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October 2nd, 2007 05:00
is it worth it?
i was wondering what are the major benefits of linux and if its worth it and if theres any chance of it ruining my computer. thank you!
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floba
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October 2nd, 2007 10:00
You might be interested in this earlier thread:
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=sw_linux&thread.id=11556
There are lots of different flavours of Linux (so-called distributions) out there to try. Many of them come as a Live-CD enabling you to test the distro without even affecting your hard-drive. You should just download and try one of these (as a starting point I would recommend "Linux Mint 3.1"; see "http://linuxmint.com/celena.html" ). In order to get an overview of the available distros have a look at "http://distrowatch.com/" .
floba
Message Edited by floba on 10-02-2007 01:32 PM
ieee488
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October 2nd, 2007 12:00
Major benefit: it's free
And yes, it is possible to "ruin" your computer if you don't know what you are doing.
I personally wouldn't experiment with Linux on your primary PC. Use a spare PC.
Try Ubuntu first.
Peggy Tups
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October 3rd, 2007 14:00
ByCo
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October 4th, 2007 03:00
The main benefits of using Linux are:
1) No virus's, spyware, or adware. (There have been virus's written in research labs that can, with the users help, affect Linux desktops but none have ever been found in the wild.)
2) Security, no programs can be installed and run without your permission.
3) Stability, programs may crash from time to time but I've never had a final (stable) release of any Linux crash or stop responding.
4) Cost, most Linux's can be legally downloaded for free. Most add-on software is free, no need to buy an anti-virus subscription every year. Most Linux distro's will run happily on modest and old hardware so you don't need to spend lots of $$$ on memory and fast CPUs, if you don't want to.
The main drawbacks of using Linux are:
1) Many of your friends and relatives won't want to use your computer. Of course that may not be a bad thing ;).
2) Some hardware manufacturers do not support using their hardware with Linux, such as Canon and Lexmark (Dell) printers and some wireless cards. Getting these to work in Linux can be a real pain.
3) Most of the popular PC game titles are not available for Linux and those that are can be a little difficult to install and get running.
4) It doesn't do everything the way Windows does. Again, some of use don't think that's a bad thing.
Is it worth it?
For me, yes. But you may use your computer differently than I do. It depends on if the advantages are more important to you than the disadvantages.
If you decide to give Linux a try I would suggest SimplyMEPIS 6.5, the final (stable) release of 7.0 should be available in a couple weeks. The ISO for the live CD can be downloaded from mepis.org. You can run it from the live cd to see how well it will work with your hardware (most likely pretty well). Keep in mind that when any operating system is run from a cd it can be very slow depending on how much RAM you have and how good your cd-rom is.