Saturday, March 1, 2014

5 Resons to Use a Free Operationg System



1. Freedom and Free of Cost

With Free Software, you get freedom. That is what the "Free" in Free Software means. But for our people, who are brainwashed by corporate media, free also means for no cost. The good news is, most free operating systems also come for free of cost too. Don't come with vile excuses like you have a pirated copy of Windows or you got it bundled with your machine. Former is silly and later is stupid. It is silly to steal a product when a better product is available freely and it is stupid to claim that you got Windows free of cost with your machine, while you have paid for it through "Microsoft tax". Also you can be sure that no NSA agent is offered a backdoor in your machine. If you doubt it, look in to the source for yourself!

2. Secure

Free operating systems like GNU/Linux and BSD are more secure. There are only few know viruses exist for these platforms and they are also controlled currently. Unless you are foolish enough to reveal your password or keep a password that can be easily guessed or fooled to install a malware, you are almost safe. Even though I will suggest you to have a Free Software anti-virus program like Clam-AV to prevent propagating virus unknowingly to other platforms and any new threat.

3. All in One

When you install Windows, you have to install all drivers and other software separately. And some of them are costly too. It is time consuming to keep all of the installed software up to date. You have to check the software's website regularly and download the latest version and install them. With the software repository concept, (which was there as far back as I remember) Free operating systems allow you to install and maintain all software in one place. Also you can find free software alternate for almost all tools you like. When a new version of your favorite browser or media player is released, your system update itself will update them too. Isn't that easy?

4. Choice of UI

Don't like the Aero UI? You can switch to the Classic UI. Or you can console yourself by changing the color themes. These are the few options available with Windows. With the Free operating systems, you can have wide varieties like GNOME, KDE, MATE, Xfce, LXDE, Enlightenment, Cinnamon and I can't list them all here! You have that many choices. You can install whatever you want or you can install multiple desktop environments in a single system and switch between them in login screen. You can choose not to install any UI and use in CLI mode. This will suit servers and workstation for hardcore geeks like Torvalds or Stallman.

5. No Fragmentation

If you have used Windows for a good amount of time, then you should have noticed that the system slows with time. Why? This is due to file fragmentation. That is, files are stored scattered along the disk and the hard disk head has to move back and forth to read a sequence of data, say an audio or video file. This will also reduce the life of your hard disk. Windows comes with a defragmentor tool. But that too has lot of limitation. But free operating systems come with cutting edge journaled file systems which don't fragment with time. Even if they do very rarely, you can just copy the files to some other partition and copy them back. But I have never came across such situation.

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