Unshackling yourself from the Microsoft ecosystem

Discussion in 'Technical' started by DarkLight, Aug 7, 2015.


  1. William Warren

    William Warren Monkey+++

    In laymen's terms, the market has matured to the point that every OS offers pretty much the same capabilities and performance. You can choose either Windows or Linux for a PC: Windows costs a lot and you have to keep paying every time there's a "new" release. Linux is "Open Source", and therefore free: you can download Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware, and the "BSD" offerings for free, and use them without owing anybody anything except the promise to share if you make improvements to the code.

    All the Operating Systems do the same thing: they manage your computers' "back office" operations - disks, floppies, CD/DVD reads and writes, and displays. You don't have to worry about what's "under the hood" anymore, because the major software packages available for each OS can all read and write each others' file formats, so it's not an "either/or" choice now.

    Browsers? Hmmm. They all do the same job at a basic level, but each offers features you may or may not want. The Wall Street Journal recommended that users avoid Internet Explorer, but Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and several other products are available, and all are offered without charge AFAIK. I suggest you read some reviews, ask your friends for opinions, and try each one out for a month or two.

    Word Processors and Spreadsheets are almost always offered together as part of an "office suite", so you can pay for Microsoft Office, and get Word and Excel, or download LibreOffice for free, and get Writer and Calc. Each suite has other features, such as a presentation/slide-prep program, a database engine, and support for various languages.

    In layman's terms, there very little real difference between them now. Microsoft's products cost a lot, and you'll have to pay for each upgrade. The Open Source products are free-as-in-speech, and have matured enough to be a direct replacement for MS Office.

    The Achilles heal of Open Source has always been printing: if there's one valid reason for choosing Windows over Linux, that's it. Don't get me wrong: Linux does great printing, and is used by many authors because of its flexibility and power (Neal Stephenson referred to Emacs as "a nuclear-powered word-processor"), but unlike Windows, you can't assume that "any" printer will automagically work with Linux. There's a reason for this: Microsoft has done everything it can to lock printer manufacturers into the Windows world, and the printer manufacturers, for their part, have been reluctant to release details of their machines' internal functions, preferring to go with Microsoft's "Closed" model instead. The joker in the pack is that many printers use Linux as their internal operating system - why not, it's free and reliable - but the printer companies don't want too many details leaking out, since that might allow hackers to bypass the highly-profitable "supplies" that those same manufacturers try to keep others from copying. Every time you buy an ink cartridge for an HP machine, you're contributing to the estimated 50% of HP profits that come from being the only place that consumers can buy supplies for "their" machines.

    So, long story short, if you choose Linux, you'll have to either make sure to get a distro which supports the printer you have now, or buy a printer based on which distro you're using. There's no "plug and pray" for printers in the Open Source world, and that's enough of a concern for some businesses that they're willing to stay with Microsoft's OS.

    I hope that answers your questions, but please don't hesitate to ask for more help if you need it.

    William Warren
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2015
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  2. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    Agree with WW although I have no issues with printer support.

    The best way to sample Linux is to download a live version, burn the iso to DVD and boot from the DVD. This will allow you to see the OS without changing anything on your hard drive. For absolute Linux noobs, I tend to suggest Ubuntu. Live DVDs are really slow so don't let that dissuade you.

    Download Ubuntu Desktop | Download | Ubuntu
     
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