Ubuntu: An Alternative to Windows

Ubuntu is a community developed, linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. It contains all the applications you need – a web browser, presentation, document and spreadsheet software, instant messaging and much more. Ubuntu is free software. You can learn more about what this means by reading the licensing. It comes with a free Office Suite comparable to MS Office which is also available for Windows and Mac at http://www.openoffice.org/

Linux is free (something that surprises most people) is because it was (and still is) cheaper for large companies (Sun Microsystems, IBM, RedHat, Novell etc…) to collaborate to develop one Operating System than to pay Microsoft licences.

Ubuntu can be downloaded from http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download and can be installed alongside your current OS for dual booting or can be run as a liveCD where it runs from the CD instead of installing which means you can try it without affecting your current PC. Support can be found here