Brian decided to start using his laptop again but it was in a bad way. With this in mind, I told him that he should consider using Linux. No virus worries, pretty slick and easy to use. He was open to the idea so I began researching what would be involved in putting it on his Inspiron 6400.

I found a HOWTO and prepared myself for a long night of hacking. I burned 9.04 to a disk, rebooted and settled in for a long night.

30 minutes later Vista was banished and I started poking around to see what was working. “Hey wireless is up, all these buttons are working and so is the track pad!” much to my astonishment, everything was working. Ok, there is one button but nothing serious.

I did my updates, installed a bunch of software and signed him up for some new accounts. Within 90 minutes I was done. Everything. All that was left to do was to turn over the keys.

I’ve been an Ubuntu user since 6.10 but I was stunned at how easy it was. I knew it was quick to install but I had no idea that the driver support was so advanced. Ubuntu never ceases to amaze me.