I am sitting here using my brand new Linux computer. Including a $100 monitor (if I had to buy one) it would cost under $500. That is an amazing price for a totally new 2.6 Mhz dual processor 64 bit system. I beat out the high $100 additional cost of the operating system by installing the totally free openSuSE Linux. Not only does it supply the OS but includes for free all the software needed for most daily computer use.
There are several major “distributions” of Linux. Companies make a package (a distribution), put it in a box, and sell it for profit. However, The same companies also provided basically the same software free on the Internet for download. You don’t get the support and the printed instructions, but a lot of us don’t need it. The free open source (as it is known) is kind of a beta test for what gets into commercial products.
So finding the open source versions is a bit more complex as some companies make it a business to market commercial, locked down, fully supported versions, which are a bit less cutting edge than the free stuff but totally reliable for important applications. Sometimes you have to search web sites for the open source versions, Red Hat/Fedora and Novel SuSE/openSuSE are two examples..
No, Linux doesn’t and can’t replace all the windows custom software, but the office user is well covered with a program called Open Office that runs very well in Java. My Linux “box” is a great second or third computer without a high investment or the illegal copying of commercial licensed software.
I originally started experimenting with Linux in the mid 1990’s, a few years after it was first created by Linus Torvalds. It worked good with my amateur radio interests and was the first and probably still is the only OS that natively supports AX.25, a communication protocol for amateur radio packet transmission. I have had a Linux install on at least one computer I’ve own ever since.
In those start up days it was truly a hackers paradise to be running Linux. Each install had to be custom built from source code. Not so today. This latest (not last) install was just install and run. What a difference a decade or so can make.
The incremental updates are free and automatic (with an Internet connection) just like any operating system today except major updates are also free. Linux is also more hacker secure than Apple likes to brag, although nothing is totally safe. I sit behind a network firewall here at home.
If a computer user doesn’t know why they need Linux, then in my opinion they do not need Linux. I am not writing this specifically create converts. I think to some OS enthusiasts, Linux is a religion and they go at it like it was their mission to bash the other systems. I flow between them all. There are compelling reasons for each. I just mention a few good ones for Linux. Mostly the FREE part. Ha! I’d be willing to bet most (51%) computer “users” today don’t care a bit (pun?) about what OS is running their software, just that it works. Like a cell phone, if they can talk on it, they use it.
So I have just done my part. You know there are alternatives. If you haven’t at least heard the name Linux, you have been in a very sheltered world. If you want to learn more just do a Google on Linux. I don’t even have to provide a link. It is that popular these days. My mission is just to let you know I am one of “those people” and I am not such a bad guy, …really! …I like and understand Linux.