Why Linux is better than Windows

Shiwang Kalkhanda © Copyright 2013http://tosl.wordpress.comCorrections, suggestions, contributions and translations are welcome

Shiwang Kalkhanda(shiwangkalkhanda@gmail.com)

The presentation is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license

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BECAUSE....................

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FORGET ABOUT VIRUSES

● If your computer shuts itself down without asking you, if strange windows open with text you don't understand and all kinds of advertisements appear when you don't ask for them, if emails get sent to all your contacts without your knowing it, then your computer probably has a virus. The main reason for this is because it runs Windows.

● Linux hardly has any viruses and there are reasons for this:● More eyes make fewer security flaws. Linux is Open source software, which means that any

programmer in the world can have a look at the code (the "recipe" of any program), and help out if there is any flaw or suspicion.

● Linux uses smart authorization management. Every time you request to do something that has to do with the system, an administrator password is required.

● Most people use Microsoft Windows, and pirates want to do as much damage (or control) as possible: therefore, they target Windows. But that's not the only reason; the Apache web server , which is open source software, has the biggest market share (against Microsoft's IIS server), but it still suffers from much fewer attacks/flaws than the Microsoft one.

● With Linux, you have a worldwide community providing security fixes, not a single company with closed source code. You are completely dependent on the response of one company to provide you with timely security fixes when you use Windows.

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IS YOUR SYSTEM STABLE (UPTIME OF SYSTEM)

● This stability means that Linux can support your "99.999 percent available" service requirements. Rebooting after every patch, service pack, or driver change makes Windows an unstable and unreliable choice for those who need nonstop support for their critical applications and services.

● Windows often give the "blue screen of death" or error messages telling you that the computer needs to be shut down for obscure reasons?

● Therefore, if your computer can stay up and running for a long time, no matter how much you use it, then you can say the system is stable. Well, Linux can run for years without needing to be restarted (most internet servers run Linux, and they usually never restart)

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DONT PAY FOR YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM AND DONT COPY THEM ILLEGALLY

● Well you must be saying now I didn’t paid for Windows. Are you 100% sure..? If your computer(laptop) comes with windows pre-installed then you actually paid for it. At least 12-15 % of your computer costs goes for Operating System

● On the other hand Linux is free. Linux is free of charge and it is free in the sense that it is also free of patents and other restrictions that make it unwieldy for creative business owners who wish to edit and enhance the source code. This ability to innovate with Linux has helped create companies like Google, who have taken that ability and converted it into big business. Linux is free, as in freedom.

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NO MORE INSULT OR TRIAL SOFTWARES PRE INSTALLED

● To add insult to injury, often times after you've owned your new computer for 30 days, new dialogs start to pop up, and you realize that some of these programs that you thought were free (for example, an antivirus) really aren't, all you have is a free 30-day trial.

● When you first turn your computer on: countless windows start to open, asking you to subscribe for services, the premium version of an antivirus, games you never asked for, productivity applications requiring you to create an account online, etc.

● None of that with Linux. No program will nag you about subscribing, paying after a trial period ends, or just slow your computer down and make you wait some more while it starts, just when you thought it was ready to be used. Linux comes with everything that you need to start working right away, without the crap-ware

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FREEDOM

● Linux and "Open Source" software are "free". This means their license is a "free license", and the most common is the GPL (General Public License). This license states that anyone is allowed to copy the software, see the source code (the "recipe"), modify it, and redistribute it as long as it remains licensed with the GPL.

● Imagine Microsoft suddenly triples the price for a Windows or Office license. If you're tied to Windows, there's nothing you can do. You (or your business) relies on this one company, on its software, and you can't possibly make things work without it (what good is a computer without an operating system?)

