To the Linux users out there

[Tannin]

Benefits of Linux over Windows:

 

Hard to explain without background. Basically there are only 2 base-types of OSes around: Unix and Windows.

Unix is old and has been designed as a secure server-system from the start. Windows has been designed as a end-user OS and has received concepts like password protection, user separation, access control, networking and especially network security as an afterthought.

The unix family of OSes has withstood the test of time A LOT better than Windows: It's core concepts, i.e. regarding security deviced in 1970 or so are still robust today whereas Windows concepts were broken and had to be rewritten repeatedly. Or, worse, the broken concepts are still around.

 

Admittedly, users usually don't notice how broken Windows really is but its pretty much patchwork. This shows for example in that several Windows tools (i.e. windows explorer) use interfaces that Microsoft itself has labeled obsolete 15 years ago.

This is the reason earlier versions of ModOrganizer could (accidentally) create files that the windows explorer couldn't delete: The filesystem of Windows supports a lot more features than explorer can handle:

the FS can support file names up to 32768 characters long (and could do that since Windows NT in 1993) but 99% of the windows programs (including shipped MS software) will crap out faced with file names longer than 260 characters.

 

Have you ever wondered why your HD, which is probably the first drive in your system is C: instead of A:? Because in the 1980s PCs often had two floppy drives (3.5" and 5.25"), microsoft reserved A: and B: for those and there is still so much crappy software working under the assumption that A: and B: are floppies (again, this includes Microsofts own software) that even 30 years later they can't get rid of the ballast.

 

 

Ok, enough with the rant, you asked what Linux is, not what Windows is...

Almost all OSes in use today that aren't windows are some form of unix-based: Mac OS X, iOS, Android, FreeBSD, Linux

Linux is (depending on context) either a free, open-source unix-based OS or only the kernel thereof. Anyone who wants to can create his own Linux "distribution" to create a customized OS. Popular distributions are Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora Core, Red Hat, CentOS, Suse, Gentoo, ...

They usually have different goals (i.e. stable server systems, up-to-date desktop, gaming, ...) but they are all Linux.

 

Linux does have bugs and occasionally there is a virus, but they can usually do a lot less damage. While there are maybe a few hundred viruses and other malware for Linux there are several million for Windows.