Why I Should use Linux..???

Linux is a computer operating system which is based on free and open source software. Although many different varieties of Linux exist, all are Unix-like and based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel created in 1992 by Linus Torvalds.

Linux V/s Windows: I'll believe Linux is ready for the desktop as soon as you can give me a Linux distribution that even my grandmother can run.
I'm going to compare the linux and windows
Linux doesnt have the virus problems: Even Microsofts CEO Steve Balmer couldnt clean Windows Viruses. Still not convinced? Its not that there arent any viruses for Linux but Linux is more secure and less virus prone. Linux doesnt need defragging: The Linux file systems work very efficiently such that it arranges data in a way that it doesnt require defragging.

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Linux doesnt crash without any apparent reasons: In Linux the core operating system (kernel) is separate from the GUl (X-Window) from the applications (OpenOffice.org, etc). So even if the application crashes, the core operating system is not affected. In Windows (Microsoft prefers to call this tight integration) if the Browser crashes, it can take down the entire operating system. Linux doesnt crash if you accidentally pulled out your USB key/pen drive: Try this a 100 times if you dont believe me. But dont blame me if your pen drive data gets corrupt. linux doesnt require frequent re-installation: In Windows if the OS crashes, there is no easy way to recover this. Many IT support staff doesnt know what to do and all they can do is re-install Windows. Which means that users applications and preferences are lost, and needs to be installed again. I havent seen anyone using Linux, requiring re-installing unless there is a hard drive failure. Most things in Linux can be fixed without requiring re-installation. Linux doesnt require frequent rebooting: Linux runs extremely stable, even if an application crashes, there is no need to reboot the whole system, just restart that application or service. Linux also doesnt require rebooting when a new hardware device is added configured. Linux doesnt require rebooting when you change any setting or re-configure your Network or when you install a new application. No licensing headaches: Yes Linux is free and you dont know need to bother about the complexion licensing of per user/per PC/per server/etc. Note: Some Linux distributions charge a yearly subscription to get the updates and patches, however this is still simpler than the proprietary world. 100 File Systems: Linux can read over a 100 different types of file systems. Windows is limited to its own two file systems. Well most general users may not care about this but its extremely useful is you are working in a mixed environment or you need to extract some data from a hard drive formatted on another computer. Source Code: You have access to the source code and the right to modify or fix things if you are a programmer. Many end users think this is not necessary but

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they will realize how important this is when their application vendor decides to discontinue support on an older version to promote a newer one. No Piracy: You can also share the software with your friends and its completely legal to do so. Didnt your teacher tell you in kindergarten that you should share things with your friends? Linux and Open Source actually encourage that while if you do that in Windows its not only considered illegal but they will call you a pirate! Linux costs less , because not only the OS is free but the applications are also free. Plus since Linux doesnt have a virus problem, you also save on the recurring cost of Anti-Virus software. Note: You may still have to pay for support/training but the overall running cost is low. Powerful Shell: Both Linux and Windows has shell environment Windows (know as command prompt). The shell environments in Linux (such as bash) are more powerful and you can write entire programs using the scripting language. This is extremely useful to automate repetitive tasks such as backup. Portability: Linux can run from a CD or can be installed on the hard drive. Windows by default doesnt have any such option. Using live CDs such as Ubuntu/Knoppix, users can try out Linux by booting from the CD, without the need to install the operating system. Linux is extremely portable, it can also run off usb pen drives/portable hardrives/thumb drives and more. US government have Window Backdoors: Did you know that in Windows, there is built in back-door entry so US government can see you data as and when they like? Yes the US NSA has the key build into every copy of Windows. In Linux there is no such thing possible as the operating system is open source and can easily be detected and disabled. Linux has built in virtualization (XEN/KVM/Virtual Box/etc.) so you can run multiple copies of Linux or Windows simultaneously. Complete Driver Packages: The Linux kernel comes shipped with large number of hardware drivers. 3000 Printers, 1000 Digital Cameras and 200 webcams were supported by Ubuntu. On Windows, a lot of hardware doesnt work until you install the driver, this problem is worse with Vista as Microsoft doesnt allow

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drivers to be installed which are not supported/certified by Microsoft. On Linux, a huge percentage of todays common hardware works perfectly out-of-the-box. Linux is the most documented operating systems and most of these documentations are available for free. These documents are well written and explain computing concepts too.
Excellent package management: Linux has excellent package management tools which make it easy to install and upgrade applications, Most Linux distributions makes it very easy to upgrade from one version to another.

