No subject

Ubuntu is an African word, which has been described as "too beautiful
to translate into English". The essence of Ubuntu is that "a person is
a person through other people". It describes humanity as
"being-with-others" and prescribes what "being-with-others" should be
all about. Ubuntu emphasises sharing, consensus, and togetherness.
It's a perfect concept for Free Software and open source. Here's a
great article that describes Ubuntu, which may help define it.
Wikipedia also has a good definition.


>   > What support would I get if I needed help?

You can get commercial support (which you have to pay for) or free
support from the community. If you bought your PC with Linux
pre-installed your vendor may be able to help you.

We have extensive online documentation.
We have a malling list to ask questions on (you email your question
and it gets sent to a huge number of people who will try to help)
We have an IRC chat channel (like a big chatroom)
We have a forum
We also have a "support ticket" style system.

The chances are somebody will know how to fix your problem.

>   > Does it have a GUI similar to Windows or do I need to learn code?

Depends on what you mean by "similar". It has a point and click
graphical interface.

It does have a very powerful command line interface but it's there for
the people who want to use it, you won't really need to use it if you
don't want to.

You don't need to be able to "code" or "program".

>   > How secure is it?

It has a better security model than Windows. Fine grained access
control and limiting what users can do "by mistake" make it more
difficult for a virus to take over your entire system.

Also the software update system adds some more protection as it will
update all the core software together. You won't need to check for
updates in all your programs one by one anymore.

>   > Is Linux a passing fad?

It's not passed yet. And it doesn't show any signs of doing so now.



Andy

-- 
First they ignore you
then they laugh at you
then they fight you
then you win.
- Mohandas Gandhi