Why Ubuntu?

The last time I wrote, I left it a point where most of us are usually left wondering – the red or the green pill. The red pill, in this case the Linux Penguin, appealed to me all the more. And why? With more than 10 years of my marriage with Windows, I was getting disgusted and frustrated at how my dear ThinkPad was being smacked and whacked internally by Windows. On a funny note, it gets as crazy as the following in Windows.

Getting back to the real reasons, I think the most compelling of my grievances about Windows was about how slower and weaker my system became over the years. I really could not just stay patient for Windows to load up programs or even boot and stabilize despite feeding it with 1.2 Gigs of RAM! It was more like a an old hag that hung on to my life, while I was left to fend for myself. I decided to venture out of this relationship and explore the most viable Linux OS available.

Ubuntu happens to be the most-popular Linux distribution available at present. Considered to be top the list of best Linux releases of 2008, Ubuntu 8.10 is suggested to be the best-available distribution for beginning Linux users. In one of his interviews, one of Samba software's key technologist had to say the following when asked about what Linux distribution is popular worldwide:

SUSE was created in Germany and is very strong there. Red Hat is from North Carolina, on the east coast of America, and is very strong in the US. Ubuntu seems to be more third world; I don't know. Then of course there's Red Flag in China, so maybe you're seeing the beginning of national distros, or wider geographical areas. I'm not sure about that, though, because Ubuntu seems to have transcended it.

-- Jeremy Allison in the Linux Format magazine

Furthermore, he said, "Ubuntu has the strongest chance to take Linux mainstream". These subtle pointers were sufficient for me to get into trying it out. My next post will take you through how one can try the Live CD. Until then, here's a preview of the Live CD Cover to get you geared up!

God speed,
Schumi