No registry Keys: Unlike Windows, Linux doesnt use registry. Most of the configuration is stored in plain text files, which are easy to manage/backup and transfer between systems. Registry is a pain to manage, very complex and your system configuration is stored in a proprietary format which needs special tools to open. The biggest pain with registry is when it gets corrupted, this problem is eliminated in Linux because it doesnt use registry. No more hardware upgrades: Linux runs happily on older hardware and the hardware requirements dont increase with every new version. If you have really old computers like Pentium I/III, you can still convert them to thin clients using LTSP and still use them. If you compare the hardware requirements between Ubuntu and Windows, you would notice that Ubuntus hardware requirements havent changed for many versions. No Hidden APIs: Windows many hidden or undocumented APIs which is used for unfair advantage to Microsoft. In Linux all APIs are completely open and documented. For example Microsoft specifies that everyone writing Internet application should use the Winsock API while Microsoft Internet Explorer doesnt use the Winsock API, it uses an undocumented API allowing Internet Explorer to run faster than other browsers. No Execute by default: By default if you download any file, it doesnt have the execute permission, making your system more secure. The app cannot execute unless you go and change the permissions.

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No write access to applications: By default users cannot install applications unless they change their permission or login as a supervisor. This ensures that any virus or malicious code cannot go and write to your application folder. No open ports: By default most Linux distributions have all their incoming ports blocked, thereby making their Operating more secure from network attacks. Centralised repository of applications ensures that you are downloading your applications/patches only from a known source only. The repository is digitally signed which ensures that only the right application and code can be downloaded and installed on your computer. Faster release cycle: Many Linux distributions have a fixed release cycle of 6 months which makes it easy for them to incorporate all the latest applications, bug fixes, improvement and support for newer hardware. Windows release cycle is not predictable. Takes a few years and is often delayed. Multiple Interfaces: While both Linux and Windows have a GUI, Windows has only one default GUI. Linux is all about choice and has a option to use different type of GUIs or Window Managers as they are know as in Linux. Users can choose from something that looks like their favourite Operating System or they can choose something thats simple and fast. Popular ones are Gnome and KDE. Free Applications: Most Linux distributions come bundled with whole lot of applications such as Office Suite, Photo Editing, etc. You not only get the OS for free but you also dont have to pay for the applications. Yes many of these open source applications such as OpenOffice.org also run on Windows but you need to find, download and install them where as there are available in most Linux distros by default. Linux saves bandwidth cost: The volume of Updates that Windows, Antivirus and similar applications do, is much more as compared the updated in Linux. So if you are paying for every MB that you download, its a big consideration. No automatic updates: Windows Vista it setup to automatically update your system by default. In Linux it will alert you for an update but you have to choice to click and apply the update. You can setup to automatic update if you like. So you can update when you like and not when your operating system decides to update.

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Chat and Social Networking: Empathy/Kopete popular IM clients on Linux are single clients that can connect to all the protocols Facbook Chat, Google Talk, Yahoo, MSN, Jabber, ICQ, AOL and more. Twitter/Facebook broadcast from the desktop. With Gwibber client, you can view your social network status right from your desktop or update your status to all your accounts without logging onto each of them separately. Processor scalability: Linux can scale to unlimited processors. It is already running on a single system with 2048 CPUs. Windows cant even claim to come anywhere near that number. No annoying message like Vista keeps telling you that xyz application is trying to access your system. Vista confuses the user, either the user will always click allow or dont know what to do. Easy to dual boot: Linux makes it easy for it to exist with any other operating system. If you install Linux on a system which already has Windows, Linux will not mess your Windows. Windows on the other hand messes up your Linux partition, if it finds one. Linux has bundled Databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL which are extremely powerful and used in production environments. Customer doesnt need to purchase expensive databases. Linux is been used for super computing clusters, most of top super computers in the World use Linux. Windows just cant scale to that level. File system scalability: while NTFS file system can scale up to 16TB, XFS on Linux can scale up to 18 million TB! Yes that bigger than what you would ever need.

Shashikant vaishnav Engineering college bikaner

Shashikant vaishnav Engineering college bikaner