Linux - A free operating system gaining traction

Have you ever considered switching away from Windows?

PROS

Most Linux software is totally free and open source. This means the actual source code is available to anyone who wants to audit or change the operating system. Why? Well, this openness provides individuals and businesses the ability to check the underlying code for anything undesireable, such as backdoors, malware, tracking telemetry etc. Users have the ability to add, subtract or modify features of the operating system if they have that desire or that skilset. This is why there are litteraly hundreds of different varitions of Linux (called 'distros'). Of course that isn't necessary. You can choose the distro that fits your needs and run with it.

The two main exceptions are RedHat and SUSE Linux. These two are intended for business use and offer support contracts. Therefore they are more closed off from modification as they can't support code that wasn't written by them.

When it comes to software, many Windows programs also exist for Linux. Here are some examples:

Overall, Linux has much less demanding hardware requirements compared to Windows or Mac. You can obtain good performance even on older hardware. Linux even runs on inexpensive single board computers such as the Raspberry Pi and Zimaboard.

Linux doesn't require a TPM chip. This means that all the old computers that can't be upgraded to Windows 11 will still likely work great with Linux. You don't need to discard your old hardware and you can get more life out of it.

DID YOU KNOW?

Apple IOS, Chromebooks, Android, & SteamOS are all customized versions of Linux.

Most web servers use some version of Linux as it tends to be more reliable and secure. The two dominate web server software packages for webhosting would be Apache and NGINX.

GLI routers run on Linux software. Custom built routers also typically use Linux.

Network Attached Storage devices (NAS) often run on Linux such as Synology and Western Digital.

Hyper-Visors for running virtual machines include ProxMox, KVM and others. These are Linux based.

CONS

If your coming from a Windows environment, you will have a hell of a time trying to use the command line with any version of Linux. It's entirely different and much more wordy with obscure commands. Stuff you can do in Windows with a single command may take multiple commands in Linux. In my opinion, it's not intuitive. I'm still trying to learn how to do things using the command line. However I suspect that long time Linux users probably think the same about Windows. There is a learning curve.

Adobe still refuses to make Acrobat or Creative Suite available on Linux.

Popular business software such as Quickbooks is also unavailable.

Popular Linux Distros

There are dozens of Linux distros that are made for different purposes. These are just a few of the more popular examples:

Mint - Reviewed on this website

Mint is for people who are familiar with Windows. It looks and operates like like Windows all the time. If you can use Windows desktop, you can us the Linux desktop. Please see my review of Mint elsewhere on this site. It's my personal favorite, and the Linux distro that I have the most experience. Mint can be used for many things, but is not intended for gaming.

Debian - Reviewed on this website

Debian is very stable, well tested and intended for ultra reliability. However updates are infrequent. It's intended more for mission critical applications and servers. Debian is not intended for gaming.

It has a large following but I found it to be a bit on the plain side.

Kali - Reviewed on this website

KALI is for penetration testers, white hat and black hat hackers and is very technical. It comes already to go with all the software tools you need to examine website traffic, other websites, applications and more. Kali is not intended for gaming.

I have installed this into a virtual machine to take a look. The OS itself works like any other Linux distro, but a person must learn all the tools to be able to use it for its intended purpose.

Bazzite

Bazzite is for gamers and has better NVIDIA suport. It's an immutable operating system meaning its hard to mess up. It was designed to compete with Steam OS and it looks more like what you would see on a game console. It can run on a PC or on a gaming handheld. It runs Steam so that resolves the game compatibility issues! Bazzite is based on Fedora Linux and looks quite slick.

I have installed this one a number of times for clients, but I haven't had the opportunity to work with it all that much to provide an opinion.

Pop! OS

Pop! OS is for gamers and has better NVIDIA suport.

I have no experience with this distro other than to know that It would not work when I tried to install it into a virtual machine. I suspect that it requires a dedicated machine. I may revisit this one in the future.

Steam OS

Steam OS is another gaming OS that was created by Valve.

It comes installed on Steamdeck handheld devices but can also be installed on your own device. This is a great way to run Windows based games on Linux. Steam has taken care of the game compatibiliy issues for you!

There's many more! The list goes on and on! Each version of Linux is tailored to a specific use case or audience. In reality, there are hundreds. Some of them have very a small user base and are very obscure. Many Linux distro projects have been abandonded and are considered dead. This is a list of some of more well known and active distros.

• Ubuntu - Reviewed on this website
• Raspberry Pi OS - Reviewed on this website
• Zorin
• Kubuntu
• Fedora
• Zima OS - Intended for single board computers

Related Articles

This is a complete list of Linux related articles on this website.

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