The Linux graphical interfaces have many interesting features that can streamline the use of the desktop. One useful feature is the use of a laptop touchpad as a scroll wheel. If you stroke your fingertip up and down the right hand side of the touchpad, it will operate as a scroll wheel to scroll up and down a web page. That is very useful if you do not have a USB mouse plugged into the computer. This works with the Lxde Lubuntu desktop and makes the Linux desktop very useful on a mobile device. That feature has been around for a while and is an extremely good idea. The Lxde desktop is nice and usable if you are using a laptop as a mobile Linux computer. I have tried Windows XP, that is more trouble than it is worth. Even FreeBSD works better on a laptop than Windows.
And if a laptop comes with Windows, it inevitably comes with Norton anti-virus and other pointless bloatware installed. Norton 360 can slow down your computer and is not that effective at stopping viruses at all. Using a more secure operating system is the best way to prevent Malware from infecting your system. Ubuntu is very easy to install and you may install updates and proprietary codecs whilst installing the distribution. That is what I do. Linux Mint is another good choice for a secure OS that will not be crippled by online Malware like Windows and Macintosh machines are. Linux is not actually an operating system, it is a kernel; that is distributed with a set of GNU/GPL packages such as Coreutils and the GNU Libc as well as a Bash shell and all of the other parts that make up a usable Linux system. FreeBSD has the same software shipped with it as Linux, but it is using a different kernel.
You could write your own kernel and Libc that was compatible with x86 software and then you could include a host of packages such as Linux does and create your own alternative to the Linux and FreeBSD options if you wished. That is not impossible, that is something I would like to see. Considering the fact that Macintosh machines are infected with virulent malware, it is a good idea to avoid that platform and take up an alternative such as Linux or BSD. There are a host of alternative operating systems out there, like the ReactOS free and open source Windows clone. And Haiku, which is a clone of the BeOS operating system. AROS is a free version of the Amiga OS and finally MenuetOS, which is an operating system entirely coded in Assembler machine code which fits on a single floppy disk. That provides a whole GUI desktop as well. It is amazing how slim you can make an operating system when you are not coding in C. If you programmed an entire operating system in binary code, it could probably be even slimmer, but you would go mad working for a long time at that level.
MSDOS came with the DEBUG command that could be used to program in assembler code. But writing an entire program in binary would drive you crazy. Here is a post about this if you are curious. http://www.programmersheaven.com/mb/Algorithms/106437/106437/binary-programming/. And some information about the DEBUG command. http://www.computerhope.com/debughlp.htm.
I am a computer enthusiast that has always been interested in maintaining and upgrading computer hardware. I was born on a farm and lived there for 13 years before moving into town. I was always interested in technology and my father always gave me good encouragement for developing my knowledge and interest in tinkering with computers. He was using a computer on the farm but that was in the very late 80`s and late 90`s. Seeing what a computer could do always fascinated me and then I knew that is what I wanted to do. The first time I used Linux was Red Hat 6.2 installed off a single CDROM and I was amazed that you did not need to install any more drivers on my old Intel Celeron machine to be able to enjoy a nice 24BPP desktop and use the GIMP to edit photos and enjoy playing the old Linux games like Xbill. Then a while later I tried Mandrake Linux 9.2 and I was hooked. It came with so much software and was very easy to use as well. Then Mandrake Linux 10 and on through FreeBSD, Debian 3.0, Debian 3.1 Suse Linux 9.2, Suse 10 and onto the Ubuntu distributions although I am using Fedora Core 15 and the Gnome 3 desktop at the moment.
This is a sample DEBUG program to return the day of the month. This is just for nostalgia`s sake.
N GETDAY.COM
A 100
MOV AH, 2A
INT 21
MOV AL, DL
MOV AH, 4C
INT 21
R CX
A
W
Q