After 10 years trying to pick up sales and management skills and developing software for Microsoft Windows, I finally got around to installing my first Linux variant, Ubuntu Desktop, version 6.06. Installing in a VMWare machine was faster and more elegant that any Windows install, and doesn’t look much like the clunky X11 Motif that we used the last time I wrote serious C++ code for Solaris and AIX. Very impressive. Whether it will be secure, stable and performant I have no idea, but the covers look great.