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there's no reason not to try Linux. Reasons why Linux belongs on your desktop:
1.Cost -- Linux is free, including applications. Vista Home Premium and Ultimate cost hundreds of dollars, even when upgrading from Windows XP. Moving up to Office 2007 involves handing over another bundle of dollars.
2.Resources -- Even the most lavishly equipped Linux distros demand no more resources than Windows XP. Vista is obese requiring 2GB of RAM and 15GB of hard disk space, is grossly obese. Linux can fit on and even run from a CD.
3.Performance -- Linux worked faster on my Dell Inspiron Core Duo than XP, at least the way XP worked out of the box. After cleaning out the bloatware and trading McAfee's Abrams Tank for the lightweight NOD32, XP and Linux (with Guarddog and Clam-AV) perform at similar speed.
4.No Bloat -- Linux is free from adware, trialware, shovelware, and bloatware. Running Linux is like watching the public TV network.
5.Security -- Last year, 48,000 new virus signatures were documented for Windows, compared to 40 for Linux. Still, most distros come with firewalls and antivirus (AV) software. Programs like Guarddog and Clam-AV are free, of course.
6.Reliability -- The Blue Screen of Death doesn't exist in the Linux world. Linux systems, just like Unix and NetWare, can run for years without failure. Operating system crashes (called "kernel panics" in Linux) are rare - many Linux users have never seen a crash. ZDNet's test of Linux vs NT showed that Linux simply does not fail.
7.Dual booting -- The best Linux distros make dual booting a simple affair, along with the required disk partitioning (so you don't need to buy partitioning software). Windows on my Dell laptop is still intact after installing and uninstalling a dozen distros.
8.Installation -- Anyone who's done it once knows that installing Windows from scratch takes hours or even days by the time you get all your apps up and running. With Linux, it can take as little as half an hour to install the operating system, utilities, and a full set of applications. No registration or activation is required, no paperwork, and no excruciating pack drill.
9.Reinstalling the OS -- You can't just download an updated version of Windows. You have to use the CD that came with your PC and download all the patches Microsoft has issued since the CD was made. With Linux, you simply download the latest version of your distro (no questions asked) and, assuming your data files live in a separate disk partition, there's no need to reinstall them. You only need to re-install the extra programs you added to the ones that came with the distro.
10.Keeping track of software -- Like most Windows users, I have a shelf full of software CDs and keep a little book with serial numbers under my bed in case I have to reinstall the lot. With Linux, there are no serial numbers or passwords to lose or worry about. Not a single one.
11.No Registry – When Microsoft introduced the Registry in Windows 95, it was applauded as being a mechanism that brought order to the chaos of the Windows 3.X "ini" files. At the time, we had no idea that the Registry would be such a handicap and get in the way of effectively managing networks of Windows machines. The Registry makes managing a Windows machine complex and difficult and is known to be responsible for some reliability problems. In retrospect, the "ini" files were not so bad now that we've tasted the Registry. Linux is managed by simple, plain text, easy to troubleshoot, configuration files.
12.Software Updates -- Linux updates all the software on your system whenever updates are available online, including all applications programs. Microsoft does that for Windows software but you have to update each program you've added from other sources. That's about 60 on each of my PCs. More icing on the Linux cake is that it doesn't ask you to reboot after updates. XP nags you every ten minutes until you curse and reboot your machine. If you choose "custom install" to select only the updates you want, XP hounds you like a mangy neighborhood dog until you give in.
13.No Reboots – Some Windows configuration changes require a reboot. Reconfigure a Windows file server during the day and you impact everyone. This limits system maintenance to off hours or impacts productivity. Nearly all Linux configuration changes can be done with the system running, without affecting unrelated services and without having to reboot. Reconfigure a Linux server and users may not notice.
