[ale] What's so great about Linux

[Linux Idiot]

re: http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/opinion/0608/08week.html

Your first paragraph says it all: "First, let me say that I am uniquely
unqualified to write about this week's topic.  Like most of you, I've
never used Linux...." That being said, why the hell would you do so?

Okay, here it is.  Anything you can do in Windows/NT, I can do with
Linux. It's not always going to be a better solution, but overall it
most definitely is. It's faster, more stable.  I know, I work with
Linux, NT 4.0 and Windows 95 on a daily basis.  Both NT and Windows 95
are resource hogs and require more memory and processing power to
perform the same functions of Linux on a lesser box.

I'm currently running Linux on my personal machine.  I've got the X gui
environment, with Netscape (browser, email and newsgroups).  I've got
Applixware Office package (which I can import Word documents to).  I'm
running a web server on this machine, I've got it providing network
support for three other machines (printing, file sharing..)

I can play Quake or Doom, I can run various Windows apps with a Windows
emulator.  I have support for my PalmPilot.  I can use it as a answering
machine and fax machine.  I have scanning support as well.  I've got a
Photoshop look alike called gimp which enables me to develop web page
graphics.  You can page me from my web server.

Now, regarding the difficulting of installation.  It's not that bad. 
There are a number of distributions available that have automated these
processes.  The bottom line is that you may spend more time installing
Linux then any of Microsoft's OS, but the time you save in productivity
will far exceed the extra set up time.  Not to mention the stability
issue. You'll also get a hell of alot more and better support from the
Linux community then you will from Microsoft. I've got NT 4.0 on a
laptop for work.  It routinely crashes at least one a week.  It's not a
robust operating system.  My Norton Utilities started complaining about
disk errors on my Windows 95 machine.  The solution is, backup and
reload.  I've done this more times than I can count with Windows 95. 
I've NEVER had to reload Linux.  NEVER.  I upgrade it constantly with
new and better software.  It's the most stable OS I've seen on a PC,
including any of the Microsoft offerings.

So, that being said, go out and pick up a copy of Red Hat Linux and
install it on your machine.  You can keep your other OS's, go the dual
boot route.  If you're not willing to at least give it a look or test
drive it, by damn quite writing about it.


-- 
Until later: Geoffrey		esoteric at denali.atlnet.com

Get Windows CE and watch Windows crash in the palm of your hand...