For most of us, it starts with the desktop; we find ourselves getting rid of the generic windows landscape and downloading something a little more homey. Then maybe we find ourselves running into walls; we want our software to do more stuff than it currently does, or to take up less space. Maybe we don’t like the licensing agreements we’re under, and want to find some sort of alternative without breaking the law.
In a sense, this is what open-source software like FileZilla and Ares are all about. Although for most users, open source operating systems are a lot harder to work with, using them is about supporting the concept of open collaboration and therefore (ultimately) better, cleaner, stable, secure, flexible products. Sadly, for the beginning user and for most PC gamers, open-source operating systems and software like what you can find at openoffice.org and movie viewing software like xvid codec aren’t a practical choice for their main machine; it’s too likely for something to go wrong until you know what you’re doing. However, if you’ve got a few extra system resources hardware-wise, setting up a virtual machine where you can play with a new operating system without risking functionality is an excellent choice, and can put you well on your way to all the benefits of open source.
Typically, the way people learn how to use and install these more difficult bits of software is through forums online, where strangers eager to share their experiences are often willing to answer questions. If you choose software that’s relatively widely used (for instance, the Ubuntu version of Linux instead of Xandros, for a beginner), there will be more users available to answer questions. If you aren’t ready to dive into an operating system yet, there are other open source options. The jewel in the crown of open source programing for a long time has been Firefox, which is stable, secure, convenient, and easy to customize. Wide adoption means that support for problems, and up to date versions of mainstream plug-ins like flash are readily available for Firefox.