The Linux Vs Windows Battle…..
Years have past since the invention known as the computer (that is, as we know it today), and along with that have come programs, games, and other applications. Also with this new technologically advanced (so called) society have come the computer operating systems, known also as an OS.
Among the popular and well known Windows operating systems (such as Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, NT, XP and the coming Vista) are other operating systems that have been competing to be the top dog OS. These would be the Linux (Red Hat, Fedora, Mandrake, and Suse) and the Mac OSX (Tiger). While the Mac tends to have its own operating system, the PC is still competing among two of them, Linux and Microsoft Windows.
So what's the big deal? Most common users know of the Windows OS and that floats their boats just fine, and why? Well most haven't heard of Linux or even know enough about a computer to know what an OS is, but for us computer literate, more advanced users, there is more to the story, enough to raise question about which operating system really is the best and what are the reasons behind this controversy? Well to know the beginning you must know what an OS is.
An Operating system is a program designed to allow other programs and users to control and operate the physical hardware on the computer. Many applications (or programs) rely on an Operating System to be able to use and operate the parts of the computer as needed. In general, there is the computer hardware, the parts inside, then the Operating system, and then the programs that use the OS to communicate with the hardware. Most programs are built to function on a specific operating system, and then the operating system takes care of the hardware communication for that program. That is the basic idea of an OS though I could write several pages on how it really works and what else they can do.
Now forward to the teeth grinding debate over these two nemeses, Linux and Windows. The first and often most mentioned difference between the two Operating Systems are the price, Microsoft has often been called greedy and stingy with the software, when you compare prices you can see how people come with this idea, A full install of Microsoft Windows XP Professional, runs generally around $250, yes two hundred fifty dollars for a disk with a program that you are technically just borrowing. Linux on the other hand has numerous comparable OSes that you can legally download off of the internet for free, and believe me it is not an easy task making an OS, but they offer it free online, while there are some corporate Linux OSes that do cost, they are still much cheaper that the Microsoft equivalent. $250 or free what is your choice?
Now that we have money out of the way for a while we can talk about other things, what about change? Yes change, what if you wanted to alter or add something to your operating system, something creative that you think should be a part of every OS. Linux is an Open Source OS, or more simply user editable OS, where you can take the source codes and integrate (if you know how) your own applications and such into the operating system, in fact many of the applications on Linux were made by users, yea try that with Windows and you may find yourself behind bars or seriously in debt before you know it!
While we are on the topic of applications, Both have a wide variety of applications that can be useful to a standard user, or even some advanced ones, however, I have noted that many advanced users prefer the use of Linux as it often has more than one application that will complete a task, another plus for Linux is that it has a comparable application for nearly every one of Windows built in applications, and are often tweaked to perform a few more functions, you can go even further by saying that Linux has some built in applications that Windows does not have, some Linux versions even have a Star chart!
Well Patrick you have made it sound like Linux is the way to go, so why doesn't everyone just use Linux instead, well my answer to this is there are still many drawback to Linux, not all are easy to overcome. One of the biggest issues, that has become better over the past few years is compatibility, there are not near as many software programs and computer hardware that work well with Linux, although like I said it is getting better.
Linux does come with a user interface (GUI - Graphical User Interface) that is very similar to that of Windows and is easy to use as far as selecting an application, however when it comes down to installing new software, this can be a problem in Linux, and this tends to be one of the problems that the creators of Linux are not grasping, to install a program and to do other things you need to know codes and plug in text into a terminal, while most computer fanatics like me do not mind this, this will not do if the OS is to be used as a standard for anyone, as far as windows is concerned all you have to do is plop in a disc and click a few buttons wait and it is done, Linux this is often much more complicated as you need to type commands in the terminal and deal with permission issues, for some reason, I can not see my mother trying to install her favorite Bible program typing in commands and stuff, that just won't work, she would get confused and needless to say I have, I really think the idea of typing in several command to install Flash player is absurd when you can go to the site with Windows, click a few buttons and be finished on 15 seconds…. Security is a deal in Linux but there is a point where it is overkill - typing command is one that is overkill, they died in the days of old Unix and DOS.
Another big windfall of Linux is the aspect of gaming, besides the fact that most games are not even made for the Linux OS, the Os really does not well support gaming as the drivers for the hardware are often not suitable and some of the Linux gaming engines just don't cut it, though the OS does usually come with several games included in the OS, better than that Windows solitaire game.
After this not too lengthy discussion what do I personally have to say about it? What do I use, well I like to use both, only because I can play my favorite games on the Windows OS but most other things can be done on Linux without having to pay money out of pocket, for example the Open Office on Linux is a comparable application to Microsoft Office, but instead of costing $200, Like the greedy Microsoft Office, it is free, that is a good example, I am sure if Linux had the chance to fix its user friendly errors it would have a chance at eating away at the Microsoft Monopoly (which I thought was illegal?).