We have come to a cross-roads in the computer world today. Stick with the familiar Microsoft Windows, or try the stable, secure, but unfamiliar GNU/Linux-based operating systems that have recently started taking off. There are two big factors that stop most people from loading GNU/Linux onto their computer. The first is that they think they need to be a geek to install it.

It was time for a new computer for my Grandparents. Their ancient Windows 98 PC had become so slow that it was unusable. The replacement, an inexpensive Acer PC, came with Windows Vista preinstalled. It was up to me to set up the new computer and support it. So I decided to wipe out Vista with a Debian 4 base install and set up an easy to use environment for my Grandparents.

Lets start with the reason why I chose for Ubuntu: ShipIt. It’s not that I would stop using Ubuntu if that service would seize to exist, but I just wouldn’t have found Ubuntu if it hadn’t exististed back in 2005. I started with using Linux after my brother tried Knoppix and installed it on his computer. We both had very old computers and Windows XP was just too slow to run smoothly on them.

You most probably have already run into this at least once. You use the computer, try to do something and you get an error message saying "sorry, application foo is not installed", "the required plugin bar is not installed" or similar. And that's it, there it stops. You have to find out what package the required functionality is in, install it manually and try again. Like if the computer couldn't ask "but maybe I can install that, do you want me to try?" and handle it itself.

There are plenty of reasons for wanting a low-resource distro running on your computer. Maybe you have some ancient hardware that you need to breathe new life into. Perhaps you want something that will fit on a modestly sized memory stick. Or it might be that you want to run 200 virtual machines simultaneously on your desktop.

Did Windows crash beyond repair? If so, you probably want to get your files off of the drive before you erase everything and reinstall Windows. This tutorial will help you do exactly that. We're going to use Ubuntu's LiveCD mode. Ubuntu is a popular Linux distribution that's a free and open source alternative to Windows.

Computers started making their way into homes, en masse, 15 years ago. After 15 years, computer users should not be afraid of using their computer.

If we could digitize paper, music and video and store them in files on a computer and then bring it alive when needed, why not a digitize a whole computer into a file? These days, computers are so fast that it is possible to feed them a description of an ideal child's computer and have it bring it alive on the screen in a flash.

A few days back one of my computers decided to act up. Obviously, almost instinctively I attributed the trouble to Windows. Fed up of the problems and not being able to resolve them I decided to go ahead and install Linux alongside.