What Are The Advantages Of Linux Over Windows?

[personguy]

I keep hearing about linux but i dont know what makes it different from windows. is it better? gimme some info

[Geekgirl]

Heres alittle info

http://www.devx.com/opensource/Article/16969


*edit
and some more info
[url]http://www.michaelhorowitz.com/Linux.vs.Windows.html
[/url]

[personguy]

thanks it doesnt seem any better or advanced than my windows me

[liljim]

thanks it doesnt seem any better or advanced than my windows me

hehehe...man,if you only knew!

Linux shouldnt be compared to windows,it isnt fair to windows

Some of the things that appeal to me about linux is that its open source so its always being improved upon/updated and avaliable to the end user for free.It comes with more software than windows ever will and has tons more avaliable for FREE.The disadvantage to linux is its not quite as "user friendly" as windows when it comes to setting up and installing certain things.Its not really an OS that you can just figure out on your own,it takes a good bit of knowledge.More on the good side though,check into different virus's and the affected systems,you will notice that none of them affect linux.Most virus,spyware,malware etc. are aimed at windows and were probably written with a linux box irony?I dual boot with win xp and linux mandrake 10.I use windows mainly for gaming because alot of what i enjoy playing isnt supported by linux but when it comes to image/video editing,web designing and things of that nature linux is hard to beat.The stability is unmatched,probably why most web servers run red hat and other distro's of linux.It is indeed a personal preference of which OS to choose from but once you start getting into open source you will find less of a need for windows.There's still ALOT for me to learn with it but one thing i can promise you is as soon as more games start supporting linux i will switch completely.

[teststrips]

Linux is a very solid operating system if/when it gets installed correctly. It is (at this point) way harder to install than windows.

Linux is
Fast
Stable
FREE!!

Linux isn't
Extremely easy to use (unless you get extremely lucky and the install program does everything right - which has never happened for me)

If you want to try linux, i'd HIGHLY suggest Knoppix which is a CD that boots into linux, you don't have to install anything. Since it's running off of a CD, it is slower than a full install on a hard drive, but if you want to get your "feet wet" with linux, it's the best way to try it.

[DFB]

One word: Control

I could care less about the GPL, etc. What it comes down to is I want my computer to do what *I* need/want it to do, not what MS thinks it should do.

Ever install Windows XP and spend more time disabling/uninstalling things than you did installing the OS? Does it make sense to you that you should have to install 3rd party tools just to get your base OS the way you want?

I disagree with teststrips about ease of use.

Linux isn't any more difficult to use than Windows, it's equally difficult, it just seems more difficult because people take for granted what they already know about Windows. Think about how many years you spent learning how Windows' interfaces and internals worked, is it fair to compare all that time to the few weeks (if that much) most give a Linux install before giving up because it's 'too hard'?

The main problem is that almost all windows machines come pre-installed, so you learn things from the top down (easy concepts like how the mouse behaves, how copy/cut/paste works, etc before you move onto things like where the hosts file is located and even more complex things). With Linux it's almost guaranteed that you have to do the install yourself, which entails a more bottom up approach, as you can't really install an OS without having at least a basic idea of how that OS works.