One of the questions I get a lot is “Why Linux?”
Why do I use Linux?
I can give you the standard lines… “It’s more secure than Windows”, “It’s more stable than Windows”….
While neither of these are untrue, it’s more than that.
1. Why do I find Linux more stable?
On the average, I have to reboot my linux boxes when I’m upgrading the kernel or adding hardware. ( I try to co-ordinate the two whenever possible. )
My average uptime is in the months. I have yet to manage to keep a windows machine up for more than a couple of weeks, before it starts to slow down or get a little weird.
Crashes are less common. Anyone who tells you that crashes never happen under Linux is selling you a line. However, rarely do you have to reboot over it. Usually, you have to just restart the program that crashed.
2. Why do I find it more secure?
Because Linux is based heavily on Unix, it has more inherant security out of the box. While it is not a Unix derivative ( like freeBSD is), it is still very heavily based on it. Of course this is not an excuse for not implementing a firewall and basic security to protect it further.
Also, Internet Explorer allows programs to download without a user’s permission. This is how sometimes you will be on the internet, then suddenly find that there’s software on your computer that you don’t recognise.
If you’re surfing with Linux, without any other software needing to be installed, you can surf in peace. Most browsers in newer versions of the major distributions of Linux, allow you to block pop-up windows. Also, most of the software that downloads behind the scenes is looking for a c:\windows or c:\winnt folder. Neither of these exists under Linux.
Some of this software can also cause a lot of problems with stability, when they overwrite files with their own versions of a file. Then you might find that a seemingly unrelated program goes berserk for no apparent reason, shortly after installation of one of these programs.
The large majority of viruses are created for windows. This is not to say that there are no viruses for Linux, but they are harder to get. Therefore, viruses are less of a concern, or at least the most common ones.
Viruses under Linux often are stopped in their tracks, as long as you don’t log in as root, to do normal use. Windows does not do this by default. Windows XP home especially, when it creates a user, by default the user is an adminstrator. This allows a user to damage the system way more than an unpriviledged user. By default, under windows, you have to remove rights from users. Linux, on the other hand, you have to -add- permissions. Out of the box, linux is harder to damage, unless you log in as root.
3. It’s Cost effective – You can use it on much slower hardware than the comparable Windows OSes.
Many distributions can be downloaded for free, and burned to CD. I am currently running the second latest version of Mandrake (9.1) on a P2-350 with 256MB of Ram. The entire OS, my website, email server, an office suite (OpenOffice), CD burning software, Graphics manipulations ( The Gimp, similar to Photoshop), and home directory is on less than 3.5 GB of space.
If there’s a program that you need, likely there’s a comparible program that’s been developed as Open Source and available at no cost on the internet.
4. So if it’s so perfect, why doesn’t everyone use it?
At this point, Linux is still a little ways away from the desktop. Many people use it, and more and more are trying it everyday.
Linux can be somewhat difficult to setup sometimes, depending on the hardware that it is being installed on. Often I will recommend that a first time user have an experienced linux user available to them for the first little while.
Linux isn’t without it’s faults. But with a little patience, many of them can be overcome, in my opinion, more easily than the several recurring Window problems, and security problems that we deal with everyday.