Stan Beer
Monday, 12 November 2007 14:21
Opinion and Analysis
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:
Performance
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?
