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How To Become Microsoft-Free in 30 Days

 Linux, Open Source Software, Software, Windows  Add comments
Jul 132008
 

by Tom Duffy

I can’t stand Microsoft. I really can’t. That being said, I have personally been Microsoft-Free for well over a year now. This is truly a wonderful feeling! I have four different computers that are all completely free from ANY Microsoft products. I would like to share with you how you can become Microsoft-Free in 30 days or less!

First of all, let me share with you what I run:

Desktop: Intel Core2Quad dual booting Slackware Linux and Fedora 9 (Sulphur)

Laptop 1: Intel Pentium 4 running Xubuntu Hardy Heron

Laptop 2: AMD Athlon running usb boot Slax

Laptop 3: Apple PowerBook running OSX Tiger

It is important to note that just running Linux or OSX doesn’t free you completely from Microsoft. A lot of Apple users run MS Office and other Microsoft products even though this is totally unnecessary. So, now let’s talk about how to start freeing yourself from Microsoft. Let’s take the following example: A PC user is running Windows XP Professional with the following additional Microsoft products installed: Microsoft Office 2007, Windows Media Player, and Microsoft Money. Okay, now the most difficult Microsoft product to free yourself from will be the operating system itself. So I recommend starting by replacing Office, Media Player, and Money.

In place of Office, you have some options. My personal preference is OpenOffice which can be downloaded here. Once downloaded and installed, OpenOffice provides a feature-rich replacement for Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Powerpoint, and Microsoft Database. It doesn’t however, replace Outlook. For Outlook’s replacement, I recommend Mozilla Thunderbird which can be downloaded here.

To replace Windows Media Player, I recommend MPlayer which can be downloaded here. Don’t forget to download codecs from the site as well. This is what will make it play all of your different media types.

To replace MS Money, I recommend GNUcash which can be downloaded here. GNUcash is a great piece of software that can handle personal and small business finances with a ton of cool features.

Now that we’ve replaced the software installed on your Windows computer with open source alternatives, let’s start the process of replacing Windows itself. I personally recommend the Linux Distrobution called Ubuntu which can be downloaded here. Once you download the ISO file, go ahead and burn the image to a blank CD.

Okay, now all of the above can be done in a matter of hours. So why does it take up to 30 days to become truly Microsoft-Free? Well, it is because of the transitional period that comes with learning a new operating system. The Ubuntu CD that you just burned can be used in many ways for you. There are two transitional steps that I recommend before you actually format your drive and completely replace Windows.

The first step is to insert the CD while running Windows. Ubuntu includes a cool new feature that allows Windows users to install Ubuntu as an application within Windows to try it out. Go ahead and use the Wubi Installer to install Ubuntu on your Windows partition. Spend some time using Ubuntu every day. Get used to the differences. USE GOOGLE TO GET ANSWERS! I can’t stress this part enough. When you transition from Windows to Linux, you are going to hit some walls. There is a TON of help available out there. Use google to find it!

After you have gotten used to using Ubuntu within Windows, it is time for the next transitional step. This step consists of installing Ubuntu onto its own partition and dual booting between Ubuntu and Windows. The reason that I recommend this is that when you are in the Ubuntu partition and you come across something that you can’t quite figure out, you can always reboot into Windows to take care of it. This process is annoying though which will eventually lead you to trying harder to solve problems within Ubuntu rather than rebooting into Windows.

Now that you are fully comfortable in Ubuntu and have figured out how to take care of all of your daily tasks, it is time to back up all of your data for a completely clean Ubuntu only Install! The partitioner within the Ubuntu installer is very straight forward. Again, if you have problems, use google to get answers. I also recommend joining the Ubuntu Forums. There are some absolutely awesome people on there who are ready and willing to answer questions. Of course, if you have questions, you can always just email me! Send questions to tom (at) techremedy (dot) net. I hope this helps at least ONE person become free from the Microsoft stranglehold!

Written by: Tom Duffy on July 13, 2008.
 Posted by Tom Duffy at 1:12 pm  Tagged with: , , ,
  • http://www.iselect.net Mark

    Nice article! I like the transition for the OS replacement!

