Why should you try Linux?

Many people use operating systems such as Windows or OS X merely because it came installed on the computer they purchased. Have you ever considered using Linux? There are many reasons to give Linux a try and below I will go over 5 of the main reasons I feel someone should at least try Linux at some point or another.

It works on old hardware. If you have an older computer that you're not quite sure what to do with, Linux can give it new life. You might for instance, use a Linux distribution to turn an older computer into a media file server to have a centralized location for all your media.

It's highly customizable. As with other operating systems, it's possible to customize Linux to look the way you would like it to look. If you don't like the desktop environment that came with the Linux distribution you installed then you can just install a different one without having to do a total new installation.

Tinkering with it provides an opportunity to learn. I will be the first to admit that the learning curve for Linux is pretty high BUT the community of the more popular Linux distributions are great and many are eager to help out newby usrs. For instance, Ubuntu has a great community over at their forums.

There's a wide variety of distributions available. If you downloaded one and didn't like the way it looked or for whatever reason, there are so many different Linux distributions out there that there will certainly be something for everyone. As I mentioned already, if you don't like just a few things within it you can customize it.

It's FREE to download and use. You can't really argue with FREE. All that one has to do is download the .iso file and write the image to a cd, dvd, or usb stick depending on the size of the .iso.

I hope that the reasons I have explained above convince you in at least trying a Linux distribution at some point and something I didn't mention is that you can just "try" them out from a live cd or a live usb without affecting your currently installed OS at all.

-Ubu out

Founder of GNU shuns Ubuntu - Claims Spyware

The founding member of the Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman, is advocating the rejection of the Ubuntu distribution, claiming the latest version contains dangerous surveillance code in his recent blog post.

When the user searches their own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's servers. Canonical is the company that develops Ubuntu. Stallman states, "This is just like the first surveillance practice I learned about in Windows." Ubuntu uses the information about searches to show the user ads to buy various things from Amazon.

Stallman writes, "The ads are not the problem, the main issue is the spying. Canonical says it does not tell Amazon who searched for what. However, it is just as bad for Canonical to collect your personal information as it would be for Amazon to collect it. Free software is suppose to give the user a chance to protect themselves from malicious software behaviors."

Proprietary software is associated with malicious treatment of the user; surveillance code, digital handcuffs (DRM or Digital Rights Management) to restrict users, and back doors that can do nasty things under remote control. Widely used examples include Windows, the iDevices, and the Amazon "Kindle" product for virtual book burning, which do all three. Macintosh and the Playstation 3 which impose DRM; most portable phones, which do spying and have back doors; Adobe Flash Player, which does spying and enforces DRM; and plenty of apps for iDevices and Android, which are guilty of one or more of these nasty practices.

Canonical does offer a way to turn the Amazon search results off. In it's own defense, they claim the revenue received from Amazon for including products links in Ubuntu search results is an important source of funds, and that it benefits the Linux community because the money goes toward developing open source software. Stallman doesn't agree and states, "Any excuse Canonical offers is inadequate; even if it used all the money it gets from Amazon to develop free software, that can hardly overcome what free software will lose if it ceases to offer an effective way to avoid abuse of it's users."

Personally, I don't feel it's that big of a deal since I can turn it off. You can as well, go to System Settings > Privacy > Inlcude Online results in search > OFF. I have always been a proponent of FOSS (Free Open Source Software) and will always prefer it over commercially available titles. How do you feel about it, is it as big a deal as Stallman is making it out to be? This is big news in the Free Software world because Ubuntu is the most widely used Desktop Linux distribution and Stallman is making waves.
-Ubu out