● With Open Source, if a particular project or support company dies, all the code remains open to the community and people can keep improving it. If this project is especially useful to you, you can even do this yourself. If a particular bug annoys you, you can submit it, talk with the developers, but even better, you can fix it yourself (or hire someone to do so), and send the changes back to the upstream developers so that everyone gets the improvement as well. You're free to do (nearly) whatever you want with the software.

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WHEN THE OS IS INSTALLED WHY YOU NEED TO INSTALL OFFICE AND PDF READER ETC.

● Installing Windows is just the beginning. Imagine you just installed your brand new copy of Windows 7 and prepare to unleash your computer skills. A friend sends you an email with an attached PDF file : damn, you don't have a program to read it. You need to go online, search for a website that will let you download Adobe Reader (or another PDF viewer), download it, install it, maybe even reboot. Whew, all right, now you're all set. Attached to your friend's email you find a text document, file.doc. Your Windows can't read that either, right now: great. Either you go buy your copy of Microsoft Office, or you just download OpenOffice, but still, you need to find it, download it (let's hope you have a broadband connection), install it, etc. Your friend also sent you an image, but it has a bad contrast, bad luminosity, and needs a good crop. So you can now go and buy Photoshop (how many hundred bucks is that again?), or download the GIMP (this is the name of the free program that can do nearly as much as Photoshop) : search, download, install, etc. That's enough : you get the idea, Windows is far from complete, and installing it is just the beginning of trouble.

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WHEN THE OS IS INSTALLED WHY YOU NEED TO INSTALL OFFICE AND PDF READER ETC.

● When you get Linux (such as Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora, etc., these are different "flavors" of Linux), you also get, without installing anything more :

● Libre Office gives you Everything you need to write texts, edit spreadsheets, make neat presentations, draw, edit equations.

● A web browser (eg Firefox) and an email program (eg Thunderbird, or Evolution).● An image editor (GIMP) nearly as powerful as Photoshop.● An instant messenger.● A movie player.● A music player and organizer.● A PDF reader.● Everything you need to uncompress archives (ZIP, etc.).

● You can just start working right away.

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FORGET ABOUT DRIVERS

● New pieces of hardware, even the simplest kind, usually come with a CD. On the CD, a very small piece of software called a "driver". If you read the instructions manual, you'll know that the hardware won't work on a Windows computer until you install the driver.

● Linux doesn't need separate drivers. All the drivers are already included in the Linux kernel, the core of the system, and that comes with every single Linux installation. This means:

● A very fast and standalone installation process. Once you're done, you have everything you need to start working (including the software you'll be using, see "When the system has installed..." item on this website).

● Out-of-the-box ready peripherals.● Less harm for the planet because all these CDs don't need to come with hardware any more

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UPDATE ALL YOUR SOFTWARE WITH A SINGLE CLICK

● Windows has a pretty convenient tool called "Windows update", which allows you to update your system with the latest updates available.

● But what about all your non-Microsoft software? Adobe applications? ZIP compresser? Burning program? Non-Microsoft web browsers and email clients, etc.? You need to update all of them, one by one. And that takes time, since each one of them has its own (auto-)updating system.

● Linux has a central place called the "Package manager", which takes care of everything installed on your system, but also every single piece of software your computer has. So if you want to keep everything up-to-date, the only thing you need to do is press the "Install Updates" button .

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WHY COPY SOFTWARE ILLEGALLY IF YOU CAN GET IT FOR FREE …......?

● Lets be honest, all people copy one software or another illegally,.. like Adobe Photoshop, MS Office etc. Copying Adobe Photoshop instead of buying it probably doesn't let you have nightmares. But are you really confident that you won't ever have trouble for that?

● While using a pirated Windows itself , whenever you connect to Internet , and if automatic updates are on(which are on by default) then very soon you will have a warning on your screen that your windows is not genuine. And some times after reboot you are even locked out.

● If you run Linux and install free software, you won't have to worry about this ever again! Most of free (as in free speech) software is free (as in free beer). You can find a free replacement for most of the commercial software out there. They might lack some of the advanced functionality, but they'll be more than enough for most people.

