Ubuntu- an "intuitive" way to embrace your innner geek

Seems like there is often competition in the house for who is going to be on the computer. I thought getting another computer would solve the problem. I paid $60 for a surplus computer from work 2 years ago that I thought was a fabulous deal until I figured out it crashed all the time and wasn't good for squat. I figured I didn't have much to loose, so I finally followed Carl and Ken's examples and tried a whole new operating system to which Ken introduced me. Ubuntu is an "intuitive" Debian-based distribution of GNU's GNOME GUI applications and environment using a Linux kernel. And dog-gone it if the thing doesn't work great! There were some challenge, like having to use the terminal program and relearning some unix commands in order to install an adobe flash player but a web site walked me through that OK.

For the next program I installed, I thought using the synaptic Package Manager might be easier, but I had to edit the sources.list file to add a couple of mirrors to install libraries for which there were dependencies before I could get all the packages installed. That was right at the edge of what I am capable of, so it was a gas when it worked. It's a kid-friendly paint program called Tuxpaint. Other things, like using a flash drive and printing, have gone super slick. It's definitely not Apple, but I'm thrilled to be peaking out from under Bill Gates' thumb. Next up: setting up a wireless connection instead of ethernet cable. And in April the next update of Ubuntu comes out.