100 reasons Linux beats Windows

David M Williams
Sunday, 28 September 2008 10:30

Opinion and Analysis

60. Linux provides unparalleled security tools. You can diagnose and manage your network for free, but tools to perform the same amount of functionality under Windows cost huge amounts of money.

61. Sure, some of these Linux tools are available for Windows, but they’re often crippled. That’s not by design from the authors but because Windows’ TCP/IP stack has limitations that Linux does not.

62. Linux brought about the entire Netbook subnotebook market. The Netbook wouldn’t have seen the light of day if it weren’t for a license-free operating system and suite of applications to help slash the price.

63. In a similar vein, the One Laptop Per Child project also would have suffered if it were restricted to proprietary operating systems and applications.

64. Linux can help you eradicate spam without cost. In fact, Spam Assassin – one of the most popular open source anti-spam systems – is the basis of many a commercial anti-spam product. By contrast a product like Symantec Mail Security is around $30/mailbox. A service like MessageLabs also costs per mailbox.

65. The open source philosophy protects you from malice due to the inordinate amount of peer review it offers. You wouldn’t have the G-Archiver Trojan stealing Gmail passwords if it were open source, for instance.

66. Nor for that matter would Apple’s dirty Safari installer have happened in open source where unwitting iTunes users installed the Safari web browser onto their computers.

67. Schools worldwide have reported that their costs have gone down when using Linux for their school computing environment over proprietary operating systems. And in every case the schools reported the children had no problems whatsoever using the Linux environment.

68. According to a survey by Waugh Partners open source developers earn more than their Windows counterparts, and they are combating trade deficit too.

69. You can even be sponsored by Google to contribute to open source projects during their annual summer of code.

70. Microsoft Windows Vista places a heftier burden on your hardware than does Linux. As does Internet Explorer over Firefox and Microsoft Office over Open Office. Get better performance out of your new hardware by using Linux and open source apps!

71. Linux gives companies a much greater server environment than Microsoft’s Small Business Server (SBS). You don’t have to suffer the limitations of SBS when you can have it all with Linux.

72. The dog that is Windows Vista is actively turning people to Linux.

73. Open source software offers a better version of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server than Microsoft do. In fact, SharePoint proves the folly in the claim that Microsoft applications are graphical and friendly compared to Linux equivalents.

74. Linux is released when it is ready. The software is free so there is no pressure to release it before it is ready just to achieve sales targets.

75. Additionally, the personal reputation of the developer is attached to every release. This too helps ensure the quality and robustness of the software.

76. Linux is a multi-user system and has always been so. You can have many hundreds of Linux users all working off the one system. Sure, Windows offers Terminal Services but it’s not the default, and there’s an extra license per user.

77. Linux lets you spread the file system over as many different hard drives and partitions as you want but still appear like a seamless whole. The /home directory is always /home no matter if it is moved to its own disk. Under Windows even if you choose to relocate the (say) Documents folder under a user account you’ll still find dumb-ass apps which try to write directly to c:\users\...\Documents.

78. By the same token, if your C:\Program Files directory gets too big you have to uninstall and reinstall apps to move them onto a different hard drive. Once again, with Linux you just plug in the new drive and make a few symbolic links. The file system hierarchy can be tweaked and twiddled as much as you like with no confusion.

79. Linux has immensely powerful scripting languages which give great power to systems administrators as well as allowing any user to automate routine tasks.

CONTINUED