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OMGUbuntu: 'Why Use Linux?' Answered in 3 Short Words (omgubuntu.co.uk)
Linux-focused blog OMGUbuntu's Joey-Elijah Sneddon shared a post today in which he is trying to explain why people should Linux. He stumbled upon the question when he typed "Why use" and Google suggested Linux as one of the most frequent questions. From the article: The question posed is not one that I sincerely ask myself very often. The answer has, over the years, become complicated. It's grown into a bloated ball of elastic bands, each reason stretched around and now reliant on another. But I wanted to answer. Helpfully, my brain began to spit out all the predictable nouns: "Why use Linux? Because of security! Because of control! Because of privacy, community, and a general sense of purpose! Because it's fast! Because it's virus free! Because I'm dang-well used to it now! Because, heck, I can shape it to look like pretty much anything I want it to using themes and widgets and CSS and extensions and blingy little desktop trinkets!"
It was. Beginning in Feb., the updates made it unstable and caused application to not open. I had to remove the updates and disable updating, so security took a hit.
I ended up removing Windows 7 from my desktop and laptop and installing Linux Mint 18, Cinnamon edition on them. I haven't regretted it one second.
Instead I do everything Windowsy inside a VM on top of Linux.
So instead of maintaining one operating sytem you maintain 2.
Win!
Seriously, getting a Windows box infected is tragically easy even with 3 virus scanners simultaneously installed. Sometimes you don't even have to do anything.
Your not wrong. But if regular windows users ran linux desktops in the hundreds of millions they'd get them full of crap too. And it would be drive by malware ads taking advantage of flaws in the browser, and ransomware there their user account etc. They'd disable the firewall to get quickbooks to connect. And sony would install a backdoor/rootkit at the factory as part of some horribly misguided attempt at providing remote firmware update management tools...
I have been a hard-core LInux user for over 15 years, running it on desktops, laptops, everything, completely eschewing the WIndows ecosystem (except for some occasional Wine use). Then I moved to an employer that is 100% OSX based. Running Linux on a bare metal Macbook was not an option due to the necessity of running security software mandated by their compliance department (along with a security token for MFA that doesn't work with Linux).
So I switched to OSX and run Linux in a VM, ssh'ing to it as needed.
I was reluctant to make the switch at first, but now am quite happy with OSX as my main OS -- everything works, the laptop sleeps and wakes up as it should, the integrated touchpad and camera work flawlessly, it switches from a single monitor to my double desktop monitors without a problem, then switches back to the laptop display when I unplug. Presentation mode works well when I plug in the projector.
While running running Linux on my thinkpad, I've experienced lots of problems -- sometimes the laptop would fail to suspend -- I'd pull it out of my backpack and it'd be hot with a nearly dead battery after continuing to run while the lid was closed, sometimes it would fail to wake up and I'd have to power cycle it. Sound was a recurring problem, I'd have to restart the sound daemon at least once a week, and plugging in an external monitor was always an exercise in finding out where my windows scattered to and hoping that it found the right resolution for my monitor.
On the server side, I'm a big fan of Linux, but on the desktop, I'm become a fan of OSX.
Sure, but we're now replacing that with ecosystem lockin on the Linux side. Thanks, systemd.
Linux was a free-as-in-speech, *and* free-as-in-beer version of Unix... The Windows devs who've invaded seem to want to bring lockin back by standardizing the Vendor layer across their own userland middleware, and FreeDesktop locked we shall be.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,