14.File Management – Even Microsoft's latest new versions of Windows use a file system that has fragmentation problems just like the early-1980s vintage DOS. A Windows file server must be defragged frequently. Linux uses different file systems that don't need defragging. NTFS was going to be replaced in Vista, but Microsoft's new file system didn't make the final cut. Instead, Vista does scheduled disk defragging by default, but the defrag utility is a sad affair.
15.Utilities -- The utilities supplied with Windows are pretty ordinary on the whole, that's why so many small software firms have made a nice living writing better ones. Linux programs are comparable with the best Windows freeware, from CD burners to photo managers, memory monitors and disk utilities. PDF conversion is built-in, both into OpenOffice Writer and into the DTP application Scribus. All you do is click a button on the task bar.
16.Support -- Linux is the best supported operating system of all time. The reason is the Internet. You can get help from tens of thousands of enthusiastic Linux users and programmers. Support is free - the answers you get come from people who are not paid to help you. You'll hear about solutions to your problems that include dumping what you have and replacing it with something better - advice that you don't hear from vendors of commercial software.
17.No SIDs – Cloning Windows systems is made more difficult by the SID (system identifier) that must be unique between machines. With Windows XP and its hardware-based licensing scheme, cloning systems becomes not only very difficult but illegal - according to Microsoft's licensing terms. Linux has no need for system identifiers. Each Linux machine is distinguished by its name and IP address. Both of these are easily modified and require no rebooting. Cloning Linux systems is dead simple.
18.No Licensing – Upgrading Windows software is more difficult than it should be because of licensing. The licensing schemes vary but the result is that you have to jump through hoops to install or upgrade software. Linux and its system programs have no license-enforcement mechanism. No hoops.
19.Privacy – Every few months or so it seems that there's yet another report of a Microsoft product that behaves in a way that raises concerns about our privacy. We don't have these concerns when we use Linux and Open Source software because functions that would violate our privacy would be detected when the code is scrutinized by an army of Linux enthusiasts.
20.GUI Optional – Windows carries its resource-intensive GUI baggage around at all times. Yet, some systems, such as web servers and file servers, do not need a GUI and don't benefit by it. The Linux GUI (X Window) is an optional subsystem that you can choose to use or not. Additionally, you can start and stop the GUI anytime you like without restarting the system or impacting any programs already running.
21.Control – With the Windows NTFS filesystem, users can easily hide files and whole directories from the system administrator. The administrator is left wondering about diminishing free disk space and almost powerless to do anything about it. Users can do this using normal permissions as well as NTFS streams. In contrast, the Linux system administrator always has an unobstructed view of the file system and is always in control.
22.Modular – Windows is a "one size fits all" operating system. You can use it for workstation or server applications - one application or many. The problem is that its size is always extra large and getting substantially larger with each new release. Keeping code size small and efficient is not a Microsoft concern given the number of Easter Eggs that have been discovered in Microsoft applications. Linux is small by comparison and has no Easter Eggs. You can easily reconfigure the Linux operating system to only include those services needed for your application. This reduces memory requirements, may improve performance, and generally keeps things simpler.
23.Multi-Platform – Windows is limited to Intel and Intel-compatible processors and only certain machine architectures such as PCs. In striking contrast, Linux and other Unix-compatible operating systems work on a wide variety of processors and machine architectures - from a Macintosh to a mainframe.
24.Open Protocols – Linux uses open protocols exclusively. There are no proprietary vendor protocols that try to lock you in to certain vendors and products. Monopolies need not exist in the Linux world.
25.Networking – Linux machines can access your NetWare file servers. Novell's eDirectory for Linux makes managing a large network of Linux machines downright simple. A Linux computer can act as a client and/or a server in a Microsoft Windows-based network. This includes a Windows peer-to-peer network as well as a domain-based network. A Linux machine can emulate a Windows server and many say that it does a better job of this than Windows. Linux also integrates with Macintosh networks . A Linux machine can provide print and file services to Macintosh clients via native Apple protocols.
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