  • Denny

    On the latest Ubuntu distribution there is also an “Install in Windows” option, which lets you install linux in windows, and gives you the option to dual boot at the start up of your computer:D
    so this can also be a good method to try linux without losing windows
    the current distribution of ubuntu is 8.04 i believe:D

  • http://yourmom.com SNart

    I respect that you choose to try different products and spread the work on open source software but I think you are an idiot for hating Microsoft. You would not have any of the products you’ve mentioned without Microsoft.

  • http://boredem.110mb.com undeniablynerdy

    Very good article, im sure it will convert a lot of people.
    I myself have tried ubuntu and had a full on hardcore install of it without windows but after a few months i wanted windows back :(

  • mystuff

    It’s a nice article, but it’s a bit brief and could benifit from some more illustrations perhaps.

    A critical point is you failing to mention the package manager – available in most GNU/Linux distributions which makes download/installing new software as easy as pie. It’s one of the features where *nix rises above Windows as a mountain over a pebble: no need to search the web for that piece of software you need, everything can be installed form your desktop.

    Of course I could give you countless more examples of why one would switch from Windows to GNU/Linux but I’ll leave that to you ;)

  • admin

    @SNart –

    That is HIGHLY arguable. You really think that Microsoft is in any way responsible for Linux? You do realize that BSD and Unix have been around longer than Microsoft has been a company right? Not to mention the fact that Microsoft stole most of their ideas from other companies like Apple…who stole THEIR ideas from Xerox.

  • admin

    Thanks @ mystuff – There will indeed be a follow-up to this article stating very specific advantages to GNU/Linux over Windows. Thanks for reading!

  • Luiz

    I understand your motivations… I’m a computer programmer and friend of many geeks and Microsoft haters. I use linux and windows interchangeably for more than 10 years now. But I wasn’t able to give up on Windows completely because there are things that linux still does not do well.

    For your knowledge, you are not 100% Microsoft free since you work with a Apple computer and their products. Microsoft does own shares of apple, so you are still part of their family. ;-)

    Have a look at:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Microsoft_Corporation

  • worg

    SNart: 100% of Microsoft’s technology is stolen or bought from other companies. The core of their business model, Windows, has code in the Vista codebase that dates back to the early 1990s. Their design philosophy is firmly mired in a 90s concept of workgroup computing; witness the unusable command.com and the fact that they’ve dropped the Monad concept (but you don’t know about Monad, because you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about).

    Microsoft’s secondary focus, the Office suite, is an overpriced and horribly bloated piece of legacy code. To me, it compares very unfavorably to OpenOffice and StarOffice, suites which are available for free and which have far smaller memory footprints.

    Microsoft is computing designed by and for boring, unimaginative businessmen. In the very early days of Windows, they wanted a product which was capable of running spreadsheets and a few other of the early office apps. The product evolved from those roots but in many ways shares the very same philosophy it did in the early days.

    On Ubuntu, I have multi-user computing at my fingertips. This laptop could have a hundred or more people connecting to it, compiling programs, etc. Even exporting GUI applications. I can write ad-hoc programs in single lines on the command line, to do systems tasks that would require third-party apps on Windows. I have a repository of free software at my fingertips; 18000 different apps, approximately.

    These days I use windows for Photoshop and gaming, but I’m afraid to put my windows box on the net because of the intractable security issues, flaws in the core security model of Windows, which Microsoft seems unwilling, unable, or uninterested in fixing.

    You were saying what now?

  • ms

    @snart

    You are a troll, and an idiot. Pathetic.

    But people who do computing have a lot more going on than just office and media player. People like to do work with images, sound and video, as well as a number of other things we can’t name. It’s helpful to now that if you are a video editor, or a flash, or photoshop user, you will have a tough time dumping windows for linux. But you could do everything with a Mac, multimedia-wise. But Mac comes with its own annoyances, like in iphoto, imovie, itunes, garage band.

    Let’s not forget games. Dumping windows means you probably won’t get to try the latest games available. This is important for people. Their kids play learning games, so dumping windows means that disney program won’t work.

