Switching from Vista - please advice.

[JamesEdmunds]

Dear community,

One of my friends suggested me to try ubuntu a day or two ago, he says that it has less viruses and runs generally faster.

I have been using windows since my childhood, and have never heard about it, but I have read a bit on the internet, at least what bing found, and it seems that the opinions generally vary, some people say its great, some say that its not worth the time spent?

Could you please advice me? I am personally only using my computer to browse internet and read my hotmail, once or twice a week, but lately I had a problem with viruses on my computer, and most of the antivirus software is quite expensive.

Thank you kindly.

[jessicalore]

Well, not all antivirus are expensive. In fact this is what I believe. It does not matter what kind of antivirus you have, infections or viruses are always a user's mistake. I have seen people use expensive antivirus and still get viruses. Also I have seen people with free antivirus and not get anything at all. So 99% of the time viruses are a user's mistake. I will recommend you Avast Antivirus Home Edition, it is FREE an you need to activate at the beginning and every year there after. I use it for business, home users, and personal use. It works and it is great. The only cons with the FREE version is that you need to scan your computer manually. But honestly I don't mind doing that, besides it creates a habit on me checking and taking care of my system.

OK let's go to your question. I see Ubuntu like this, yes it is a fact that you won't have viruses like windows. However, for somebody that has never used it, it will be difficult to understand, unless you somehow a technical background or enjoy working around computers and understand them. Otherwise, I won't recommend.

It will be like a person who enjoys driving automatic cars and then somehow he gets a standard car. You can learn it of course but, it all will depends on you and mainly your patience.

So do your work and decide what's the best for you.

[macrocosm]

Yea.. it can be a bit more hands on, IF you have a lot of windows specific hardware. I have found nvidia to be a pain in the but on linux and some other heavily windows leaning hardware too. BUT if your building a new computer and take a moment to research easily compatible hardware you wont have much troubles at all .. In fact since so many big companies are jumping on the linux bandwagon like Dell et al .. its getting better everyday. I have to admit I am mostly accustomed to using linux tho .. especially servers. So its not as difficult for me. That said after the vista sp2 nightmare I am seriously concidering using Ubuntu as my main os and just keeping vista in a small partition or slave drive when I need to run a dx10 game or someasmuch. Ubuntu has a huge community and ur able to get help when you need it so dont be affraid .. the best bet is to try a their live installation disk .. you dont even need to install it to see if its compatible, it will run off the cd rom so you can test it .. though its a bit slower of course than a real install. Once ur done testing simply exit & remove the cd, no harm done. If ya really want to install I suggest you save or backup ur windows installation so you can go back if ya want, or you can even do a multiboot.