I just finished configuring a Vista laptop for my brother, who needs to run some Windows-only applications for college. Whenever I find myself compelled to deal with proprietary operating systems, I’m reminded why I use Ubuntu. Here’s a short list of some of those reasons.

Many writers, including WorksWithU’s Joe Panttieri, have suggested that Google’s recently announced Chrome OS is bad news for Ubuntu and other Linux distributions struggling to establish a foothold on the desktop, especially in the netbook market.  While only time will tell how this development will really pan out, I’m not so convinced it will be to Canonical’s disadvantage.  Here’s why.

Like many multinational corporations, Microsoft has embraced social networking as a means of making customers feel like participants, not just end users, in a Microsoft community.  When it comes to community-building, however, Microsoft is fighting an uphill battle against the open-source world, which was built around social networking before it was called social networking.

Mark Shuttleworth made some interesting comments recently about the role of the Wine compatibility layer in fostering the migration of Windows users to Ubuntu.  Shuttleworth views Wine, and binary compatibility with Windows applications in general, as a distraction from the real goal of making the free-software world “thrive on its own rules,” not those borrowed from the proprietary ecosystem.  I disagree.  Here’s why.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer brought up some interesting points last week when he displayed data showing that Linux, according to Microsoft’s research, enjoys higher desktop market share than Apple.  This observation not only contradicts claims that Linux use remains stagnant, but has the potential to redefine the tired “Mac vs. PC” discourse that has obscured Microsoft’s real challenge–open source–for a decade.

In an interview with linuxdevices.com, Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes Linux, argues that Microsoft’s failure to anticipate the pace of hardware development over the long-term contributed substantially to the trouble that the company now finds itself in.  This is an interesting insight, and adds some precision to explanations of Linux’s penetration of the desktop operating-system market.

Although I don’t plan on using Windows 7 unless threatened with violence, I thought it would be interesting to see what Microsoft’s pushing these days as state-of-the-art technology.  Many of the new features planned for the next release of Windows, however, seem more like catch-up than innovation.

At my college, I have volunteered to teach faculty, staff, and students the advantages of using Linux. After doing it for a couple of years, I have come up with a few tips that others might find helpful when showing new Linux users the ropes.

Previously, I introduced my theory of the Difficulty Divide. It’s a concept that I’ve used for several years when talking about why I use Linux, and why some people may give up on it. I also promised that I would present on how I’ve modified it in recent years to reflect the current state of things. Before I do that though, I think some clarification is in order.

Over the years, I’ve developed a generalized theory about the relative cost of getting things done in Windows versus that of Linux, and as something of a corollary, the reason a lot of people say Linux is too hard, or “not ready for the desktop.”