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WHY COPY SOFTWARE ILLEGALLY IF YOU CAN GET IT FOR FREE …......?What We Want

to DoWindows

ApplicationOpen Source

EquivalentOS App Runs

on LinuxOS App RunsOn Windows

Surf the Web Internet Explorer Firefox Yes Yes

Surf the Web Internet Explorer Chromium Yes Yes

Email Outlook Express Thunderbird Yes Yes

Play Media Win Media Player Miro, VLC Yes Yes

Bitmap Graphics Photoshop GIMP Yes Yes

Vector Graphics Adobe Illustrator Inkscape Yes Yes

Text Documents Word Writer* Yes Yes

Spreadsheets Excel Calc* Yes Yes

Presentations PowerPoint Impress* Yes Yes

Create Web Site Dreamweaver KompoZer Yes Yes

Page Layout Publisher Scribus Yes Yes

Draw Diagrams Visio Dia Yes Yes

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NEED A NEW SOFTWARE ..? DONT BOTHER LINUX WILL DO IT FOR YOU

● If you want to check out a new piece of software in Windows, you'll need to:● Search the web to find which piece of software suits your needs. Find a web site that allows you to

download it. Maybe pay for it. Actually download the software. Install it. Sometimes reboot your computer.

● Whew, that's a lot of work to just try out something new!● With Linux, everything is much simpler. Linux has what is called a "package manager": each piece

of software is contained in its own "package". If you need some new software, just open the package manager, type a few keywords, choose which software you want to install and press "Apply" or "OK". Or you can just browse existing software (that's a lot of choice!) in categories. UBUNTU SOFTWARE CENTRE IS ONE.

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SOME WEBSITES FOR ALTERNATIVE SOFTWARES IN LINUX

Suggested Web Sites For Applications– http://www.osalt.com

“open source software alternatives to well-known commercial software”– http://www.linuxalt.com

“Windows software and the Linux equivalents and alternatives”– http://alternativeto.net

“Tell us what application you want to replace and we give you great alternatives”

And many others – Just Google It !

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JUMP INTO NEXT GENERATION OF DESKTOPS

● You have been impressed by the 3D and transparency possibilities first introduced in Windows Vista, and decided that these unique capabilities were worth a few hundred dollars? You even bought a new computer so that you could meet Vista's (very high) requirements? Fooled you: Linux can do better, for free, and with much less demanding hardware requirements.

● Try installing Compiz-fusion. You will have full 3D Desktop effects

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NO NEED OF FRAGMENTATION

● If you already know what fragmentation is, and are already used to defragmenting your disk every month or so, here is the short version : Linux doesn't need defragmenting.

● The more you use Windows, the slower it is to access files ; the more you use Linux, the faster it is. The choice is up to you!

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CHOOSE WHAT YOUR DESKTOP LOOK LIKE

● When using windows you are limited to choice of desktop.● Linux give you wide range of Desktop Environment to choose from: -● KDE → For those who prefer glossy and fancy looks● GNOME → For those who prefer simple and fast Desktop● XFCE , MATE etc and many other options are there which vary as per the basis of memory and

processor utilization.

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USE MSN, AIM, ICQ, JABBER, WITH A SINGLE PROGRAM

● You may have accounts for several instant messaging services, such as MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Jabber, AIM, Facebook chat, etc. While running Windows or Mac OS X, you probably need one program to connect to each one of those : MSN Messenger for MSN, ICQ for ICQ, etc.

● With Pidgin, the instant messenger for Linux (it exists for Windows as well, and for Mac OS X with the name "Adium"), you can connect to all these services at once, with this one program, and see all your buddies at the same time.

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GET A GREAT MUSIC PLAYER

● Linux has many music players (including AmaroK, Rhythmbox, Banshee, etc.), and some of them are great. Check out AmaroK for example : it manages and plays your music perfectly, learns which tunes you prefer, automatically fetches their title (and lyrics) on the Internet, and even gets the CD covers for you!

