I think you should know that the shell on Windows can be changed. It’s not even that hard and there are actually several replacement shells available. (for anyone that doesn’t know what the shell is, it is the graphical interface that Windows uses)

There are indeed many desktop environments available for linux distributions but, maybe to your surprise, there might be even more available for Windows. I can list about 6 desktop environments for linux, a quick search will come up with many more (15+) but for Windows there are easily over 25 desktop environments available (see link to wikipedia below).

Have a look at these pages, it will immediately be clear that there are many alternatives for the default Windows graphical user interface:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_shell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_shell_replacement

The second page lists more then 15 open source and more then 10 proprietary shell replacements. One of the open source replacements is called GreenGnome and, yes, it looks just like a linux Gnome desktop.

Do I advise anyone to actually replace their Windows shell ? No, I do not. Microsoft does not support shell replacements and if you find yourself with problems after you replaced the shell you might also find that a complete Windows re-install is the best way to solve those problems.

I like Gnome, and have completely fallen in love with Ubuntu 10.10′s looks.

Anyone who liked what was written in the last paragraph: “when stuff was free and information was exchanged to benefit everyone.” should watch the documentary ‘Revolution OS’.

You will get informed about the history of GNU/Linux, what open source is and why we need it, how Micro-Soft started out and immediately started to poison the software world. They will even read a letter written by Bill Gates (trying to make a case for proprietary software). That man actually had the nerve to say that users deserve quality software and that they should expect to pay for that software. I still wonder why we have been paying Microsoft so much for so long while they never kept their promise and kept (or keep) delivering crappy software. All this will be explained by the guru’s of open source: Richard Stallman, Michael Tiemann and Linus Torvalds to name just a few. You can watch this documentary for free at:

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/revolution-os/

Unrelated remark: I ended up here when I was searching for anti-virus software for linux. I have not yet decided that I need an anti-virus for my desktop machine but it’s very likely that I’ll install an anti-virus on my homeserver. Chances that I’ll get a virus on my linux machines are very slim but I am no fool and do not believe that any system is impervious to viruses or, worse, spyware.

Since I have been using AVG for years on my Windows machines and have always been very happy with the results I would also use AVG on linux.

Keep up the good work on this blog. Your articles are clear, interesting and will provide great information for users new to the linux world.