Ever felt curious, but never got around to experimenting with Linux? Now you really don't have any excuses. Wubi  makes it a snap to dual boot Linux on a Windows machine. The Wubi installer acts like any normal Windows program, so you can uninstall it from the Add/Remove section under the Control Panel if you decide that you don't want to have Linux on your computer anymore. No need to mess around with partitions! Setup is a snap, it took me a click or two to get the installation process moving, and a little bit of a wait while Wubi downloaded the necessary installation files for Ubuntu, the most widely adopted flavor of Linux out there right now. Unfortunately, wireless support for Ubuntu right out of the box is not quite there yet, there were a few solutions that I easily found that required going into the Terminal and putzing about.

Otherwise, Ubuntu might make the ideal operating system for a grandparent or someone with limited computer needs: email/web surfing/word processing. It's not nearly as susceptible to viruses as Windows and unlike a designer Apple product, it's free! It even comes with the open source Open Office, which is pretty compatible with Microsoft Office. I haven't tested it, but Ubuntu should run fine as soon as you install it on a desktop system, and its relatively low system requirements means that it should work fine on older computers.

Wubi is an unofficial Ubuntu installer for Windows users that will bring you into the Linux world with a single click. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other application. If you heard about Linux and Ubuntu, if you wanted to try them but you were afraid, this is for you.