3 reasons, Ubuntu, Ubuntu and Ubuntu. Because they see a lot of students in colleges using Ubuntu and liking it more. Hey, I installed it on one of my older computers (Pentium4 2GhZ w/512MB of RAM) it’s flying!

Open Office comes bundled free with the Ubuntu download and installs automatically. Open Office can even read and write MS office files. It also includes other programs in the suite like draw, and photoshop equivalent etc.

No wonder all the hoopla about Ubuntu. I love it, I am even open to learning another system and have put this system in my office next to my Vista which I will be retiring soon. I even installed Ubuntu on one of my netbooks, these things are so cheap that I keep buying them (SOMEBODY STOP ME!!!).

I have 2 notebooks, 3 netbooks, 3 desktop computers and I am running, XP, Vista, Win 7, Ubuntu flavor of Linux, and Mac’s Snow Leopard as operating systems. Oh forgot, the Ubuntu is installed on the Pentium 4 comp that had Windows 2000, now it’s a dual boot in case I want to boot to Windows 2000 😕

So now I understand what Microsoft’s thinking is. If a hardy Microsoft guy like me that started with DOS 3.0 in 1985 and then moved to Windows 2.0 in 1987 (Hated it till Win 3.0)then Win 3.11, OS2 (omg get me out of there), then Win NT, then Win 95, Win 98 (0ne of my faves), then ME (1 week flat, remove or throw away the computer), then Win 2000 (another gem), XP, then Vista, then XP again (Yes upgraded to XP, but I have one computer with Vista still), now Win 7. Whheewwhh, that was a mouthful. (BTW, I still have a shrink wrapped MS-DOS 6.22 & a Wordstar Manual, you never know).

Microsoft’s site is at:
            http://www.win741.com/
and other deals for tech students is at:
            http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/academic/dd795303.aspx 
They can get Microsoft software for free.

Also on the other side, Apple is selling their Snow Leopard for $29 to students. Here is the link:
             http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A