    I hate some things about Windows, but others are ok. It feels pretty good. XP is stable for me. It starts up faster than ubuntu does on my quad core with 4gb of ram. Not sure why. My intel macbook pro starts up and shuts down fastest of all. But the squisy mouse feel makes it hard to work with. PLus I can’t use Xara Xtreme Pro on the Mac unfortunately.

  • http://a554551netspace.blogspot.com/ A554551N

    I’ve been a pretty hardcore advocate for Linux and FOSS for about 5 years. I can’t say that I “hate” Microsoft, I see Microsoft and their substandard products as a foil that spurs OSS developers to continue to rise ever higher.

    @SNart
    while I do see your point, I would have to disagree, after all, Microsoft DID NOT invent the word processor, right?

    @Denny
    The “Install within Windows” Option works great, I use it myself. It’s called WUBI (Windows UBuntu Installer).

    Great article (I like how you treated escaping Windows like rehab, slowly pulling them out of it ;) )

  • Warped

    I stopped reading after laptop 3 description.

  • Uncle B

    Used Microsoft at work, retired, work no longer paid my ‘dues’ to Microsoft. Read the Microsoft notice that informed me that their software was only leased from them, decided I couldn’t afford it. Removed Microsoft from my computers to stay legal. Got a friend to download a copy of Ubuntu. Installed Ubuntu on both my computers. Now I can’t go to jail for using them – spent about six weeks (I’m and old guy so it takes longer) to get Ubuntu to do as Microsoft had done. Was pleasantly suprised at how good my computers now run, no blue screens, no asinine notices, no uber-complicated and confusing instructions, no tri-annual trip to the Ms dealer to get the hard drive working and speed up to normal, no expensive and complicated manuals written just for phd’s in computer sciences, just straight-forward plain English, free on the web, manuals! No slowdowns, everything runs fast all the time, no extra memories added!
    Boy!, were my old bosses getting screwed using the other stuff. They should read this and try Ununtu or and equal Linux system to save a lot of overhead!

  • mm_m

    Thanks, this is a fine and nice article, unlike much of the flamer stuff (see above). This is the sort of article that brought me to Ubuntu – all that “WHAT? YOU IDIOT!” stuff did not and will not ever do anything good.

    My biggest problem (and one of many others in my opinion) in the beginning was to understand how programs are installed – first that there is no setup.exe, then that all that make&install stuff is just for very few occasions. I just didn’t realize that downloading a file and installing it can be done in one very easy step. I think this can’t be pointed out enough.
    One thing more, but that’s just my personal experience: I should have known about ndiswrapper years ago. Not knowing about it made be go back to Windows after a few days three times.

  • Anon

    I have at least 1 computer running Linux.

    Here are some problems I would have in completely changing over to Linux.

    1/ I am addicted to MS Publisher
    2/ All my business data is in Quicken
    3/ I use Excel
    4/ I have several HAM radio programs that only run in Windows.

    I use OO, Firefox, TBird, Opera on a regular basis.

    I have never seen or used WINE.

  • someone

    going microsoftless is a good idea in theory for the home user… but it’s this mindless pursuit that is destroying the company I’ve worked for for the past 11 years. Tell me how converting vb6 (yes – i said vb6 – not .net! we’ve been using vb6 for 10 years) entirely to java is good business sense. I guess it would explain why half the staff just quit.

  • http://www.xboard.us/showthread.php?t=315094 Unladaysaddy

    thanks much, brother

  • Rhapsody

    OK. Have a glance at the following site

    http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

    XP is good, nice and stable. It’s the way Microsoft works that makes me want to change.
    It’s interesting to note that children learn to use Ubuntu faster than Windows.

  • jayinric

    I love Ubuntu, but until someone makes an email client that interfaces with Exchange other than Outlook (and works Yes, I know all about and have spent months trying to get Evolution to work. If your on the same network with the exchange server, it works great, after the exchange admin opens some ports and changes some options for you). But until we get shared calendaring, busy search, and public folders support in Thunderbrid, I have to have Outlook and if I’m running Outlook I might as well have Office.

    Other than that, very nice article.

   
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