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.

Nathan’s basic question, however, can be paraphrased: why do so many MCSEs have such a hard time learning to use Linux? why do they think there’s no effective help available to them?

Linux versus Windows is the stuff of near endless controversy. Linux lovers trash Windows for being slow, unreliable, insecure and overpriced, whilst Windows bigots accuse Linux of being hard to use and clunky.

One of the most frightening things about Linux is the horrible word bootloader. The primary reason for this is the fact that most new Linux users have only ever used Windows operating systems. In the Windows world, they have never bothered with bootloaders. This article is supposed to provide you with basic understanding of the GRUB bootloader.

For those Windows users who have discovered what Linux has to offer, but for one reason or another are not ready to completely abandon Windows, dual-booting between the two operating systems is one method of keeping a foot in both worlds. And to help those users, this article presents a step-by-step guide on how to dual-boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.04 on a computer with one hard disk.

The New York Times seems hard-wired to rarely identify any Windows malware as Windows malware, but only "computer malware." They seem to share this illness with other people too, such as researchers and professors.

The specific reasons why people try Linux vary wildly, but the overall reason boils down to one thing: They hope Linux will be better than Windows. Common yardsticks for measuring success are cost, choice, performance, and security. There are many others. But every Windows user who tries Linux, does so because they hope it will be better than what they've got. Therein lies the problem.

It's something of a tradition that we pit the latest version of Windows against our trusty old operating system. This isn't because we want to raise the profile of Windows, or ignite further flamewars on which is better or worse. It's about understanding the market and understanding the competition.

Years ago I already played a bit with Linux (It was Redhat 5.0 on my 386). At that time I thought the operating system wasn't yet ready for the desktop and after a while I reinstalled Windows. Things changed when Ubuntu 5.04 was released. This was the first time I really enjoyed Linux; the most important things worked, it was easy and it was just great!