Linux the OS of your future?

How many of you remember DOS and Windows 3.1 for the 80's? It was rival to GEOS. GEOS was actually a better OS than Windows 3.1. Then Came Windows 95. You had to lose all your programs for Windows 3.1 and purchase new for Windows 95. Then came Windows 98. The fix for Windows 95. How many systems were destroyed by upgrading to Windows 98? It was all you saw on Television for weeks. Then there was Windows 98SE. Yes a fix for Windows 98. Then there was Windows 2000, and Windows ME. Windows ME was a huge flop. Windows 2000 was a little better. At least you could run 98 software on 2000. Then came Windows XP. You had to throw all your software out and purchase new again. Then came Windows Vista. Again some software that worked on XP would not work on Vista. Then came Windows 7 the fix for Windows Vista. I wonder if Windows 7SE will come out next year? A fix for Windows 7?

Whew! What a list. Now let's look at Linux. Let's first start with Unix. That is the Father of Linux. It was created back in the 60's and the first Unix that left the lab for use was 1970. By 1972 Unix was becoming a hot item. A lot of people who worked on Unix took a copy with them when they left AT&T and continued to work on the Unix they created. Several version of Unix eventually developed and that is when AT&T found out they had control of Unix and Demanded huge sums of money to use Unix. By 1991 a computer science student wanted a language like Unix to work at home. There was nothing available and it was way too costly to get a copy of Unix. So this student started to create his own Unix like OS. He got help from FSF, in no time he had Linux. After making it open source and allowing all people access to the code to modify and improve it and send it back into the community Linux 1.0 was out. At that time Linux was unreliable. But, the PEOPLE had the code and continued to work on it.

Let's fast forward to Linux today. It is still the same Linux from 20 years ago but with most of the bugs gone. I won't say it's bug free. But it's less buggy then Windows. Where you have a problem with Windows you make a report and sometime next year or two years from now a solution will be available for your error. Where in Linux you report your error and the community will explore the error and usually within a few days there is a fix for your error. Let's see if Windows can do that? Of course they can't.

Now you have to purchase programs to use on Windows. As you know some go as much as thousands of dollars but the average big ticket software are 250 to 600 dollars. The Games and cheap software are from 20 to 120 dollars. Let's look at Microsoft's Office, Adobe Photoshop, and many more software programs like this. Couple of hundred dollars a pop. At the end of the day you have to purchase Windows and if you are putting it on your computer and not purchasing a new one you most likely have to purchase a larger hard drive and more memory. Then the Windows and the software you want to put on your computer that Windows Controls.

Yes, I forgot to tell you that if you put Windows on your computer, Windows has control of your computer. Yes you heard me right. Read the License. If Microsoft thinks you owe them money they can go via the internet and shut down your computer. Will be nothing more than a Anchor.
But with Linux you have control of your computer. That's right, You have control.

The software that comes with Linux is part of Linux. So if you want a Photoshop like program you can use the Gimp. If you want an office suite you can use Open Office Org or Libre Office (an off shoot of Open Office) KDE Office and what is called Gnome Office. The software that is available for Linux is just thousands of packages. Games, to education, graphics, sound, internet, programming, science and wine. Wine is a program that allows you to use Microsoft Windows programs on Linux. There is also a Dos Emulator and Apple, Commodore emulators.

Linux brings back the fun in computing. A Live CD will allow you to do the most basic of everything, including surfing the internet. There may be some codexes that need to be installed so you can watch flash video, or a movie, listen to a mp3 or wav sound file. View graphic files. Yes, now you are starting to see the power of Linux.

Best of all little to no finical cost to you.