I wanted an operating system that is light on resources yet enables me to work using standard office applications. Since Windows Vista has basically been a disappointment for me, I tried downloading Ubuntu’s latest desktop operating system after hearing so many great things about this free software to see how productive I could be. I went to ubuntu.com and went to the download page at www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download. This is a download that is meant to be burned into a CD, so after selecting my download location, I soon started receiving a 690 MB file. It was not even an hour when I finished downloading the file. I was able to make an installer from the downloaded file and after inserting the CD into my laptop, rebooted and wait for what will happen next.

If you have been following the steps that I was doing, now is a great time to pause because a lot of innovative things have been going on in the Linux world. For one, the installer that you just had made is called a LiveCD. This technology is able to a lot of amazing things. For one, while booting up, Ubuntu’s LiveCD autodetects most my computer’s hardware, even the newer stuff like the wifi, bluetooth, even the volume controls on my laptop. In fact, booting up a PC using a LiveCD is the easiest way to find out if your computer runs perfectly on Linux. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the LiveCD is that the Linux operating system that is now powering the computer is not running from the harddisk but is read on demand from the LiveCD.

If you have an MS Windows powered portable or laptop, and you booted using the LiveCD, you will soon find out that instead of the familiar Windows interface, a new Linux desktop is shown on the screen. Thanks to hardware autodetection, the screen resolution looks right and you will notice that although things look different, there are actually many similarities between Ubuntu Desktop and Windows. I noted that there is a menu bar where the first item is named Applications. When I clicked on it, I saw the software that I can launch using the LiveCD.  I myself was wondering if ever I decide to use Linux, will I be able to work as usual, can I write my blog article on an MS Word equivalent and afterwards go online where I can post my  blog? It turns out that, indeed, Ubuntu is able to make me productive using free and familiar software. For office oriented work, Ubuntu makes available the OpenOffice software suite, which means that I can write my blog offline using OpenOffice Write. For web browsing and posting articles I use Firefox.

After finding out that my laptop works fine on Linux, I can now confidentially install Ubuntu on my portable and still be as productive as before. My dilemma was now choosing between working on Linux exclusively or being able to dual boot between Windows and Ubuntu Desktop. I decided that dual booting is the best option for me because I can be productive on free software while being able to boot on Windows is useful for the occasional game that I have to play.

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