Last time i used Linux was back in middle school, i installed Linux Mandrake on my computer and it was a little tough for me to get up and running on. Back then I pretty much had to find or make the drivers to get connected to the internet and all that good stuff. Recently, with the crash of my extra windows laptop, i decided that i wanted to give linux another try. After talking with a few people about what distro to get, i ended up going with Ubuntu.
Installation was pretty easy, i tried burning a CD, which in turn failed on my windows box… Figures. After that i decided that my best bet was to use my extra thumb drive and just use the application listed on the Ubuntu community website to format it into a “LiveCD” style Ubuntu boot disk. I booted that right up the first time from my laptop and just had to double click the installer on the desktop. It took care of formatting everytihng for me and getting it up and running on the disk.
The more I used it the more it has grown on me, and now i have my entire PHP development enviornment up and running and its working great. It took a little getting used to, but wasn’t so bad with all the information you can find off of their website or just in general off of google.
My advice to anyone who wants to switch from windows to a linux distro. Try Ubuntu. Easy setup, and a great way to start learning the open source os community!
Wade Lasson 