2.1.
Here are a few core reasons ...
Up one level
-
- It's free. Not free as in, put your feet up and it does the
housework for you, but free as in you don't have to part with any money
in order to get a copy. Also, Free as in you can use it however you
wish
without being subject activation procedures and upgrade costs. This
isn't to say it's
not going to take more
time to learn .. will it effectively end up costing you more to run a
Linux
box than a Windows box ? there is a possibility it will, but it's
likely
it won't. Much is made of TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) when it comes
to comparing the Linux to Windows and it's possible to argue that
either one is cheaper than the other. At the end of the day though,
Linux is still Free, Windows is not.
- It's faster. I guess you could argue this until the cows come home and to a degree the term faster is very subjective. My definition of faster is to install both Windows and Linux on the same (well specc'd) machine, then let a user use the machine for a day using Windows, then a day using Linux - then let the user decide.
- It's
more robust. I recently attended a presentation by a
reputable Internet statistics company who quoted the average uptime of
a Windows server as around 20 days (or less) and the average uptime of
a Linux server as difficult to measure as they often exceeded time
spans between power cuts. Personally I've never had a Windows box
that does not crash on a relatively regular basis. To put regular into
perspective, my main server just suffered a power outage and restarted
after 620 days of uptime.
- Linux
(generally) isn't going to take legal action against you for using it
in the wrong way, or for not obtaining the correct license, or for
installing the wrong license key on the wrong machine. Indeed it's not going to refuse to re-activate itself if you have to re-install it on a new machine because your old machine has expired. There are some
caveats you should be aware of if you plan to resell Linux, or if you
plan to use the word "Linux" in your company name, but for 'users' it's
relatively safe territory.
- Linux
isn't [as] susceptible to viruses as Windows. I'm saying [as] because
I'm not aware of any viruses in circulation that would effect Linux
through email or web sites, but that's not to say it's impossible or
that there aren't any. Just as an example, around four years ago I had
to install a copy of Windows 2000 Server onto an IBM PC, and made the
mistake of carrying out the operation with an Internet connection
plugged in. My logic being that during the install there was a
requirement to download and install countless patches and upgrades from
Microsoft's web site. Sound reasonable? it did to me at the time...
however 45 minutes into the second stage of the install, I received a
call from my ISP's support department asking why I was port scanning
their core network. That's how long it can take for a Windows 2000 box
to acquire a virus, without doing anything more than a Windows update.
Needless to say I had to wipe the box and start again, this time
running the process behind a Linux firewall. I've since heard figures
banded about on the news about this timescale actually being closer to
22 seconds ... either way, it is a problem.
- Linux applications now provide everything that most people
want
from an office package. I'm referring to Sun StarOffice / Open Office.
OO
of course being free and providing all the facilities you would want
from an office package, including the ability to read/write most
Microsoft format
files. Indeed after using Open Office in preference to Microsoft Office
for
the last year or two, I now much prefer Open Office and would no longer
opt for Microsoft Office on Linux, even if there was a choice and if
Microsoft Office
were free. Just for completeness I should mention there are
alternatives to OO, Abiword also makes a great wordprocessor and
gnumeric is good competition on the spreadsheet front.
- Local
area network support, IMHO wipes the floor with Windows on
all fronts. The security is better, the support for different protocols
and services outstrips Windows by miles, and recent speed tests suggest
that Linux's implementation (SAMBA) of Microsoft's own local area network
protocol (SMB) is actually faster than Microsoft's own implementation.
(but I guess this could just be Linux being inherently quicker?)
- Internet support, well, this should speak for itself - Linux
leaves Windows so far behind it's probably not even worth
delving into this one.
- Cost, Ok so I'm covering the free point again. But just to
push the point home - we're running a number of servers and workstations
that cover web services, web design, publishing, word processing, chat
servers, chat clients, spreadsheets etc etc, total cost of software in
use - zero. Total number of licenses required - zero. Total number of
hours spent tracking licenses and worrying about licensing - zero.
Amount of stress suffered from wondering if the latest license tracking
software is 100% accurate - zero. [again, see the Notes]
- 64bit processing, at the time of writing, as far as I'm aware /
according to current press:: Windows only runs on 32bit processors.
Linux has been running on 64bit chips since 1994. Just as a point of
reference, here's something from 1996 where we were speed testing 64bit
Linux on DEC Alpha chips. (BogoMip trials)
