09 November 2013

Why Linux?

I am a huge Linux fan. I love the idea of open source, I love the idea that information wants to be free. I think that Linux has done a lot of good for the entire computer industry. In fact I believe that in future all operating systems will be free. Apple has already moved in that direction (I say free as in free beer).

In this post I want to explain why I think Linux is awesome as a desktop. There are a bunch of reasons why you would not want to use Linux and maybe I will write about that some time but in an attempt to keep my post focused I will write about what I think are the good points.

Free (as in free beer)
Free is an awesome price point and cannot be argued with. There are many flavours of Linux and with some research you will be able to find something to your tastes, best of all it's free. I have not included the "Free as in free speech" argument because to be honest the people who care about that are most probably already on Linux and the people who don't... well they just don't and it doesn't matter.

Secure
Linux is a super secure operating system. Trojans, viruses and other forms of malware basically don't exist on Linux. Open code and fast response time to vulnerabilities all contribute to Linux being one of the most secure operating systems around. This is in fact one of the best reasons to install Linux for people who don't know their ways around computers all that well. There is nothing as frustrating as being new to computers and then having your computer infected with some form of virus.

Easy on Resources
Operating systems these days are getting resource hungry Windows 8 is a perfect example, where the minimum recommended amount of RAM is about two gigabytes. Linux is a lot less resource intensive, you can happily run Linux on older, slower hardware. Also Linux runs well for longer, in my experience Windows starts to get slower the longer you have it running.

Free Applications
You will find free versions of most of the applications you work on in Linux, now that does not mean that those versions will automatically be better. However if you are starting out with something, say for example image manipulation and you don't have a specific favourite tool, you can easily look at something like GIMP or Blender if you want to do some 3D rendering. Also most of the applications you already use are available on Linux (firefox, chrome, dropboxvlc and many more).

Final Note
Those for me are some of the really cool reasons to use Linux, but remember it's better to use the right tool for the right job, if Linux is not the tool for you then use whatever is right.