Equally some Microsoft users have been trapped by Vista because the shiny new hardware lacks XP drivers, so they end up stuck with Vista.

@Fernando – greetings! Ubuntu rocks on P4, no error, we use Xubuntu on P3 laptops (3 of them) and it makes a sound system for a 6-year-old kid, with amazing _free_ kid software (try Gcompris) that is the envy of his teachers.

Allowing a child of that age to surf using Win is hard work for the maintainer. Someone has to update the anti-virus, anti-spam, anti-malware, check that Windows Update is not trying to insert its latest nastiest ‘upgrade’ to Media Player or IE, or worse. And so on and on.
Ubuntu just works, in our experience. Good Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus too. UNIX structure is a good basis for defence, and Linux with IPtables/SPI is the firewall of choice in so many ‘hardware firewall’ router boxes. Comes embedded to not frighten the likes of….
@ Thinker – Hi there! must be confusing to see all these Linux advocates disturbing your preconceived ideas. It is a phenomenon called ‘Popularity’. You will get used to it one day.

Did you notice that MS have so little respect for their source of funds that they blatantly name their (unsuccessful) attempt on the PC Security market ‘One-Care’ after their clients? Say it slow, or say it fast, it is not a polite word when spelled with a ‘W’. Tut tut. Naughty Microsoft.

For that matter, you could have asked on the official Ubuntu mailing list. Where is the official mailing list for Windows?

@Brad:
You odviously didn’t try very hard at all…Click on the Ubuntu “start” button-> Add/Remove Programs->Make sure it’s set to All Supported or All Applications-> Do a search or go through Categories to find the applications you want-> Enter root (main user) password when you want to install them. They will automatically be updated through this interface as well. If you can complain about anything in a Linux distro it is delinquent drivers. Installing them from source is a bit more difficult, but I would obviously not recommend that for a beginner.

For example, I’ve used Ubuntu with a laptop from Dell and Gateway. It absolutely would not recognize the Dell wireless card no matter what I did. For the Gateway, I had to download a program that would allow you to use the Windows driver in Linux. I knew what I was doing and it still took quite a bit of time (there was an amount of trial and error to get the right driver up.) I could only imagine how long it would take for a newbie to figure that one out.

I personally have no idea why it’s good for newbies. Getting things to work properly is a chore that requires heavy knowledge of the terminal. XP, on the other hand, works like a charm and is easy to use.

I’m not saying Linux is bad, just that it’s not for new people. It’s for a “computer enthusiast”, so to speak. And even then, if they want to play games, they dual boot XP. :P

Hardware is another story, as someone stated here theese days you need min. 1 gigs of ram and dual CPU.

Also, I find Ubuntu easier to use for computer novices than Windows XP (I don’t know about Vista, it is too expensive to toy with). The only people who I have seen have problems with Ubuntu are Windows Power Users. These are the users who know Windows inside and out, and of course they are most comfortable in that system. For everyone else, Ubuntu is more logical, requires less maintenance, and performs better.

Reduce, reuse, recycle!

(And Ubuntu, or any type of linux, is great for newbies!)

Lots of wins here.

And the question is, what can you do with your 100$ PC? And what about display?

Ubuntu is PERFECT for computer newbies, it has all they need to do with it (text editor etc), is completely free and has a full graphical user interface, just like windows