The May issue of Laptop Magazine is on the stands (has been for a bit, actually) and includes two contributions by yours truly. One is the massive roundup of Linux reviews I did and another is a tips article on how to live without an optical drive.

I’ve steadfastly resisted the temptation to buy an external DVD drive for my netbook mainly because of the research I did for that piece. I haven’t had trouble installing any program I have on disc and in the past few months I’ve installed various Linux distros from USB drives (over and over and…).

It’s very odd to me that, when I was in college, having a CD-ROM drive was a big deal, then it was a big deal if you could get a DVD drive included, and then came the wonders of writable DVD drives which seemed so fancy and awesome. Now we’re back to having computers with no optical drive. But considering how you can download almost anything you need from media to software, it isn’t such a big deal any more.

I try not to feel old when I think of things like this…

Anyway, go buy Laptop Magazine. It’s a great issue even beyond my small contributions. 31 free apps that don’t suck! And more.

You can now see the result of all my hard work (and whining).  The five Linux distros I reviewed are online and conveniently in one roundup, so you can see them all: What Flavor of Linux is Right For You?

Linux Mint earned the Editor’s Choice, as well it should, as it was my favorite of the five.  Ubuntu was a close second. As I mentioned before, I am not partial to PCLinuxOS or Mandriva, and Fedora makes me want to never see Linux again. (This is especially sad because Fedora is the one that works best with the Samsung netbooks.)

Click on over to read. Maybe you will find yourself thinking about trying Linux. I am glad I did, despite everything.