ComputingConfidence

What Operating System, not Windows?

Don't read further is you are a religiously fanatic Windows user.

When you buy a new computer think twice before you go for the obvious:  a computer with Microsoft Operating System.

During the last year or so, GNU/Linux has become very user friendly, some will say far more user friendly than MS-Windows.  In this day and age, Windows is falling more and more behind on many accounts, where as Mac OS-X and Linux are both improving immensely.  Today it is fair to say that if money is no issue, you want no part in piracy and you want something ready to use immediately, the Mac comes out as the big winner.  If money is an issue, then a better choice would be a PC with Ubuntu/Linux.  If you are playing advanced computer games, then a PC with MS-Windows might still be your best option.

Let's look at the numbers.  Prices in the list below are in US$ and only for guidance.  You will get the software cheaper when pre-installed on the machine, but if you are not a pirate you will find that software is far more expensive than the hardware:

         Microsoft                          Ubuntu

Adobe CS4 Photoshop        1,210   Gimp                          0

MS-Office Standard           630   Open Office                   0

Zone Alarm Antivirus          40   Build-in                      0

MS-Windows XP Professional   140   Ubuntu GNU/Linux              0

HP Compaq 515 QL-64 laptop   800   HP Compaq 515 QL-64 laptop  800

---------------------------------- -------------------------------

Starting cost               2,820  Starting cost               800

Annual software updates min.  300  Annual software updates min.  0

Hardware depreciation 5 year   60  Hardware depreciation 5 year 60

You could risk having to buy a driver for your printer or scanner worth something like $30 and if you need a very special finance, CAD or CMR program you will need to spend money on software in Linux too.

The most important factor of all is probably the security.  Windows and Linux are build with very different philosophy behind them.  The windows OS basis, is a free access for everyone system that is thereafter being restricted.  This is opposite for UNIX, Linux and OS-X where the bases denies access for everyone and thereafter opens up for access in a controlled manner.  I am not going deeper into the technical stuff here, but the essence is that Windows suffer from this philosophy as bad people on the Internet find new "holes" that Microsoft has overlooked.  This is why you need adornment on expensive anti all sorts of software on a Windows computer.

Ubuntu, Debian and the many other Linux distributions out there also have another convenient security feature.  You get all your software and updates from central repositories for free, which mean that there is little or no chance that you will ever get "manipulated" software into your machine.  This is a big difference from Windows where most people download payed or unpaid programs from the Internet without the slightest guarantee that the software they got was actually inclusive spy software looking for your bank account details.

My own experience:

I started using computers professionally in 1974 at a time where computer would hardly fit in a small church and where you used paper punch tape instead of nice a CD, you uses electromechanical printers instead of 19" reflex-free flat screens, only the keyboard has remained the same.  My first "PC" was a NasCom with 8KByte of ram and a standard tape recorder for storage.  You had to develop the programs yourself and there was no operating system (apart from what was on the BIOS).  However, I could do address books, very simple book keeping, control the antenna motors for the amateur radio station and more with this machine although it was roughly 1,000 times less powerful than the PC I have written this text on.

Then came the time I spend with the much more powerful UNIX computer.  They were very expensive and many people had to share the same computer and you couldn't be sure to have your own terminal to access it.  However, UNIX worked, it was productive and you could do virtually any task with them.Later the marked began to be swarmed with IBM's Personal Computer and the hard times of choosing OS for them.  Some chose Concurrent-DOS, some CPM, a lot chose DR-DOS and probably the majority chose MS-DOS as we went through the early 1980's.  The computers where now in a state of general usefulness, both in office and at home.  Most PCs back the was used to do word processing, calculations and the odd game here and there.  The storage media went from 8" floppies to 5.25" floppies holding over 1MByte of great information (a CD-RW holds 700MByte).In the late 1980's came the age of various windows systems.  However, the user marked was not ready to go with this fancy stuff, so it was first when Bill Gates and Co. gave out for free an enormous amount of his MS-Windows that the interest for a window system on top of the OS began to pick up.  There were many problems however.  The computers were oversensitive, the software was buggy and crashes occurred on a regular bases.  The real break through was with MS-Windows 3.11.  It could do network, it didn't crash all too often, it could do a clumsy multitasking and there were an increasing number of programs supporting it.It's popularity was based on promotion rather that quality and usability.  Apple had good systems too and they hardly ever crashed.  IBM had their OS2, which was really the top of the range for both small and large machines and crashes where rare.  But neither Mac nor IBM gave free copies like Microsoft did, and they still don't.

It was first in the mid 1990's that home computers became a normality and a very useful tool for almost everybody, no matter their personal interests.  Linux came about as an adaptation of something similar to SCO-UNIX, but this was only for techies.  Real UNIX systems where great, big CAD systems where run on these, but the price for both hardware and software was far beyond a normal family budget.  The result was that MS-Windows gained almost the entire PC marked and developed Windows95, a great success despite endless crashes (partly caused by poor hardware though).  They also launched WindowsNT with the industry in mind, it had better multitasking and more advanced facilities, but hardly invaded many private homes.Your 2000 gave the name to Microsoft's Windows2000 and was probably the start of a new era in the world of PC's.  This new WindowsNT version, Windows2000, was useful, relative stable and laid the ground for the later so popular WindowsXP.   The non-NT systems, like Windows95, Windows Millennium, etc. went out of further development, so all you see today from Microsoft is basically a further development of Windows2000.

All along I had a go with Linux to satisfy my nosiness, but didn't find it very friendly to use on my home computer and impossible for the average PC user.  Most, if not all, of my friends would have to re-install their PCs once every half year or so, due to the speed going down, disk crashes, virus (like in sheep, virus is also a plural), overloaded registry and so on.  This came to an end for me in 2007, I decided to forget all about Windows and went for Ubuntu as it appeared to have gained the most in popularity.  I haven't looked back one day since and it is hard to believe I will ever do.

In 2009 there is little doubt in my mind that the average PC user is better off with Linux, than Windows. Ubuntu is fairly easy to install and very easy to maintain, upgrade, extent and use.  Not only Canonical's (The company responsible for Ubuntu), but an enormous community has brought Linux to what it is today.  The Linux community is a huge ideal community of enthusiastic people providing computer code, programs, feedback and support for this operating system.  For the last couple of years there have been done a lot of successful work in making Linux as user-friendly as possible.  One of the few hardships left, is the attitude towards a slight change in philosophy. - Ubuntu doesn't do exactly like Windows Vista, so I don't think it is useful to me! -  It's like wearing jeans at all time, hard to believe that anything else is wearable.

My advice is:  take a backup of all your letters, picture, films and spreadsheets to a CD and make sure you have all your important email on an IMAP or web mail account.  Download an Ubuntu CD image and burn it to a CD, alternatively you can order a CD on their website.  When you have a ready CD, then put it into the PC and let the CD guide you in the language of your choice.  Take the big step and install Ubuntu over the old system after having tested the "Live" CD a few hours, testing all essential hardware is working with the new OS.  After half a year of using Ubuntu or most other Linux distributions for that matter, you will ask yourself why you accepted all the stupidities surrounding Windows.

.