader and my peripherals (Monitor etc.) where all OK for now. So I plumped for a "barebones" system from Novatech that I could simply slip my drives into.

I knew that there would be an issue with Windows XP (yes I have not been impressed by stories of vista - so never upgraded) not wanting to work on a new motherboard (in other words Microsoft saying that they will make my life difficult simply because my old motherboard had broken).

So, I looked around at the options. Then I came across Ubuntu Linux www.ubuntu.com. I first of all installed it side by side with Windows XP on a spare laptop and was very impressed by all 'round speed and stability - plus compatibility with my peripherals etc. After a one week trial and no issues - onto the new new (partially) desktop went Ubuntu.

Now I should say that this is my business workhorse. I do everything on this machine. The transition to Ubuntu Linux from Windows has been painless. There are applications for everything I do and many are simply breathtaking in there polish and feature set. Take for example Gimp as an alternative to Photoshop - brilliant (true takes a little time to get used to new interface).

For those of you who simply need web browsing, email, chat, webcam etc... along with a very powerful office suite (Open Office) - your are in business. Throw in the fact that anti-virus software is not needed (why? because the thing is so damn good it is designed from the bottom up with security in mind + thousands of geeks worldwide check it out before release) and that the new release 10:04 provides the best social networking interface on any OS and you are laughing.

How much for this great OS. £0, nada, zilch. Free open source software at its very best.

Go on take a look. You can even try it just running from the CD without installing it to your machine (slower but will confirm campatabilty etc.).

This is one very happy convert - Microsoft out of my life at last. Except on one laptop - just in case :-)