Computersight -

You get features you don’t have in most other operating systems

In a majority of other operating systems, configuring your system so that it looks, acts and feels just the way you want it to isn’t always easy. For example, in Windows, say you wanted to have a taskbar at the top of the screen, but keep the start menu and such at the bottom. From what I have been able to tell, that isn’t possible yet. However, Linux’s two main rival desktop environments, GNOME and KDE, allow you to do this. Not only that, but you can have the clock on the left, in the middle, the program menus up there… The possibilities are endless. Also, configuring how pretty much every little detail looks is quite easy, I’ve found. Title bar buttons, scrollbars, screen savers (plenty of those), mouse cursors, login screens… The list goes on and on.

If it doesn’t work for you, you aren’t out much

One of the best things that I find first-time Linux users seem to enjoy the most is the relative cost of Linux: Most of the time, if you decide you don’t like it, and want to go back to whatever else you were using without looking back, all you lost was the cost for the CD (unless it was a gift), if you downloaded, the time to download and burn that CD, and the time you used learning how to get around.

It makes a great recovery CD

A recovery CD? What’s that, you may ask. I define it as an emergency boot CD I can pop in and start up whenever my computer’s OS will not boot, and I need to get those critically important project papers off of the hard disk for the next day’s presentation. Yeah, I’ve been there too. Not much fun, normally, but then, you probably didn’t have that recovery CD. Pop it in, boot it up, and you’ve got a working system again! Make a backup of those critical files, and then you can re-install with ease. Easy, wasn’t it?

Software Libre

The whole concept of Free Software and Open Sourcedness to me is one which draws me towards this OS. Why? Well, let’s say that someone didn’t do all that great of a job translating menus from another language, and you want to finish the job. If the software is Open Source, all you need to do is download the source code, find the section which has to do with the menu titles, and change them.

All you need to get started comes on one CD

Once you get a Linux, you usually have all you need to get started: Word processor, graphics editing, music playing, some games, web browsing, mail checking, instant messaging, file transfers, and more! These are some of the things that many Linux distros come with: About 2 gigs of software, crammed onto one 700MB CD! Compare that to Windows Vista, which the base OS comes with a few games, win media, web browser, text editing, MS-Paint, and, uh, a solitaire game which you need a fancy 3D card to be able to play. Yay. Also, Linux distributions like PCLinuxOS come with Beryl: A 3D window manager that blows away Vista’s 3D effects, and runs on hardware Vista will refuse to run on.

More companies are beginning to support Linux

As Linux becomes more dominant on the Desktop sector of the PC market, more and more companies are beginning to release software that can run on Linux as well. One popular example is Second Life. They have successfully open-sourced their browser in order to allow more users to use their product. Although open-source software is very appreciated, that’s not necessary. Graphic card companies, such as ATI and NVidia, release binary-only modules for the Linux kernel. Google supports Linux software, and has released much of it’s own. And, more hardware companies are testing their products to ensure Linux compatibility.

Price

The thing is free! Usually, that is. There are some distributions that you pay for, mainly because they come with manuals, tech support numbers, boxes, etc. But, the majority of Linux distros are free to download, burn, and use. After all, who doesn’t like a free handout?

Choice

Linux is all about choice. If you don’t like one program, you are free, and encouraged to, try another program, or write your own if you have the know-how, or ask for someone to write it. So, for example, if you don’t like OpenOffice.Org office suite, there’s, for example, koffice, the KDE office suite. But the choices don’t stop there! In fact there are over 400 different Linux distributions out there! Each one set up with different software, theming, and more!

Hardware Support

Linux supports a wide range of hardware to run on, even wider than that of Microsoft Windows. Linux can be run in your car, in a router, as a desktop, for a mainframe, as a web/mail server, watches, BIOSes, and more!

Reliability

In my experiences with Linux, which have been going on five years now, it has been my experience that it is quite stable, as compared to Microsoft’s popular operating system. But, it goes deeper than that. With the way that the users are set up, regarding file permissions, if a user were to get a virus, the virus would be contained withing that user’s files only. Unless, of course, the user were to execute the virus with either the sudo or su commands. This also means that a regular user cannot delete important programs, or install them into the main part of the system. The programs will usually run fine from the user’s home directory, so the amount of damage one user can make is usually limited to their own files only.

Also, I’ve found that a Linux box will stay extremely stable, unless you start playing around with files in the /etc directory. So, make sure you make backups of these critical system configuration files before learning through experience, unless you don’t mind re-installing a botched system. An ounce of prevention, and all that.

In conclusion, I hope that these 10 points will help you chose Linux, the free operating system by Linus Torvalds. If not, well, that’s OK, it’s your choice to make. The spirit of Linux, the Freedom of Choice, is yours as well.