20 reasons to shed the Microsoft yoke and use Linux

By Sam Varghese
Tuesday, 09 September 2008 04:58

Opinion and Analysis

6. Hardware support: If truth be told, Linux supports a much bigger range of hardware than Windows. Support for wireless is spotty but it is not an impossible hurdle to surmount. It is certainly a minor irritant in the bigger scheme of things - and I'm speaking as one who has used Vista with, and without, service pack 1. There is certainly enough hardware in the market to use with a GNU/Linux system.

But when it comes to wireless speeds, GNU/Linux beats Windows hands down. Once again, this is from personal experience - I had all three operating systems in the house. The Macs run fastest, GNU/Linux is a close second and Windows is a dog, despite hours of tweaking.

7. Support: One of the major irritants with GNU/Linux systems is faced by people with itchy fingers who have grown used to fiddling with Windows just to keep the system as it is - something like running in the same spot.

With GNU/Linux, it gets boring at times because things just keep running.

There is no surprise awaiting you because wearecomingtogetyou.com (I just picked that one out of the air) has installed some malware on your PC which is slowing down your internet connection and you have to fiddle to get things back to normal.

8. Abundance of software: Repetitious argument, covered in point 4.

9. Familiarity: This one is a furphy, it is no argument at all. If you were in a bad marriage, would you stick with it due to the familiarity factor? Just how much pain would you put up with? How many irritants are you willing to put up with from Windows before you go over the top? You would probably become familiar with something else pretty soon if you really wanted to.

10. Microsoft: If one says that this company continues to change, evolve and improve, then I can't argue. The changes are generally for the worse. The evolution is in the direction of more mediocrity. And the improvements are in snooping on customers - Vista is a super snoop in finding out everything you are doing on your PC and reporting it back to Redmond. If your argument is that you have nothing to fear unless you are not breaking the law, then why don't you keep your bedroom windows open when you sleep with your partner??? That's not a criminal activity, now, is it?

11. Simplicity: Has anyone seen anything more complex than the Windows registry? This single point of failure on a Windows system is a mystery to even seasoned Windows admins. GNU/Linux has all its configuration settings in text files. Easy to change and reload without rebooting.