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RUN WINDOWS SOFTWARE INSIDE LINUX

● Some Proprietary Software give releases only for windows and not for linux considering linux has very small user base. This has begin to change . Now more and more software are being released platform independent.

● There is also a project called "Wine" which, in some cases, is capable of running a given Windows application in Linux. You can visit their homepage, which includes listings of compatible software, at www.wineHQ.org.

● If there is a piece of software that you absolutely cannot work without, then keeping Windows is probably a good choice. However, you can have both operating systems installed (often called "dual-booting"), which can be used to suit your needs. Linux can read both (fat and ntfs) partitions well.

● With the Virtualisation increasingly taking place everywhere , we can also use VMWARE or VIRTUAL BOX to install windows inside Linux Box and then use windows program

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WINDOWS BECOME SLOWER DAY AFTER DAY

● Windows has a number of design flaws, resulting in it becoming slower and slower and not lasting very long. You've probably heard more than once someone say "My computer is getting sluggish, I'm gonna reinstall". Reinstalling Windows solves the problem... until next time.

● You may think this is just how computers work: they're very new technology, and not really stable yet. Well, try Linux and you'll be surprised. Five years from now, your system will be just as fast and responsive as the day you installed it, not to mention that you won't have any viruses, adware, trojans, worms, etc., that would force you to reinstall anyway.

● Linux lets you spend more time working, less time reinstalling over and over again.

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DO SOMETHING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

● Windows and Mac OS are sold in boxes. This means that massive amounts of paper and plastic need to be manufactured before the boxes get to your nearby store's shelves (and be disposed of after you buy them). Linux is freely downloadable from the Internet; no amount of plastic or paper is involved.

● Proprietary applications for Windows or Mac OS are also, most of the time, sold in local stores, in boxes, whereas you can download the vast majority of software for Linux from the Internet, for free (again, a whole lot of saved paper and plastic!).

● As the hardware requirements for Windows or Mac OS get higher and higher, a lot of computers are made obsolete, and would need to be disposed of... but since Linux runs pretty well even on very old machines, they can be recycled for various purposes (storage, internet access, multimedia box, etc.) instead of being thrown out!

● Millions of CDs are pressed to hold Windows or Mac OS boxes and are sold to customers. Linux also needs to be burnt on a CD before installation (in most cases at least -- installation from the network or from a hard disk is also quite common). However, most people choose to burn it on a rewritable CD ("CD-RW"), which can be reused for other purposes after the installation is over (unlike proprietary operating systems, you don't need to keep the CD around after you've installed the software, you can always download it again later).

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NO BACKDOORS IN YOU SOFTWARE

● The difference between "closed source" (proprietary) and "open source" software is (how did you guess?) that their "source" is open. Huh, okay, why do I care? Well, the "source", or "source code", is like the secret recipe of every software, like the recipe of a cake. When you buy a cake, there's no way you can figure out the exact recipe (although you can guess bits and pieces, "there's some coconut in here"). If a bakery gave out the recipe for its super-sucessful cheesecake, it would soon go out of business because people would bake it for themselves, at home, and stop buying it. Likewise, Microsoft does not give out the recipe, or "source code", of their software, like Windows, and rightly so because that's what they make their money from.

● The problem is they can put whatever they want in their recipe, without us knowing. If they want to add a bit of code saying "every 12th of the month, if the computer is online, create a list of all the files that have been downloaded in this computer since last month, and send it back to Microsoft through the network". Microsoft probably doesn't do that, but how would you know, since everything is closed, invisible, secret?

