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In my massive amount of free time thanks to being unemployed I decided to resurrect an old Windows 98 PC I had lying around. There was nothing wrong with the machine. It worked just fine. It was just, well, old, slow, and cranky. It would probably run a little better if I (again) re-installed Windows on it but been there and done that.
No, I decided to wipe out the drive and start fresh. Time to look at Linux again. You see, many years I had installed an early 0.99 version of Slackware (yay Bob!) and had a cool dual boot system with Windows 98. But I ran out of drive space and decided that Windows 98 had the priority because there were more games available.
Skip ahead a few years and time to see what was new.
So Fedora Core 3 it was. I borrowed a copy from a friend of mine...oh, you can do that. Linux is free so it's OK to borrow copies. I borrowed a copy and booted up the CD. It recognized my machine specs - no problem. I created a swap partition - no problem - and I was off and installing. Within one hour I had Fedora running. Even better, I didn't have to do anything special for it to recognize my DSL connection.
But all was not well. It defaulted to Gnome and while there was nothing wrong with Gnome I wanted to try KDE. AND I FIGURED IT OUT!!! I was able to tell it to switch Window Managers. Yay for me.
But all was not well. Fedora was OK but I kept hearing about a distribution called Ubuntu and I wanted to try that. (By the way, this is a plus or minus for Linux depending on your attitude: too many distributions and it's to easy to try them. OTOH, it's free so what the hell.)
I downloaded the DVD ISO of Ubuntu, quickly installed. Gnome - yuck. I downloaded Kubuntu - the KDE version of Ubuntu, installed and Yay! In fact, It looks like I have both versions active because I can easily switch managers when I login. My kids use Gnome. I use KDE.
Here's what I like:
It's free. Windows costs and costs and that's just for the operating system.
It has likely about 90% of what you use in a computer. Unless you're a total gaming freak, Ubuntu (Linux) has about every program you'll need and them some. Do you use Microsoft Word? OpenOffice can replace that. Wordpad? Use Kate. Excel? Again, OpenOffice. In fact, for many businesses where the peons use basic programs like Microsoft Office, they could use Linux and save money. Even better, they won't have to upgrade their machines so frequently. Try running a newer version of Microsoft Office on an older machine. It's not pretty. But you can run Linux on older machines without problem. Linux is great way to blast out of the expensive Microsoft upgrade shuffle. (*)
It's as easy as and hard as Windows. Like Windows, most tasks are simple. Some tasks in Linux take a little learning. Unlike Windows, when the crap hits the fan I find it easier to fix the problem and, odds are, the fix won't involve reinstalling the os.
It's stable and secure. I've had programs lock up Windows where only a hard reboot fixes the problem. I've yet to have lockups in Linux. If a program has problems, you can easily "kill" it. With Windows, it's recommended to reinstall the os to fix Registry bloat. Linux doesn't have a Registry so no bloat. Windows has a bazillion viruses targetted for it, thanks, in part, to poor designs and slow patch releases. Linux has far fewer viruses and patches seem to be faster. On Windows, it's takes an tremendous effort to secure the ship, to set up custom logins. Consequently I don't allow my kids to "explore" on my Windows PC. The Linux PC defaults to where you have to set up user accounts - taking only a few minutes - and my kids have their own space. I have challenged them to explore the Linux machine.
So what don't I like about Linux?
It's still not easy to do some simple tasks, like installing a program that is not part of the Ubuntu offerings or sharing one of my private files with others. You still need a bit of "hacker" experience to get Linux to flow.
Too many tempting distributions. The latest Fedora should be out soon but the new version of Ubuntu should be out as well. It doesn't cost anything to try but it's too easy to fall into a mode where you spend more time installing and trying out distributions that getting work done.
In summary, Linux is ready for Primetime and then some. Sure it doesn't have the bazillion dollar budget of Windows but it's a viable and reliable alternative. You just have to use your brain cells occassionally but it's worth it and more.
(*) Microsoft used to do this nasty upgrade shuffle on consumers. You'd buy a computer with, say, Windows 98 and buy Office. All is well. Then they'd release a patch for Office that required an upgrade to the O.S. then something would break and the patch for that would be in the next version of the program or O.S.. So you wait for the next version and when you upgrade then you have to pay for the upgrade of the other and so on. From Windows 95 on up they'd have you stepping stone your way to the latest and greatest versions while draining your bank accounts. And for what? For new abilities, for security, for snazzy looks. Pffffft. Save your dollars - get a copy of Linux. Ubuntu is recommended.
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