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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 24 2018, @06:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the welcome-to-the-party dept.

Forbes.com has published a piece by contributor Jason Evangelho entitled "5 Reasons You Should Switch From Windows To Linux Right Now".

When I published the highlights of my journey switching from Windows to Linux on my everyday laptop... it became one of my most viewed pieces this year. From where I'm sitting, that tells me a ton of people are interested -- are at least actively curious -- about ditching Windows and making the jump to Linux.

With that in mind, I wanted to present five reasons that may lead you to consider switching. Know that these are subjective, and they're targeted at the average Windows user and not folks who rely on Windows-exclusive applications for a paycheck.

One thing to know right up front: the modern Linux desktop OS is no longer the obtuse, bewildering and command line driven thing it used to be. Not remotely.

It's nice to see a free operating system getting some love in the mainstream press. Forbes running this article is more the story here than desktop Linux having advantages over Windows.

Be sure to read TFA to find out what the five reasons are. (Or see spoiler, below.)


1: Linux Gets Out Of Your Way
2: You're Not A Slave To The Terminal
3: Installing Software Is Even Easier
4: Updates aren't a headache. They're glorious
5: The Linux Community

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @10:11PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @10:11PM (#711982)

    0: it's unfamiliar

    1. It does not run THEIR software (QB, MS Office, Adobe, engineering CADs, internal stuff)

    That is more important than 0, we know that by the wringing MS did to their customers with Win8 (they rumbled but stayed with the ship.) Customers can learn a few things in the OS, not that they spend much time moving files and mounting fileshares. However customers are not willing to give up their beloved tools - primarily MS Office. I used LibreOffice quite a lot, and while it is functional, it is not as polished as the Office. And, of course, Outlook + Exchange, they are not giving that up. Often there is a good reason for that.

    Overall, office crowds are very conservative. It can be understood - a failure of a tool will threaten the workflow. Cost of Windows for them is zero, but they can't care less even if it is a thousand - it's not their money. Linux will win the desktop only when it does important things far better than Windows, otherwise resistance to change will keep Windows in place. But Windows had twenty year head start. Likely, the desktop - which is slowly dying on its own - will stay with Windows for a while. Linux on smartphone, however, had conquered the world, while Windows in the same market pitifully died. Linux and other F/OSS will be prime tools for new hardware, while Windows will remain a legacy tool on desktop hardware.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:52AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:52AM (#712131)

    Linux will win the desktop only when it does important things far better than Windows,

    Proprietary thugs try to undermine Free Software at every step of the way, so that's unlikely. But even if it did, what would that accomplish? Nothing. People would still be focused on usability over freedom, so the next time an attractive non-free proprietary user-subjugating program came along, most people would still use it. We need to educate people about the importance of software freedom and preventing computers and software from becoming black boxes, or nothing of substance will change. It's a battle of values, ethics, and principles, not technical usability. This is what "open source" advocates do not understand.