why linux???

[ookaze]

Words Of Wisdom said:

Soleron said:

It depends on your needs. What do you mainly use your computer for?

The main advantages of Linux over Windows are:

1) Easier to install any software - over 20,000 completely free programs that are good or better replacements for many Windows applications are availible with one click - no installers and no download websites.

Unless you have to compile or "make" it yourself. If the program is not prepackaged in some format (rpm for example), it can be very time consuming to get things up and running.

In the same situation on Windows, you have... zero opportunity. You just won't be able to do anything about it, while on Linux you still have the ability to compile, so what you say actually has no validity in this context.

Besides, it's a very bad advice to compile anything on a distro. This is tedious, and is not the purpose of a distro at all. When you need sth that is not available and you have no Linux skills, the best thing to do is to ask the community for help.

2) Much faster than Windows.

This is a 100% bold-faced LIE. Linux is absolutely not faster than an XP setup and in fact it's often slower. The reason for this is that Windows uses a lot of prefetching of the sort that Linux decided to avoid for security concerns. What this means is that programs on Windows are often "snappier" than their linux counterparts in loading.

This is 100% true and what you say is a LIE. Linux runs circle around Windows related to efficiency and speed. Your prefetching doesn't explains why Linux is not faster. The free Linux desktops (Gnome, KDE) both support the feature of session save, where when you login, you get back every application opened previously in the state they were when you logged off. Which is why this "snappier" effect (which is not even true anymore, this is an at least 3 years old complaint) is irrelevant on Linux, as your app is often already open when you login.

3) Zero viruses and almost complete protection from spyware

There is no such thing as "complete protection" as most computer-related maladies today are caused not by a hole in the system but rather the actions of a stupid user. That said, a stupid user is much more like to screw up an xorg/x11 setting in a Linux environment than get a malicious program.

It's pretty apparent you have only shallow knowledge of UNIX, or any Linux distribution.

The protection from viruses is inherent to the OS design. Unix and therefore Linux are virus prone. The only automated things that can get to a Linux or Unix system are worms and attacks based on exploits (holes in the system). There even were open-source viruses sites that warned that these viruses had no chance of working on Linux.

A "stupid user" will have a hard time even screwing up its xorg/X11 setting on Ubuntu actually.

The very same users that were deemed stupid on Windows like you're doing right now, never managed to break any of the Ubuntu (or formerly Mandriva or Mandrake) I installed for them in replacement of Windows.

Strangely enough, they weren't stupid anymore on Linux. They could even click every mail they had without fear of being infected, and then be called stupid because they *gasp* clicked on an email.

This "blame the user" to protect a flawed OS is sth I always despised, and it's a Windows only thing.

4) Free. Completely free. Major new versions of Linux distributions are relaesed every six months or so with more new features than a new version of Windows.

Free is good, but considering many PCs people buy come with Windows pre-installed (at a cost to them of course) and do not follow through the steps and hassle of getting it refunded, free is a hard argument to sell against Window's "free."

Whatever you say, Linux and most Linux desktop distros are still free.

5) Looks better than Windows. Search youtube for "Compiz". Wobby windows, transparency, multiple desktops.... much better than Vista, and thousands of free themes and icon sets that don't require hacks like Windows does to use.

Your last point is a mixed bag. For example, I hate the SuSE font setup and no matter how much tweaking I do it's never just right for me. Compiz/Beryl offer some pretty jawdropping desktop visual effects though. Multiple desktops are something I really like in Linux because they're right there out of the box and they work very well. I have some minor gripes but nothing really bad.

Overall, I recommend Linux if you have something specific you want to do with it. As it stands there are just too many things that I run into on a daily basis which require or simply work better on Windows to make Linux viable for me all the time and that's why I prefer a dual-boot setup.

If you have the time and desire, you may as well try it. Linux (and Open Source) is all about creating options and alternatives... and you can never have too many options.

 

Looks are a subjective matter anyway. I would never recommend Linux to someone because 'it looks better'.

Ubuntu doesn't use KDE, it uses Gnome, so the fonts problem is not a problem. I don't know why fonts are a problem on some distro's KDE as the underlying engine is the same as for Gnome.

Linux is always recommended, you can have countless reasons to try it or prefer it to Windows. It depends on what you want. Actually, the main feature of Linux, or rather GNU, as that's actually the OS name (Linux is just what we call the kernel, the core upon which the OS lay if you want), is freedom. There's also power, but that's when you're starting to know how to use an OS, which means when it starts being a tool and not a burden. GNU is based on freedom, and every Free Software is based on freedom. Open Source is sth not really defined and that's going downhill. But Free Software seems like it's here to stay.

As to why Linux?

The day you understand the importance of freedom in computing and the day you understand how powerful GNU is, you won't want to go back.

Most people run into Windows problems constantly, but put all their problems on the local geek that will lose countless hours of his time for free, to fix the plague of Windows problems. I suffered from this very situation until 2001 where I went Windows free, and said to all the people that called me that I didn't do any Windows support anymore, but that if they want I can install Linux and support it for them. A lot of them switched to Linux then. I received nearly no call anymore then, and when I went to see most of these people, thinking they threw Linux away, they were still using it! Actually, it never broke down, which is why they weren't calling me. Even when they had big problems like the scanner in their brand new printer/scanner combo wasn't working, or some Flash site wasn't working, they didn't call, they deemed that minor as everything else was working so well, while in Windows they were mindlessly clicking on so many error dialogs. What impressed me more was when I switched them from Mandriva (which uses KDE) to Ubuntu (which uses Gnome). I feared they'd loathe the change. Well, they all liked it and accepted it without problem at all.

So there it is, you can have many reasons as to why Linux.