Linux is the future
My home PC came with a proprietary Operating System. It said: avoid piracy & buy genuine software. Then I can be confident that I will be able to download updates and patches to plug the holes in the operating system. Supposedly, it will help improve my productivity and expand the capabilities of my PC. Plus I get the exclusive rights to pay & buy more new innovations and offerings.
Wow! So I removed it & installed Linux. And I never had to look back.
What is Linux?
Linux is an operating system that was developed by Linus Torvalds as a hobby. Linus had an interest in Minix, a small UNIX system, and decided to develop a system that exceeded the Minix standards. He began his work in 1991 when he released version 0.02 and worked steadily until 1994 when version 1.0 of the Linux Kernel was released. The kernel, the heart of all Linux systems, is developed and released under the GNU General Public License and its source code is freely available to everyone. It is this kernel that forms the base around which a Linux operating system is developed. There are now literally hundreds of companies and organizations and an equal number of individuals that have released their own versions of operating systems based on the Linux kernel. More information can be found at www.linux.org. The current full-featured version is 2.6 (released December 2003) and development continues.
Apart from the fact that it's freely distributed, Linux's functionality, adaptability and robustness, has made it the main alternative for proprietary Unix and Microsoft operating systems. IBM, Hewlett-Packard and other giants of the computing world have embraced Linux and support its ongoing development. Well into its second decade of existence, Linux has been adopted worldwide primarily as a server platform. Its use as a home and office desktop operating system is also on the rise. The operating system can also be incorporated directly into microchips in a process called "embedding" and is increasingly being used this way in appliances and devices.
Throughout most of the 1990's, tech pundits, largely unaware of Linux's potential, dismissed it as a computer hobbyist project, unsuitable for the general public's computing needs. Through the efforts of developers of desktop management systems such as KDE and GNOME, office suite project OpenOffice.org and the Mozilla web browser project, to name only a few, there are now a wide range of applications that run on Linux and it can be used by anyone regardless of his/her knowledge of computers. There are many Linux packages (distributions or 'distros') available today. Most of them are available free or charge a very small fee for the distribution media and packaging, etc. Some of these distributions also run off the CD as full Operating Systems if one would like to test the Linux waters before plunging right in.
Migration to Linux
Linux, or GPL/Linux to be precise, is a collection of the Linux kernal, modules and many packages that perform the various functions that we have come to expect of a PC. Linux is not just an OS, it is a complete system with applications and programs that helps store the files, create or edit documents, spreadsheets, presentations, emails, internet, burn CDs, print, scan, hear music, watch movies, edit sound and video files, fetch multimedia files from the mobile phone, camera or whatever, ......... the online Debian Linux repositories lists over 24,000 packages to choose from. Perhaps the only kind of application that Linux does not have, and probably will not need, is an Anti-Virus software.
