The trip down memory lane got me thinking that perhaps it would be nice to remind ourselves of the path we have walked to have become unfortunate enough to end up with Windows as the most popular choice of Operating System.

CP/M – Created back in 1976, this command line based Operating System was developed to provide 8-bit computer users with an easier way of managing the most basic of computer functions, as well as installing and programming applications. It would be fair to say that the younger MS-DOS was very closely based on CP/M and indeed many of the Operating System structures and commands were retained.

DOS – Of course, there were in fact several different flavours of DOS available from various vendors but MS-DOS was the one that was used by most. Released in 1981, Microsoft continued to develop this Operating System right up until the release of Windows 95, at which point it was phased out. DOS was a command based Operating System without any form of graphical interface which remained popular even after the introduction of Windows due to the fact that not only was it faster and less hardware intensive but also that it was actually required as a base for Windows to run on top of. Up until Windows 95, your computer would load itself in to DOS by default and those that wanted to use Windows would actually have to load it on top of MS-DOS as a secondary Operating System.

GEOS – This remarkably compact Graphical Operating System was originally designed for the Commodore 64; a machine with just 64k of RAM and a 1 MHz processor. Released in 1986 by a company called Berkeley Softworks, GEOS went on to become the third fastest selling Operating System in the world at one stage. Despite the ridiculously miniscule system requirements, GEOS was a nippy Operating System which looked very similar to MacOS which ran on a machine costing ten times the price.

OS/2 – Originally a joint venture between IBM and Microsoft in 1987, at one point Microsoft publically insisted that OS/2 was the future and technically speaking, it was superior. Microsoft however managed to bundle Windows 3.0 with many new PC’s (a tactic they have been able to continue up through the years) and as such OS/2 become considered an expensive alternative. Unsurprisingly, the marriage between the two companies hit the rocks and despite IBM soldering on until 2001, OS/2 never managed to enjoy the success that Windows had.

AmigaOS – I truly think that the Amiga OS deserves to be remembered as one of the most revolutionary Operating Systems in history and to me it represents a remarkable technology that it took years for Windows to catch up with. The AmigaOS which was initially introduced back in 1985 for the Commodore Amiga line of machines and not only was it nippy, stable and incredibly fully featured but it also included support for multitasking; something that we take for granted nowadays but was the holy grail of computing back then. Unfortunately financial issues at Commodore led to bankruptcy which largely resulted in development on the Amiga platform being abandoned.

This week we’ll take a look at a Linux Operating System which is designed to be installed either as a direct replacement or installed permanently alongside the Microsoft offering going by the name of Kubuntu.

Because Kubuntu is based on the KDE graphical interface those of you that tried out Slax last week will find this variant of Linux extremely easy to get to grips with. Where it differs is that Kubuntu isn’t designed from the ground up to be easily portable and as such it comes bundled with more software and is also easily installable on your hard drive.

By heading to www.kubuntu.org you can download the 700mb package free of charge. This software can then be put on to a bootable CD so that your new Operating System can be tried out before you choose to continue with the installation. The problem here is that Kubuntu runs pretty slowly off of a CD so don’t let this put you off putting it on to your hard disk.

The first time I used Kubuntu it set up and installed pretty much all my hardware (with the exception of my printer) automatically without any intervention and I was up and running on the Internet immediately. This is pretty impressive when you compare it to the half hour installation routine that is involved when setting up Windows for the first time.

Included with the default installation is a range of tools for your graphics, multimedia and Internet applications as well as the extremely capable OpenOffice package which is used as a direct, free replacement for Microsoft Office. I have reviewed OpenOffice for Windows in the past and found it to be quite a capable package consisting of a Presentation, Spreadsheet, Database and Calculator utilities as well as a Word Processor. Of course if you need to use an application that isn’t included as part of the default installation this can be easily done by using the inbuilt add/remove programs manager. A bonus of using a Linux based Operating System is that pretty much all the software that you’ll ever obtain will be legally free of charge.

As mentioned at the beginning of this article the User Interface is based on KDE which is fairly similar to that of Windows and so most users shouldn’t have a problem finding their way around the basic functions of the Operating System. The system is relatively easy to use and when installed on the hard disk the performance is impressive especially when compared with Windows on lower specification hardware.

I’m certainly not suggesting that Linux is the ideal solution for everybody as to do so would be hypocritical as I personally still use Windows in my day to day life however Kubuntu is certainly worth looking in to especially if you have a lower hardware specification or resent having to pay every couple of years for the latest version of Windows.

Pretty much any variant of Linux is completely free of charge so you can download and experiment to find out which one suits you the best however the two versions Slax and Kubuntu I have reviewed are certainly good places to start.