5 reasons to upgrade from Windows Vista to Linux

David M Williams
Sunday, 07 September 2008 20:15

Opinion and Analysis

Windows Vista has been out for almost two years now but it still suffers from stability and compatibility issues, let alone an insatiable desire for beefier hardware. You don't have to live with it; here are five reasons why Linux makes a better choice for your computer.

One of the many differences between a computer and an appliance is that your computer’s system software can be easily updated. New features can be added. By contrast a whitegoods maker can’t easily add new features to their microwaves or washing machines once they’ve been constructed and sold. This is a realistic thing: even the simplest appliance can have programming flaws, or gain from improved logic or more user options.

Most readers will no doubt have upgraded the operating system on their own computer at some point, whether from Windows ’95 to Windows ’98 or Windows XP to Windows Vista or some other step.
Yet, an operating systems upgrade doesn’t necessarily have to wend its way through the range offered by one vendor. After all, just as you can replace the software that drives your computer in the first place so too you can replace it with anything that targets the same hardware.

This gives rise to many a possibility. You might love the look of the Apple MacBook but prefer Microsoft Windows over MacOS. No problem; Apple even make available a CD of Windows drivers for their MacBook hardware. Of course, I happen to think there’s another operating system you might want to consider, and here are 5 reasons why you would benefit from upgrading your Windows Vista computer to a modern Linux distribution like Ubuntu.

You can update every single piece of software on your computer with a single action.
The value of this can’t be underestimated. If you wanted to make sure you had the latest security patches, bug fixes and general enhancements for every single item of hardware and every single piece of software on your computer you would need to check an awful lot of places.

Microsoft Update is a good starting point, and will identify available upgrades for all your Microsoft software as well as a good range of hardware drivers but (logically) it stops there. You must also check Adobe’s web site for new versions of their PDF reader, it’s prudent to check your hardware vendors for their new drivers, and so on, for everything.

With Linux updating is simple. When you check for updates this includes everything – the operating system, your applications, support libraries, hardware drivers. It’s all checked for new versions and updated in the one go.

What’s more, Linux actively records the version of every one of these items installed meaning the check for updates is blisteringly fast compared to that of Microsoft Update which instead appears to scan through your hard drive and check what you have installed that way – or whatever it does, it’s certainly far less efficient.

So that’s one. Let me give you four more reasons to upgrade.

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