Unfortunately, Windows Update doesn’t like this, specifically when it comes to installing service packs. I actually want service pack 2 for my laptop as it brings in better support for my BlueRay drive. What I need is to find a way to make my Linux and Windows installations more cosy with one another.

The way to do this is to give the Windows  partition the boot flag, booting its manager and selecting either Windows or Linux from there. Otherwise when the Vista update scans the boot manager it finds grub and gets, quite rightly I suppose, a little confused.

To setup your multiboot computer to get around this, read my tutorial.

Windows Users – The Charlie Browns of Computing

Quite frankly this man should be knighted, and really not just for championing Linux but by showing how much good can come 3 things: education, charity and understanding.

Please take the time to read the whole article, this man has done so much good for so many people.

On a separate note the comments really demonstrate how much support this man has. The one attacking comment only succeeds in highlighting the posters ignorance; Helios does not come across as superior – he has every right to – but he does not.

Everyone has their comfort zones and no one looks upon the internet (and computers in general) in the same way. Most people don’t want to know how their software works, or the computer that powers it for that matter and this has lead to the idea that your OS should “just work”. In theory I applaud this, daily tasks such as checking your email, writing a document watching a video online shouldn’t be difficult and I agree. I strongly believe that, were a person who’d never used a pc before (maybe not never, explaining the keyboard, the mouse and their relation to the dancing images on the big box could take a little while but you get the general idea) to be presented with – for the sake of argument – a computer running Ubuntu they would, very quickly, be able to accomplish nearly any task asked of them. As Walter writes, “some users prefer spoon feeding” and he cites this as the most oft windows user complaint. I would have to agree. Users do what they’re used to doing. Having spent (probably) years using the same operating system, remembering how it is you get to the printer setup dialogue, stashed away in a folder somewhere, you begin to believe that is the “correct” and therefore the only way in which that task can be accomplished. If the program/OS in front of them does not respond in kind it is instantly branded as complicated or confusing and “wrong”. When actually, looked at objectively, it may be a more sensible layout: or in the very least not “wrong” – just different.

Having a preference as to how your computer and its programs interact and function is a good thing, not liking how Windows operated was one of the things that first gave me the incentive to see what was out there. However, shouting and swearing at people on public forums or comments on blog posts; declaiming that Linux is awful, without actually giving it a thought-out honest trial yourself is just childish. You share nothing more with the rest of the world than the fact you are lost, arrogant and nowhere near as tech-savvy as you claim to be. Just stop it. I think I speak for the entire Linux community when I say sod off.

“Thankfully there is an entire generation of people who have learned that the environment is constantly shifting, the fundamentals always in flux, and these users have little problem jumping on to Ubuntu, or any popular Linux flavor, and getting it to work for them, regardless of the platform, the location or the application.”

I couldn’t have put it better Walter. If you work, or even just follow, the tech-world as a hobby you can no longer afford to brush aside Linux and the Open Source revolution. Linux is here to stay and it’s going to keep getting better and better.

It’s improvements thus far, while occasionally quite good, are obvious userbility tweaks which should have been present in Vista.

I’ve never been one for Microsoft and have argued against its use and policies before. But just as I often can’t stop trying out distros of Linux I thought I’d try this. Hey, I got into the beta program for free and downloaded it for free. Up to that point – what difference is there between this and Linux? Well, quite a few actually but to that justice I need to delve a little deeper to form a more complete opinion.

Until then, enjoy these screenshots of my currently running system and tell me what you think. It definitely looks good. That much I can say!