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Our Blogs The BeerFiles Can a small business afford not to run Linux?
Our Blogs The BeerFiles Can a small business afford not to run Linux? | Can a small business afford not to run Linux? |
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| by Stan Beer | |
| Monday, 12 November 2007 | |
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Page 2 of 3 Whether they're running a business or surfing the net at home, one thing users cannot abide is a sluggish unresponsive system. So the first reason a small business cannot afford to be without a Linux based system is: I copped some flack from the Windows crowd for some comments in the prequel to this story in which I expressed my dismay at how slow my highly configured computer ran under Windows Home Server. You would expect a desktop with a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM, and a GeForce GPU with 256MB DDR2 to run at blinding speed but my computer was as slow as an underpowered notebook. Apparently, this was my fault according to those who serve Redmond. I should have configured and optimised my computer correctly, chosen my security package more wisely, so I was just an idiot and a dumbass who didn't know what he was talking about. Well guess what? If I'm an idiot and a dumbass so is the Certified Microsoft Engineer who sold me the machine and set up my SOHO network. Actually, I know he's not an idiot and a dumbass. He's a good guy and a professional system builder with years of experience. Believe it or not, like most people who use computers for work, I don't have time to fiddle around to optimise my computers and network. It's cheaper and less troublesome for me to pay a professional to do that on a once off basis with occasional service calls if I need something special done. So why wasn't my Windows Home Server box running like greased lightning when my MCE finished his work? Me being a dumbass doesn't really provide an explanation. And if it's just a case of me being a dumbass, how come when I partitioned my disk and installed a dual boot Ubuntu 7.10 system without any special tweaking, only then, when I had Linux up and running, did my computer give me the sort of performance I expected from the hardware? The fact is Windows has become so bloated and requires so much additional bloatware for security and whatever other purposes that it generally runs slower than it should and uses far too much system resources. And Vista is even more resources hungry than previous versions of Windows. However, I'm sure there will be plenty of Windows experts out there to offer up the secrets that most of us dumbasses are missing to get the performance we should be getting from our Windows systems. While they're out there venturing their opinions, I can say with confidence that Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon runs very fast without any tweaking, as I'm fairly certain many other Linux distros do as well. This is the sort of performance that businesses need and shouldn't have to do without. So what other compelling reasons are there that make Linux a must for small businesses? |
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