*My reasons to stay with Windows:*
1. It is familiar and the learning curve is very shallow
2. Everyone else has it
3. There is a ton of software for it
4. It usually installs without a hitch and knows all of your hardware.
5. Drivers are easy to find and can be installed totally through the GUI
without any knowledge
6. You can set up a home network by clicking on a cute icon and the
network will actually work
7. Avoid the hard work of reconfiguring your computer
8. Shareware and software installations are very consistent and reliable
- usually self-managing
9. Games
10. I have a canon printer
*My reasons to leave Windows:*
1. I am annoyed by activation keys - when I buy a license, I should be
able to install it on every machine I use. The license is for MY access,
not a single machine's. I should also be able to sell the CD when I am
done with it.
2. Spyware and spyware scanners
3. Viruses and virus scanners
4. I would like to send email directly off of my machine without having
to use an external SMTP server
5. Tired of defragmenting my hard drive
6. It costs $80
7. I cannot configure the GUI without using a third party product that
grinds my machine to a halt
8. Not a very powerful or secure operating system
9. Yet another mandatory update from Microsoft
10. ActiveX is a crime.
11. IE is a huge crime.
12. 18 things running in my system tray
13. 512MB of Ram - system only runs 10% better than with 256MB. 1GB of
system ram, system only runs 15% better than with 256MB.
14. Tired of mysterious CPU spikes caused by background processes
kicking off that I don't need
15. THE REGISTRY IS EVIL!
16. Speaking of the registry - when you uninstall software, it doesn't
totally uninstall.
17. Over time, stupid junk files pile up and crash the machine or slow
it down.
*My reasons for switching to Linux*
1. No activation keys. In fact, it was totally free. I just downloaded
it and installed it. When I picked a distro I liked, I donated $60 to
the company that made it.
2. No spyware.
3. 40 viruses - all in a laboratory - none in the wild
4. Comes with a mail server, ftp server, web server, mysql, php, perl,
C/C++, Java, firewall, and tons of other stuff that will be fun to learn
and a portable technical skill for the workplace
5. No defragmenting - ever
6. It costs nothing.
7. Configure the GUI until your eyeballs burn out of your skull
8. VERY POWERFUL command line, very efficient use of resources and disk
space. VERY SECURE
9. No mandatory updates. There are updates, but without them, you are
probably still OK on a desktop machine
10. No ActiveX, and good control over Java and Javascript
11. Konqueror is a better browser, and it is the file manager. KIO
slaves are cool!
12. Processes are totally controllable by me as are loaded modules.
13. Linux uses all of my 1GB of ram if it needs it. Feeding it the big
stick of ram caused it to reach out and use it, improving performance.
14. No mysterious cpu spikes caused by "autosave" or "restore points."
15. No registry. Instead, each software package is self-contained and
does not corrupt entire OS.
16. To uninstall java, find the java directories, and delete them.
Buh-bye! RPM's uninstall cleanly without leaving behind corruption and
spyware.
17. America's Army runs *faster* in Linux. WTF!?!? But I LOVE IT!
18. Huge user community that supports your attempts to break Linux
19. Really fun to tinker with the computer again instead of just looking
at it in a fixed mode.
20. Mandrake 10 is every bit as stable as Windows XP so far in my
experience.
21. KDE is more powerful and has more abilities than the Windows Shell.
22. I can create a new kernel from scratch custom tailored if I want.
23. Virtual terminals let me log in 7 times and run stuff all over the
place!
That's how I reached the decision to switch. I don't miss windows at
all. I use it at work, and when I do, I think "You piece of junk. Get
out from between me and my hardware!"
Now, is Linux perfect? Hell no. Linux has some drawbacks, and not
admitting them would be dishonest.
1. If you don't know much about computers, Linux will be harder for you
to learn than Windows. You don't have to be a computer scientist, but
you do need to know some basic stuff, like what is a video card and what
kind of hard drive you have and what the differences are.
2. Linux installation is not a breeze. Sometimes it is, but my machine
locked up and I had to search the net for a fix for the locking. My
friend's machine (installed Mandy for him yesterday) would not find his
USB mouse for some reason.
3. You *will* go to the command line. Oh yes, you will. Linux requires
it for some functions.
4. There is a steep learning curve, but you don't have to learn it all.
But thinking you can just stick it on your PC and "just use it" is
denying how much effort you put into learning Windows tricks.
5. Linux does not like some hardware. Or rather, some manufacturers do
not like to make Linux drivers for their hardware. My printer doesn't
work - F U CANON!
6. Inconsistent software installation experience when you download new
stuff. Sometimes a tarball, sometimes an RPM, sometimes a bin file.
Sometimes it's a custom file you've never seen before (NVIDIA's .run for
example)
7. The command line is so powerful that you can delete everything on
your hard-drive and it will sleep with your sister and knock her up
before you can make it stop if you tell it to. Be careful!
8. Some software packages just won't ever work well enough to be worth
it (Wine)
9. There are 149 media players, and all but three of them stink. When
will they stop making media players?
10. If you don't have a broadband connection, downloading stuff is going
to be a pain in the butt for you.
That's about it. I picked Linux. I love Linux. I use the following
software instead of Windows stuff
Office = OpenOffice.org
Photoshop = Gimp v2
Winamp/RealPlayer/WindowsMedia = Kaffeine + Xine libraries with win32
libraries installed
IE = Konqueror
Outlook = Kontact
Homesite = Quanta+ or NVU
Ark = WinZip/WinRar and handles anything you give it.
I asked myself that question, "Where do I want to go today?" And I
realized, Windows is not the answer to a question with the word "want"
in it. Linux is.