Why Linux?

Many people have written why you should use linux. Here's my experience. Linux is an operating system i.e. like Microsoft Windows. The key difference: It's free. Right. So that's the basics. Now, why did I delete Windows a little while ago...

Basically, it's because I was under the impression that Linux could do what Windows did. And it can. Did I mention it was free. The only problem is that it requires a little work to get it to do what Windows did. And therein lies the catch. Windows was designed for a mass market to appeal to people who just wanted their computer to work. Linux was originally designed for software developers. However, there are now so many different versions that you can pick from and they vary from simpler to install than windows to moderately difficult.

I guess some people are scared of linux because it requires a bit of effort to make it to work. But now my system is working and it does nearly everything that Windows did. It has an Office suite which can read Microsoft Office documents. It has skype, a web browser and generally everything a basic user would want. The only problems are with using some external devices. Specifically, I haven't yet worked out how to sync my phone/PDA calendars and contacts with linux and I have spent a while trying. I think there is some new software that I've just downloaded that can do the phone! :)

On top of this, most commercial software won't work straight out of the box. You can use a windows emulator if you need to. HOWEVER, the plus side is that you have access to a huge repository of FREE software that in does what hugely expensive software would do and is all easily downloadable and installable. On top of this, Linux is renowned for its stability i.e. you don't see the blue screen of death. It's also supposedly faster than Windows although I personally have my doubts about this. I'd say it works at a comparable speed to a newly installed Windows machine. The problem with Windows is that it gets slower, the more software you install on it, whereas this doesn't seem to be the case with Linux.

Linux comes in many different forms. There are huge worldwide communities developing Linux with different goals in mind. Some of these haev ease of use as their key goal and these are a very good place to start out on the road to freedom from Microsoft.

Long live the linux people.

Currently running:

Mepis 6 on:

06/01/07