For all the talk of Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft, a select band of users have been happily beavering away throughout much of the PC era without relying on anything cantering out of the Redmond stables.
Moving to Linux won’t suit everybody. But if you’re put off by Microsoft’s security issues or corporate clout, or if you’d like to tinker with your own programs, it’s never been easier to switch. Not that Linux consists of just one product, however – its open-source nature means that there are lots of versions of Linux available.
Red Hat’s Fedora, Ubuntu Linux and Novell’s OpenSuse are the biggest names. Red Hat and Novell have commercially available Enterprise versions and use the free incarnations as testing grounds for new technologies and approaches that may eventually work their way into the paid-for Enterprise editions. Ubuntu functions better as a complete end product. As such, it tends to be glossier and easy to use.
http://www.linuxlinks.com/portal/news/article.php?story=20071030135639412