Why aren't you running Linux?

[darxus]

It's a sincere question. I'm curious what I can do to help reduce dependence on closed operating systems.

And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with not running Linux, I understand it's not best for everybody. I'm just curious about making it best for more people.

Ubuntu is the most user friendly Linux distribution. It's also the one I use for both desktops and servers. You can download and burn a CD image, and boot into it off the CD without installing, to try it out without installing it. It is very slow that way, because CD drives are slower than hard drives, and everything in the image needs to be decompressed as it's read.

cathijosephine did the install herself when Windows etc. got too slow on her computer.

http://www.ubuntu.com/ (CD image link is right at the top - download.)

Let me know if you would like me to burn an install CD for you or look over your shoulder while you install.

Freeing up hard drive space under Windows and then repartitioning it for Linux will probably be the hardest part.

Comments

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I did try to avoid evangelizing, because I'm aware of the long history of that not working. But I can see how it would have been better to just not mention my reasons. The fact that so much of the spam comes from people's Windows computers without their knowledge has just been freaking me out lately. Also, the likelihood of people assuming that it's not their computer.

I also very recently learned why Microsoft's .NET programming language was created. Sun created the language Java. It is very popular, due partially to how portable it is - you write one program in Java, and it runs on everything everywhere: Windows, Mac, Linux, several you haven't heard of, and phones.

So Microsoft released development libraries (to make it easier to write some programs) that only worked with Windows. So suddenly people are, without thinking about it, writing Java programs that only work under Windows. And their users are now dependant on Windows for those applications.

Fortunately, this violated Microsoft's license with the creators of Java, and they put an end to that. And Microsoft stopped including Java in the default Windows install.

So Microsoft created .NET. And it has become a popular language because it's easy, and now people are more dependant on Microsoft. In particular, companies writing their own in house software are now significantly more tied to this one operating system.

The operating system most famous for instability and vulnerability to attack (viruses, etc.).

Germany and France recently asked people to stop using Internet Explorer. Homeland Security did the same in 2004.

Using Microsoft just because you haven't taken an hour to see how well the Ubuntu live CD works for you really seems irresponsible to me. And I think a lot of people do it. (I've acknowledged you have additional reasons.)

I'm really curious how much of the above sounds like rational reasons to hate Microsoft to you. I'm aware my perspective... is not representative of Windows users.