Before we start with the funny bits lets cover some of the issues that most of the people face when they have to do the switch. I dealt with this issues myself before deciding to change operative system. We are going to talk about the whys, whats and hows about Linux.
Questions like Why should I use Linux or What benefits am I going to get, naturally flag up in everybody’s mind approaching the switching.
Imagine a conversation between two people, one of which is trying to convince the other to switch to Linux.
Why should I use Linux?
Consider for a moment the fact that we are not all lovers of illegal downloads, and that torrents are just small rivers. Immagine that anytime we need a software we all go to our favorite store and buy it. With Linux you won’t have this problem. Most of the softwares, also called packages, are for free. Also the most popular programs are included in the distro you install, without wasting time chasing every single application. Yes you’re not drunk or stoned, you red right I wrote free. My grandad always told me that free is dead during the war; well he is probably back and hopefully he will stay.
If you read the previous post, you will find a video about a certain Blue Screen Of Death. Linux doesn’t have such a thing.
These are only two of the main reason to start using Linux.
I actually enjoy illegal downloading. Am I going to find the same software available in Windows also in Linux?
As illegal downloader I’m sure you downloaded plenty of amazing programs. So you have Photoshop, for your image editing, Premiere if you enjoy video editing, Dreamweaver if you are planning to publish your personal website, 3D Studio for any 3D issues and Microsoft Office for letters, and other everyday tasks. The truth is if you are not a professional editor or web designer you won’t need this amazing programs. Downloading Photoshop only for regulate hue and brightness of your pictures is silly; even if you use layers and blending options you still don’t exploit the software capability. Same for all the other programs. Just to answer straight to the question I would say no, but you’ll hardly be disappointed by what you’ll find.
And?
Easy tiger, if you’d let me finish…..Every distro has installed by default a great image editor which is The Gimp. The Gimp is really powerfull infact most of the tutorials you find on Internet for Photoshop they’ll work for The Gimp too. Unfortunately The GimpIt doesn’t support CMYK but the majority of us doesn’t work in a commercial press. 3D graphic is what you are after? Check Blender and you’ll remember me. StarOffice or OpenOffice are great suite and works great for most of your office needs. On top of that they are 100% Microsoft Office compatible and the size of the files they generate is much smaller. Try to convert a word file in odt format and see. If you are an professional Microsoft Access users you might be a bit disappointed with OpenOfficeBase but come on, as we say in Italy you can’t have a the barrell full of wine and your wife drunk (whatever that’s supposed to mean).
The Gimp and OpenOffice come with the distro. Blender and other software have to be installed, but Ubuntu has the Synaptic Package Manager. This very smart piece of software allow to install, not just the software contained into the repository, but also other software from Internet. You search, select and Synaptic will download for you all the packages and it will install them for you. (In case the command line scare the hell out of you).
What about CAD?
CAD is one of the reason because I can’t get rid of Windows totally. Being myself an heavy user of AutoCAD I found few options available. Interesting is Qcad, but is only 2D. Anyway if you work professionally with CAD systems you may take into account the fact to open you wallet and pay. So you have VariCAD and in some forums I red that Bentley, the developer od Microstation, is working on a Linux version of the latter. With parametric CAD is even better; the market leader ProEngineering is already release the Linux version.
You talked about distro, what is it exactly?
I’m touched by your interest. I mentioned the free thing before. Linux’s core (also know as kernel) is freely available to anyone. This means that there are company and person that create their own version of Linux. That’s what a distro is. It is a customize version of Linux. Purposely customize whtther you are a developer of embedded systems, a network administrator or home user. Every distro has included by default all the packages upon which the distro has been developed.
But if I decided to use Linux what will be of Windows and all my files in the Windows partition?
Because Linux developer are smart and not selfish you don’t have to get rid of Windows if you decide to install Linux on your system. In order to be used Windows has to be installed on your hard drive in the C partition. Linux is not that picky. It can be run from any partition. C D E F primary, master, slave, some distro are even developed to be run from an USB pen. And if this is not enough, while Windows won’t allow you to access any other partition but FAT or NFTS, Linux is so cool that let you get in any partition. No discrimination whatsoever is in place. So if you can run Linux and open all the file recorded on the Windows partition. How cool is that?
Believe it or not the magnanimity of Linux is not finished. With an estremely clever package called winehq you can even run Windows application on your Linux distro. Just unfuc***gbelievable.
Once you install Linux if another Operative System will be found, the penguin (Linux nickname) helps you again installing a boot loader, that allow you to choose the OS that you want to launch.
A boot what?
A boot loader, but this is probably too much for you.
What a orrible end for this post. The truth is that while I was writing it I Stumble Upon a website that explain everything I said and more even better. Because I refuse to copy and paste I decided to just copy and paste the link.
I STRONGLY ADVISE YOU TO GIVE A FULL READ TO THIS PAGE. IT IS EXTREMLY INFORMATIVE AND IT WILL CLEAR ALL YOUR DOUBTS
