Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Microsoft Windows and Linux

My thoughts on Windows and Linux

I am fairly new to Linux, but in my experience I will say that it is a 90% alternative to Windows.
Linux has everything you need if your just doing basic computing.
For an office suite there is Open Office. I've used it numerous times and can say that it is even better than Microsoft Office.
I have never had an open office application crash on me, while Microsoft office has crashed on my many times.
Internet browser, the web standard is Firefox, which Linux comes with pre-installed on startup. Firefox is probably the best browser out right now, it is very secure, very stable, and is very fast. Internet explorer is bloated, slow, veryun-secure.
I haven't used it too much but instead of photoshop it has The Gimp. To me I would still use Adobe's products only because I haven't used Gimp too much.

Linux, by the way, is an all open source project, meaning that someone anyone, who knows how, could use Linux and make there own, make it better, etc... While as Microsoft, it is a commercial, closed-source project. It is strictly in the hands of Windows. Linux pretty much has any alternative to anything Windows has, and even a Mac.

Now Windows on the other hand is also a good operating system. I will not say that it sucks because it doesn't suck. We all grew up on windows, we know how it works, and it is the standard.
But because windows has over 90% of the market, it has made it a target for adware, viruses, trojans, spyware, etc... Windows is the least secure operating system out there. Linux and Macs do not have this problem.
The big thing Windows has that Linux does not have is gaming compatibility. Basically all PC games are made for windows, but even then Linux has Wine, (Wine is a Windows emulator that allows your Linux OS to use Windows programs and install .exe files). But games on Linux doesn't go as smoothly as it does on Windows.

Things to consider if you switch to Linux:

* It isn't Windows, expect to learn new things, while Linux nowadays isn't hard to figure out, don't expect it to run like Windows.
* Linux has an open source alternative to anything Windows has.
* Find your community. I use Ubuntu, and on their website they have a forum board where you can post any topic you want, and most likely someone Will help you on your problem.
It is a great way of learning how to use Linux if your new.
* Anything Windows does, Linux could do it better (most of the time)


But here are some gripes on Linux. Some things don't work as smoothly as Windows, such as Quick time, it tends to be buggy sometimes, but it does work. The media players are notiTunes or Windows Media Player. If you want to use an iPod with Linux, expect to ask someone because it is pretty hard setting it up at first. A good media player for Linux in my opinion is Songbird. It is an application made from Mozilla, who also doFirefox.
But there it is, Windows is the industry standard, Linux is rising.
If you don't want to only use Linux or Windows, you can install Linux using a DUAL-BOOT method. My next video will show you how to installUbuntu in a dual boot.
Thanks for reading, please subscribe if you like my articles and video, also subscribe to my YouTube channel here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/BigDawgDesigns

1 comment:

tri said...

thanks for your post. i've just downloaded ubuntu, and am still hesitant about installing it. your videos on youtube and your blogpost really convinced me that ubuntu might just be really better. again, thanks so much for doing this!