Ian: you have inspired me to have another look at Linux and I decided to try and set up Ubuntu http://www.ubuntu.com/ on my new Asus PC. It is installed so as to give a dual boot option. In other words I can fire it up in Windows or in Ubuntu. I have to say that I am most impressed. The installation was seamless and all peripherals are functioning. Standard software for browsing, Firefox, and email, Thunderbird, plus Open Office are all working well. Interest to see that cloud storage is also available for music etc. The only thing a bit odd is that I have to open a terminal window to run the Canon scanner program.

I tried to install Ubuntu (for anyone not familiar with Linux Ubuntu is one of several distributions of Linux that are available) on an old Lenova laptop (that I suspect has hardware problems - possibly some bad RAM) and could not get it to work.

In any case I can see that Linux is really becoming a valid low cost (or no cost) alternative to Windows and Apple. I have noticed that there are some manufacturers now offering PCs and Notebooks with versions of Linux already installed.

Peter

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