Onderstekop

I've been using Linux for a while now and I have totally fallen for it. Why? I'll tell you!

1. Linux is free

It seems like a cheap way to start and it is *badum-cha*, but the principle of free software (and I mean free in the sense of freedom) is great when you think about it. The GNU (which is a nerdy abbreviation for GNU's Not Unix) actually started out with the goal to make a completely free operating system. They came a long way but after months of work the original kernel was finished by a now famous Linus Torvalds, which used the GNU OS Kernel for his then new operating system 'Linux'. The rest is history, but it shows that the freeness of Linux is one of its roots.

2. Linux is safe

On my home LAN I've had a lot of trouble with spy ware and trojans. I've even had a warning from my ISP: if they see it happen again I will loose my internet connection, because then they would think there would be some kind of spamming or hacking going on, which off course isn't the case. I didn't want to loose my ISP, because they're quite good, but I felt strangely misled, because I didn't do anything wrong. But as it turns out: I did do something wrong...I've used Windows and Internet Explorer to surf the internet and that is something you should never do! Remember that!

I have been using the same Linux distribution for a couple of months now and surfed everywhere I could possibly surf without even having a virus scanner on board! It doesn't even need a virus scanner, because the security lies within the file, user and group system, but that's kind of hard to explain (you should see for yourself). Now the only thing I have to do is push my relatives into using Linux instead of WinXP and we are forever out of spyware trouble..-but that's more on a personal note-

3. Linux has a better GUI than Windows Vista

Linux used to be for the die-hard computer scientists who wanted to run a script or write a driver of their own, but that's all in the past now. Linux has matured and is nowadays build with a nice desktop environment that runs faster and looks better than Vista. Especially the software packages Beryl and Emerald draw a lot of eyes from the windows world (search for it on YouTube).

4. Linux comes with a lot of software

Microsoft Office? 200 Euro for a lousy word processor which auto corrects the hell out of your document? What about a decent painting package? PSP? Photoshop? +500 Euro? I don't know, but it is for sure that you can't start working on a freshly acquired Windows license (which already takes up half of the budget on modern pc's). There's a lot of stuff you still need to buy, but why would you bother? Linux (Debian clones anyway) comes with a nifty way of distributing their OS updates and applications through software repositories. These software repositories are usually big FTP servers with loads of software on them (and off course a list of what's on them - with descriptions and version numbers and all) so that once you have downloaded a package from this repository it's easily staying updated. How much applications can you download? My current repositories contain over 21000 free packages, but you could always add more...First time users shouldn't have to worry about that great unknown amount of downloads because most distributions will install the most common packages - such as a stable word processor, spreadsheet and database package- automatically.

5. Linux is open

This got something to do with the first point ('Linux is free'). Because of the fact Linux is free and because of the fact it's historically used a lot within the computer science sector most applications that are available are open source which means that other coders can take a look, alter or use the source for their own projects or to help improve the existing one. What does this mean for end-users? That everything is adjustable to your own needs! On Windows you can change your wallpaper and some of the colors, but on Linux you can change the whole appearance! You could even make it look like you are using a Mac or Windows Vista (but I don't know why you would want to do that). It just goes to show that almost everything is possible. What more do you want?

Do you want to give linux a try now? I suggest you take a look here at Ubuntu to download or order a liveCD which you can use to boot your computer. Linux will then boot straight off the cd and you can take a look without it having any effect on your current system! Good luck (and if you need any help - you're always free to leave a comment)