So, here I am now, having lived with - and used when I can - an Ubuntu Linux laptop for the last couple of months. I've been trying it out alongside my usual laptop (Sony Vaio running Windows XP), my new MacBook Pro, and a Vista notebook that we also have in the house.

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn and Vista on a laptop.

The title pretty much says it all. It's an article that tells you howto Ubuntu look like Windows Vista. I did this on my mum's laptop and she thought I'd put vista back on there.

In contrast with most of its competition, Damn Small Linux (DSL) is an operating system where megabytes are still meaningful. Compare that to Windows Vista’s minimum 20 gigabyte footprint and the line in the sand becomes obvious.

Bright and early this morning some guys came into our shop with a newish notebook with a major problem: they'd killed Vista and their rescue partition. They came armed with a legitimate Windows XP Home CD and key but said they weren't able to get XP on the notebook. It may sound odd, but Linux was the solution to getting XP working on the machine.

Recently, I read an article describing some of the things people say about the author's Ubuntu laptop. The post described the funniest quotes, not the most popular, but I was still interested to see that many people seemed to think that the Ubuntu laptop was running Mac OS X or a new version of Windows.

Open source is not something routinely thought of in connection with consumer electronics. Any visible open source at the CES show in Las Vegas last week was hard to find, so hard some people, like LXer's Scott Ruecker nearly gave up. All he could find were EEE PC's running Windows XP, not Linux and a Dell laptop running Ubuntu.

We all have strong opinions about Windows XP on the XO laptop, and soon according to Laptop Mag, our greatest fears or hopes will be realized: Negroponte says that a Windows operating system is in the process of being fine-tuned on the XO as we speak. “Microsoft and OLPC are in discussion on how to release it, as well as how to announce,” he said. Negroponte added that the Windows operating system should be available on the XO in less than 60 days.

It is hardly a fluke that Ubuntu really began to attract former Windows users roughly around the same time as Windows Vista came out. Despite the number of Windows migrants who eventually floated back to Windows XP, the fact is that projects like Wubi make it really easy to slide into a Linux mindset.