● Changing the source code of open source software is a much more open process. By definition, all the recipes are public. It doesn't matter to you since you won't be able to understand the code anyway, but people who understand it can read it, and speak out. And they often do. Every time someone wants to change the source code, all other developers are able to see the change ("hey man, why did you add this code spying on the user's keyboard input, are you out of your mind?"). And even if the whole team of maintainers for a piece of software go crazy and start adding puppy-killing features all over their source code, someone outside the team can very well take the code, remove all the bad bits, create a whole new version of it, and let the world know what the difference is. It's open.

● That's why you can be sure open source software doesn't do bad things behind your back: the community keeps a close eye on all the recipes.

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ENJOY UNLIMITED FREE SUPPORT

● One of the great assets of the Open Source community (and Linux in particular), is that it's a real community. Users and developers really are out there, on web forums, on mailing lists, on IRC channels, helping out new users. They're all happy to see more and more people switch to Linux, and they're happy to help them get a grip on their new system.

● So if there's something you don't understand, a program that doesn't behave the way you would expect, or a feature that you can't seem to find, don't hesitate to go and ask for help. If there's somebody near you (family? co-workers?) who is using Linux, he or she will probably be happy to help you out. Otherwise, just go online and you'll find literally thousands of places where nice people will answer you and walk you out of your problem most of the time: geeks actually are very nice people, if you ask your question politely. Just type "linux help" (or replace "linux" with whatever distribution you chose -- see the install section) in Google and you'll undoubtedly find everything you need.

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TOO MANY WINDOWS ..? USE WORKSPACES

● I never was a Windows user and there is something I just cannot understand: once you have your word processor, your web browser, your email application, your instant messenger software and some windows open to explore your files, how do Windows users manage not to get lost in this clutter?

● Workspaces is a feature I would never trade for anything else. You probably only have one screen, right? Try Linux, and you have four. Well, you can't actually look at the four of them at the same time, but this doesn't matter since your eyes can't look in two directions at once, right? On the first screen, lets put your word processor. On the second one, your instant messenger software. On the third one, your web browser. So when you're writing something in your word processor and you want to check out something on the web, no need to review all your windows to find your browser, stacked all the way behind the others. You just switch to your third screen and wow...., here it is.

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ARE YOUR TIRED OF RESTARTING YOUR COMPUTER ALL THE TIME?

● Have you just upgraded one or two little things on your Windows system with "Windows update"? Please reboot. Have you just installed some new software? Please reboot. Does your system seem unstable? Try to reboot, everything will probably work better after that.

● Windows always asks you to restart your computer, and that can be annoying (maybe you happen to have a long download going on, and you don't want to interrupt it just because you updated a few pieces of your system). But even if you click "Restart later", Windows still keeps bothering you every ten minutes to let you know that you really should restart the computer. And if you happen to be away from your computer and you didn't see the question, it will happily reboot automatically. Bye bye long download.

● Linux basically doesn't need to restart. Whether you install new software (even very big programs) or perform routine upgrades for your system, you will not be asked to restart the computer. It is only necessary when a part from the heart of the system has been updated, and that only happens once every several weeks.

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LET YOUR OLD COMPUTER HAVE A SECOND LIFE

● Windows requires more and more hardware power as its version number increases (95, 98, 2000, Me, XP, etc.). So if you want to keep running Windows, you need to constantly buy new hardware. But I can't see any good reason for so fast an evolution. Of course, many people need a lot of computer power and new hardware and technologies are really helping them. But for most users, who surf the web, read and write emails, write text files and slides, what's the point of buying a new computer every 2, 3 or 4 years, apart from letting computer vendors earn more money? What is exactly the profound reason why your computer can't do any more of what it did perfectly well 5 years ago?

● Linux runs perfectly well on older hardware, on which Windows 7 would probably even refuse to install, or leave you waiting for 20 seconds after each click. Of course, Linux won't make a race-winner out of your 12-year old computer, but it will run very well on it and allow you to perform usual tasks (surfing the web, writing documents, etc.) just fine.

