Migrating to Ubuntu Linux from Microsoft Windows
May 16, 2007 2 Comments
It’s a great reminder that we’re making real progress to see stories like this:
Four years ago I tried about a dozen Linux distributions, to see if they were ready for an ordinary user to install as an escape from the Windows world. None of the distros performed well enough for me to recommend them to a non-geek unless they were going to hire someone to install it. After hearing Dell’s recent announcement that it will sell computers with pre-installed Ubuntu Linux, I decided to see if Ubuntu was user-friendly.
So, what was her experience now?
Conclusion
I think Ubuntu Linux is definitely ready for almost anyone with a Windows system who is tired of having their computer infested with spyware and viruses. It is also a way to avoid Microsoft’s “activation” demands. It’s free! It’s good! It works!
I will continue to use Windows for writing because OpenOffice.org does not have a feature I need. OpenOffice developers: Remember my enhancement request from 2000 or 2001 asking for an outline feature? The feature with more votes than any other feature request? Yes, that one! Your unwillingness or inability to give OpenOffice.org an outline view that works just like Microsoft Word’s outline is all that is keeping me from turning my Microsoft Windows partition into blank oxide.
That’s right – her only show stopper was the lack of an outline view in oowriter. To be fair, that’s not even directly Linux related (not to say that it isn’t an issue). Remember, Windows doesn’t even come with a word processor. Congratulations Ubuntu.
–jeremy
Jeremy's Blog 
Windows has a word processor: it’s called WordPad.
I’d really call that more of a text editor than a word processor.
–jeremy