Lisa, Gerry K, and Myself set up Galway Computer Club to counteract a serious trend in consumer and small business IT. Vista and DRM and other restraints where rampant. However there was a reason these flawed systems were prevailing. The alternatives were geeky, high maintenance Open Source alternatives.

I was not originally an anti-Microsoft campaigner, in fact at one point, I worked in their presales dept and was actually nicknamed "Microsoft Guy". I still use XP for my live music performance set-up. However, for all other functions I have bit by bit moved over to Ubuntu.

I reckoned it would take a few years, first we would begin using what cross platform software was available on the XP like Firefox and Filezilla. We would support these in the club so by the time we or any one else in the club made the jump to open source, at least there would be some familiar territory.

It's been four years since we set up the club and despite a few bashes with Ubuntu over the years I still had not made the jump to an open source OS. Arguments with wireless drivers or audio servers always led me back to windows and usually relegating the dual boot to the odd boot up for curiosity sake

So to begin - Twenty Ten (tm) Ubuntu Blog at www.Galway.cc. I installed Ubuntu on four different computers, ranging from a 5 year old notebook, to a cutting edge dual-core laptop (and my main server). The last attempt had been successful to the extent that it still worked if actually unused. And in the meantime I found myself using so little proprietary software other than the OS, I was pretty certain of success. By using four machines I knew it would be actually easier to iron out difficulties since I would have three others with which to compare
Also I could average out the experience over 4 machines to get a fairly representative picture of Ubuntu versus Windows in various day to day settings.

I have posted a complete account of the experience over the past month and will continue over the next few weeks. I will be installing, testing, and recommending software and will answer any questions anyone might have

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