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HELP OTHER COUNTRIES, AND YOUR OWN

● Microsoft is an USA company, and its success is great for the American economy.● But if you don't live in the USA, when you buy proprietary software (eg Windows), about a half of

the money goes directly to the software company's HQ (eg Microsoft's): that money leaves your country, while the other half stays in (sales commissions, etc.: no technical benefits). Your country is not producing anything, and you don't even need qualified people to sell boxes. That leads to IT professionals with no high level knowledge who only install and configure proprietary software without the option of modifying/learning/customizing it.

● With Free Software (eg Linux), the economy (and IT professionals' knowledge) of your country could improve, since there could be a lot of small/medium companies customizing solutions, providing support, consulting, etc.

● People who know how to do things and retain money in your country will benefit from it, rather than people who just sell boxes with a predefined sales pitch, sending your money offshore, leaving IT professionals without real knowledge about how things work.

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HARDWARE ISSUES (WIFI DRIVERS OF SOME VENDORS)

● Most pieces of hardware work just fine with Linux. However, very recent hardware (a few months old) are sometimes not yet supported. Like software vendors, many hardware vendors still consider the Linux market as a very small one, and don't bother to provide Linux drivers for their hardware. The Linux developers work on that, and do a terrific work to let every piece of hardware work like a charm, but this takes a little time.

● The best and most straightforward way to see whether your hardware is well supported is to run Linux from a Live CD (see the "Try Linux without touching Windows" section).

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COMMERCIAL SUPPORT

● In the past, businesses used the lack of commercial support as the main reason for staying with Windows. Red Hat, Novell and Canonical, the "big three" commercial Linux providers, have put this fear to rest. Each of these companies offers 24x7x365 support for your mission-critical applications and business services.

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SCALABLE , VERSATILE AND FLEXIBLE

● SCALABLE – Linux runs on tiny microproscessor to supercomputers.90% of world super computers run on Linux.

● FLEXIBLE – Linux is used for wide variety of application and hardware. It is the foundation of may type of server. Android is built on Linux Kernel. Many embedded system like T.V , Fridge, Washing Machine run Linux kernel.

● VERSATILE – Linux server using Samba can make it look like Windows NT server. Apache is de-facto web server using OSS development model.

● Linux is fast, processor and device efficient.

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TRY LIVE CD

● Try a "Live CD"● You can try Linux for real without even needing to touch your hard disk, without needing to do anything to your

existing Windows !● This is possible with "Linux live CDs". A live CD works the following way :● Download a CD image from the web (this will be an .iso file, about 650 MB).● Burn it onto a blank CD.● Put the CD in your CD drive, and reboot.● Your computer will boot on the CD instead of booting on the hard drive (where Windows is), and will not touch

anything : don't worry about Windows and your data, they'll still be there when you reboot again without the CD.● If your computer still boots Windows (the CD doesn't seem to have any effect), then your BIOS configuration is

faulty: you need to ask it to first scan the CD drive for an operating system, and then the hard drive. You can usually access the BIOS by typing "Del" or "F2" while booting (if you don't feel comfortable with this, get some help).

● Linux runs on your system, you can test it and see how you like it! Don't worry if the system seems a bit slow right now: it takes some time to load everything from the CD. Your Linux system will be much quicker once actually installed on your hard disk.

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CHOOSE FROM SEVERAL FLAVORS

● If you’d like to give Linux a try, there are several distributions that are free to download and use without the need for any commercial support contract:

● CentOS – Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based free distribution● Ubuntu – Free, enterprise Linux distribution (Commercial support available).● Fedora – The Fedora Project is the free, community-supported version of Red Hat Linux.● OpenSUSE – The free, community-supported version of Novell’s SUSE Linux.● Debian – The parent distribution for many Linux distributions including Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

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REFERENCES

● http://www.pcworld.com/article/201731/10_reasons_to_dump_windows_and_use_linux.html● https://www.google.com● http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page● http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net

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THANKS FOR YOU TIME.........!