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Why Do People Switch To Linux?
tadelste writes "During the last month, Lxer.com conducted a survey of readers who use Linux. They asked readers why they switched to Linux and received a plethora of answers. Surprisingly, anti-Microsoft sentiment had less to do with the choice than one might imagine. Linux stands on its own merits. Anti-Microsoft sentiment comes from Microsoft's paranoia, which results in quotes like the one that had Bill Gates saying he'd put Linux in the Computer museum like he has other competitors." A respondent quote from the article: "It took me about a year to switch from W2K to Linux. The timing in the development of all of the Desktop elements has obviously been critical. If I'd tried any sooner, the whole thing would never have come together. Improved hardware support and equivalent apps have been a big part of the successful transition, and, I owe thanks to many in the Linux community for making that happen at an astounding rate and giving me my functional Desktop OS." Why do you think folks switch?
I switched because of morals. I felt guilty stealing software that people were trying to sell. I can't afford much of the software I used in Windows, and I felt better about myself using free software in Linux. That and, well, the stability, customization, etc that comes with the territory.
They posted the question in a forum and gathered the responses. So...you're talking self-selected responses, which pretty well guarantees a non-representative sample, even if the responses are interesting. I wish they'd done a real live survey.
Power is the biggest factor it seems. No, not speed. Power over the system, flexibility. For all that Windows is easy, it comes at the price of limiting your freedom to mess around with stuff.
When asked can I do blah with Linux, the answer's pretty much yes out of the box. With Windows the answer's yes if you buy X, Y and Z.
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This is an excelent reason to move over, I find latex support in windows to be abismal, and only slightly better in OS X. But most of the people I know have moved to Linux becuase it's easier (for us). It's easier to install applications, easier to keep them update, and easier to make changes than in Windows. I also got fed up with breaking things in windows and having no way to figure out what had happened or how to fix it. I've found that everytime I break something in linux I can head to my favorite IRC channel, or Forum and have a clear answer in a couple hours if not minutes.
Clearly this isn't the case for everyone, but Linux/Unix just clicked with me, all the way to make config changes the applications and the underlying architecture. And this is not to expound upon the fun I have tinkering which just isn't available in the windows platform.
~Anders
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
As a college student, funds are tight. Migrating to Linux I found a plethra of free software that was very useable and worked well. I also found Linux to be easily used on old hardware, which I have alot of. That, and the lack of viruses, and spyware helped in the migration. I don't have to worry about keeping virus definitions upto date, nor spyware definition. I don't even have to worry about a registry! All the tools that I need are available for Linux, and very customizable. Linux supports everything that I need and more. And then customizing the kernel, and compile flags. Linux is the way I want, not the way someone else wants.
I was a Mac user for a long time, only switching to Windows for financial reasons (cheaper to build a cheap PC than buy a cheap Mac).
I tried Linux off and on the past few years, finally moving to Linux full-time a year ago. First with Mandrake 10.1, now with SUSE 9.3 (probably upgrade to OpenSUSE 10 in the near future).
I switched for three reasons. First and foremost, I got tired of spending more time dealing with spyware and viruses than actually working. Second, I'm developing a Java3d-based web game, and wanted to ensure cross-platform compatability. And, third, the free-as-in-beer software eliminates the guilt due to pirated software (Office and Photoshop are frigging expensive).
About the only thing I miss is game compatability. If a native Linux client ever comes out for Civ3, Civ4, BF2 or GTA:SA, I'm screwed productivity-wise.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Ah, but nobody actually *is* trying to play catch-up with MS - at least not as far as most of the high-profile projects I've looked into (such as the Linux kernel itself, KDE, Mozilla etc.) are concerned. I don't think I've ever seen anyone saying "Windows does this and that, we have to, too" on lkml, for example, with the possible exception of noobs who just got Linux yesterday and subscribed to the list today, and even those are few and far between. Generally, the focus is not on being better than anything else; the focus is just on being *good*. Incidentally, this is one of the reasons why Linux is actually successful, but MS still doesn't understand it.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
The point that I was making, was that there wasn't a make or break software package that made me choose linux over windows. Everything that I would use on wondows, I have a comparable item on linux. The difference is that Microsoft's operating system makes it much easier to hide exactly what is going on. I have very little control over what is going on with the system. There really isn't a way for me to just sit down without any third party tools and tell you exactly what is going on. Linux' coreutils package gives me that. I trust my linux box. I don't trust my MS box.
LaTeX is not limited to Linux. LaTeX is NOT a reason to switch.
So... wanting to use Latex is not a good reason to switch to Linux because similar applications are available for Windows...
...but wanting to use Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer is a good reason to stick with Windows even though similar applications exist for Linux?
Double-standards anyone?
I'll probably be modded down for this...