Why Linux, Part II

Maybe not as comprehensive as the previous entry, this entry focuses on
the “Why Linux” portion while the previous was more “Why Not Windows.”
For what it’s worth, this feels a little more like an afterthought since
I tended to argue both sides in the previous entry in an attempt to
cover those arguments. So, these are more things that weren’t covered in
the other while still attempting to be pithy and relevant.

Why?

1. Trial Runs at Little Cost

I would be lying if I didn’t say that the idea of not having a huge cost
of ownership for the basest level of your system, the OS, wasn’t really,
really, appealing. I don’t like the idea of shelling out close to $400
on an OS and hoping that everything goes well because of point #2 –
support — and how much pain will be involved in getting it up and
running. I like the idea of downloading an ISO image, burning it and –
*gasp* — trying it out, first. Being very careful not to utterly blitz
important data, it’s very nice to just blow away a drive and run a clean
installation to see if it is what you need and, if not, be able to put
either another “flavor” on the system, or going back to whatever the OS
of origin was. Now, I know, with the new trend…well, not so new, but
bear with me… of having the LiveCD/DVD ISOs with which to run the OS
from the CD/DVD and be able to test drive from there is very nice. I
still, however, seem to be one of the luddites inasmuch as I like to see
how it will work with my actual system and not just the live environment
that has been tailored to see how it runs. That said, such
experimentation is either FREE or very low cost.

Can you imagine doing the above scenario with Windows? If you wanted to
run tests of XP, Vista (ack) or Win7, that would require all three, and
none of them are free…well, unless you’re doing something you
shouldn’t really do, but how are you supposed to test something to see
if you like it if you have no access to it and no money? Good question,
MS…

2. Support

OK, so Windows users love the fact that they have a giant coproation
behind them. I get that and, even up to a certain point, sympathize with
it. However, I’ve lived in the real world where support calls can be a
pain in the rump even with expedited “preferred” status due to company
subscriptions. You’d think that when you sign up for a $20K support
contract with MS, you’d do better than 5 or 6 45-minute phone calls to
fix something that, after having gone home and been able to look up on
the internet, should have been fixable in about 20 minutes with both
eyes closed. I can’t tell you what it is for a couple of reasons — the
company in question probably wouldn’t appreciate it and really, it’s
been long enough that the details are fuzzy…I just remember getting
off with MS the last time and not quite screaming about why things had
to be so difficult. So, this was the first shattering disillusionment I
had with MS.

Enter linux, where the opinion at large seems to be a complete lack of
support system for users when, in fact, the exact opposite is true –
it’s ALL user support. If you type your question into Google, odds are
very good there will be around 1.0503 million pages returned where
someone has run into the problem, or something similar. What’s better is
that most of these links are to forums that are bursting at the seams
with knowledgeable and helpful users who’ve been there and done that and
are more than willing to share the experiences and advice. What this
means that, unless you are having one of the most obscure problems in
the history of linux, someone will have run into it and, more
importantly, will have an answer or at least a suggestion to try within
a few hours.

I have, in my experience, only run into two problems that weren’t able
to fixed by searching the net and finding a previously answered
question. The two that remained I posted, one solved within 15 minutes
of posting. The other, for whatever reason, is in the realm of the
unknowable, and so I’ve moved on because it wasn’t something that was a
make-or-break error.

So, the bottom line for me, here, is that while there also seems to be a
solid windows user-based-support system, now, that wasn’t always the
case and the assistance I’ve received from the linux community over the
years has really endeared them to me. Not once have I been told I was an
idiot or newbie when asking a question — something that DID happen a
few years ago in a Windows forum, which, after having a been in a system
administrator position in a couple of places, irked me, a bit.

3. Update Love

I love MintUpdate and it’s varying relatives in the linux world. It
tells me, in an unobtrusive manner, that there are updates available for
varying items in my system. It then gives me the option to go in and
either update everything or select certain updates to apply while
ignoring others. It then downloads and installs everything in a slick,
unobtrusive, manner. Have I mentioned ‘unobtrusive?’ That’s important to
me…

I know, I know — WindowsUpdate exists for this purpose but brings with
it a number of *obtrusive* “features” that drive me absolutely nuts. The
main thing is that, by default, it downloads everything before telling
you that it’s available. This can be changed, but why have it that way
by default? Still, it’s just annoying to me — and that may just be
personal perception and/or preference at work, but the bottom line is
that the person having to use this system is…me.

The other thing that linux has over Windows in the form of updates
and/or additional software is the collection of repositories from which
to download new and/or improved software. I love jumping into a terminal
and, when I know exactly what I want or need, simply type sudo apt-get
install <thing I want> and away it goes, doing what it needs to satisfy
dependencies and install the software. If I’m feeling cheeky, I can use
Synaptic and it will do the same thing but with a nice happy list with
categories and life is good, as you can mark for installation, update
and removal all from one interface. Windows doesn’t have a good
equivalent that I have found and installing new software always seems to
run a risk to breaking something else. It’s nice to have something go
through and check dependencies to make sure I’m not going to do
something stupid…

I don’t know. This may be a push, in some peoples’ eyes, but I’m not so
sure. I’ve never had my system rendered useless after a batch of updates
from mintUpdate. I have, however, witnessed a laptop no longer able to
boot into anything but safe mode once ServicePack3 was installed for
WindowsXP. Not cool…

Conclusion

There are more reasons, and I may touch on those in later missives. For
now, I’m tired and not feeling very inspired. That’s a bad combination.
Of course, it doesn’t help with the frustration level stemming from one
of linux’s shortcomings — no REALLY solid blog client. Ah, well. I’ll
take stable and able to do just about everything else without
aggravation over a blogging client.

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