I've now been using Linux Ubuntu since December last year, and now wish I had made the change years ago. It allows me to do everything and more that I did on my Windows PC and a lot quicker.
Within this collection of articles are a couple on viruses and how to clean your Windows machine. With Linux there's none of that to worry about. I don't run anti virus I don't get infected with spyware and because the Linux filing system is more organised, I never need to bother defragging my drives.
When I think of how much time I spent optimising my Windows machine, virus scans, spyware removal, cookie control, it beggars belief to how I managed to get anything done.
The beauty of Linux also is if you want to give it a test run without having to commit to a full install you can run it off your cd drive. For Ubuntu all you do is go to http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download choose either 32 or 64 bit depending on your machine's architecture, download and burn it to disc. Then pop it in your cd drive, reboot your machine from the cd. Choose the option to run it from cd and away you go.
Obviously running it like this isn't ideal, you are governed by the speed of your cd drive but as a preview it's more than adequate.
As mentioned above the biggest advantage for me, apart from the 1000's of free programs, is having an operating system that just get's on with what it's supposed to be doing, rather than needing regular attention.
