Originally we installed Ubuntu on an Acer Aspire notebook, dual booting with Vista (which was so slow on this 3.2Ghz and 2Gb RAM machine that it was untrue!) Installation went without a hitch, successfully creating the dual boot environment and re-sizing the hard disk partitions sensibly. The whole process took a little over 20 minutes and bearing in mind that the default setup also includes OpenOffice and a host of useful applications, we considered this extremely fast. Startup of the system after the install was also extremely fast – fully booting in around 30 seconds as opposed to 2.5 minutes for Vista.

All hardware in the laptop was detected correctly apart from 2 exceptions, the screen and network card. Initially, this was a disappointment but we had the screen issue sorted (the resolution would not set to the widescreen fitted to this laptop) within 10 minutes after quick look around the Ubuntu forums. The network card took a little longer, but both screen and network were up and running within 30 minutes.

In operational terms, Ubuntu is quick and intuitive. Things are laid out differently from Windows (Start button equivalent is top left) but it is very easy to get used to. Firefox is installed as the default browser as well as Evolution email which we had no problem connecting to our Exchange server. Connecting to shares on our Windows 2003 Small Business Server was also a doddle, as was connecting to network printers.

One thing we were really surprised at was the number of updates picked up by the update manager. Hardly a day goes by when Ubuntu doesn't download updates – a far cry from Micrsofts ‘patch Tuesday'.

We also like the fact that you can get away without any commercial applications – just go to Applications – Add/Remove. Do a little search for the sort of thing you are after and hey presto, a list of Open Source programs appear that you can install for free.

There are slight limitations if you're really tied into certain Windows applications. We use Quickbooks for accounts purposes and Expression for web design, neither of which have comparable Linux apps. However, we easily got a VM (VirtualBox) running Windows XP, so we can actually run these apps without exiting Ubuntu.