Not many things make the founder of the Ubuntu distro Mark Shuttleworth nervous, but recommending people replace Windows with Linux on their desktop, it seems, is one of them.

This coming from someone who's been catapulted out of our atmosphere to spend time in the freezing vacuum of space.

Shuttleworth, though, reckons people should think about why they want to change Windows for Linux, and re-engineer their infrastructure and the way they are working, rather than doing a simple rip and replace.

"I'm very nervous of encouraging people to substitute Windows for Linux," Shuttleworth said during a recent interview. "It's great if you are able and willing to recraft the way you do things in your organisation," such as adopting thin-client computing. Where people just want to switch desktop operating systems, things get very difficult."

Shuttleworth, of course, created a storm of debate this summer, when he said that Linux on the desktop had to out-pretty the Mac if it was to really beat Windows.

You can listen to more from Shuttleworth here, in a podcast interview at the recent Debconf8 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, with the chap leading Sun Microsystems' relationship with the GNU/Linux communities Barton George.

Among other things, Shuttleworth reckons Ubuntu remains "strongly aligned" around Intel's mobile Linux effort, even though Intel said it's dropping Ubuntu for a Fedora-based stack in the next Moblin. Also, he reckons Ubuntu will become "self sustaining" in the "next year or two". ®