How should I migrate to Open Source/ Free Software/ Linux ?

Many times it has been observed that people just refuse to be migrated towards the Free/Open Source software on account of their "so called" less user friendlienss and non portability. Further, it is repeatedly stated that the free software does not fulfill a person's exact requirement.

However, in real sense, this is quite opposite as Newton's III'd law!! Migrating to the Free Software was and is the easier task ever. And a wide range of free software is always available right from a kid user to an end user to a power user to a developer to a gamer to a CXO of an enterprise and last but not the least a Hacker!

A few steps stated below are enough for anyone wishing to get rid of the trap of proprietary software and open the doors towards the universe of the Free Software:

• Go for the GNUWin II CD project for a large list of free software ported to the Windows platform (http://gd4.tuwien.ac.at/gnu/gnuwin2/gnuwin2/)
• Download and Install cygwin from http://www.cygwin.com which provides almost linux like command interpreter and other related environment which will accordingly make familier with the Linux look and feel.
• Bring a live Linux CD such as Knoppix from your friend or download the same from www.knoppix.org, by using this you will be able to taste the real Linux without even touching your hard-drive.
• Now you should be enough satisfied with the advantages of the Free and Open Source software so you may migrate to any distribution of Linux available and be collectively found at www.linux.org, although I personally advice Ubuntu based on Debian from http://www.ubuntu.com/.org as a good starter.
• And do not forget to count yourself a Linux user at http://counter.li.org/ !!