Windows XP and McAfee

[Work in Progress]

Trav, I see that Leonard mentioned AVG virus protector. It's great - and best of all, it's free.

In case you're interested: AVG Free Viris Protector

[carlos123]

Wow Carlos! Thanks for this tip.

I might do some research on this myself. Do you experience any software compatibility problems?

No problem Kevin. Not sure what you mean by software compatibility problems but if you mean problems between software bumping into each other and causing a problem not really. I say not really because occasionally one might experience a problem between a program that needs to use x version of a library where you want to install the y version of that library. Of course the relatively easy way around that is to simply not install the y version of the library and stick with the x version . Such problems are very, very few and far between though. In fact in the couple of years I have used Linux I have only experienced such a problem once. I share that only to be complete in my answer. Not to imply that Linux has anywhere near the kinds of problems that Windows so often has.

One of the problem with Windows is that programs like Windows and Internet Explorer are very much dependent on and intertwined with the operating system itself. The problem with this is that when Internet Explorer or Windows Explorer become unstable it causes the whole system to become unstable. Because everything in the Windows Operating System relies on everything else. This makes for an easier user experience in theory but in practice it also leads to increased instability.

Under Linux the operating system is one thing. The programs that run on it are another. And the two are not intertwined with each other the way many programs under Windows are intertwined with the underlying Microsoft Operating System. This leads to a less streamlined and easy to use computing experience but conversely to much greater stability in that the crash of a program will not affect the underlying Linux operating system in quite the way a crash of a Windows program like Internet Explorer affects the Windows system.

One generally does not have to upgrade programs to upgrade the Linux operating system as one generally is encouraged or even forced to do when upgrading from something like Windows 95/98 to something like Windows XP. The operating system under Linux generally sticks to doing operating system things while under Windows it tends to encroach on every program that runs under it as well. Since so much of Windows is entertwined with every other part of it. .

There is much, much more to all this than my very brief description Kevin. There's lots of good stuff on the Internet if you do a Google search on something like "Reasons to switch to Linux", or "What's wrong with Microsoft Windows" or any other such phrase.

One word of caution though.....

Switching to Linux is not something you want to do on the spur of the moment. It will not be easy. Take it from personal experience. Many times you will feel like throwing something at the computer. There is a learning curb involved that can be very, very frustratiing in that one has to re-learn what computing is all about (or perhaps learn it for the first time really).

It is a long term proposition. You can get a Linux system up and running within a couple of hours if you use some of the easier to install Linux distributions (like Fedora and Mandrake) but you will need to invest time learning your way around Linux if you want to get the most out of it and don't want to use what comes with these distributions alone.

The long term benefit is freedom. Freedom to do what you want on your computer the way you want to do it. Freedom from ever increasing and non-ending costs associated with Windows lincencing and upgrades. Freedom from having to depend on the wiles and idiosyncracies of one company who pretty much determines the boundaries of your computer experience and what you can and cannot do on your computer.

One of the things I really like about Linux is that once I learn how to fix something such that I fix it, I don't have to ever mess with it again. It stays fixed. Under Windows I may fix something once and then loose that fix as a result of an upgrade to a newer version of Windows or else have some other process somewhere, who knows where, mess with my fix such that it gets messed up again. So much stuff happens under the surface of a Windows Operating System and so much is done for you that it becomes very difficult if not impossible to know what Windows is doing where underneath. You can think something is fixed and surprise, surprise something happens to unfix it and you are back to square one again.

Windows is like "there's many multiple ways that Windows does things underneath depending on the context in which an action takes place..". Linux is like "Do step A, then step B, then step C and don't do C until A and B are done..." It's just easier for me to follow and control. I am master of my own computer not the operating system. It does my bidding. I don't sit around hoping that Windows will let me do something or do something about a problem I have found with the operating system. If I don't like the way Linux is doing something I can jump in and help change it. For the good of the open source community and those who use Linux.

There isn't nearly the quantity of easy to use prorams under Linux that there is under Windows. But if all you use the computer for is web browsing (Mozilla Firefox is way better than Internet Explorer), word processing (where you are not heavily dependent on sharing files with those who use Microsoft Word), email (in which Linux is unsurpassed), web authoring and web site creation, networking (again Linux is unsurpassed in this), and the like then Linux is a great alternative to Windows. A much better alternative in my opinion.

If you are heavily into playing games, graphics manipulation and processing of photos, using the latest hardware available, the lastest multii-processor mother boards, the latest most cutting edge graphics cards, and the like your better off with Windows. Under Linux many of the latest most cutting edge hardware does not come out with drivers that are needed to run them under Linux. The Linux market is just not big enough for many cutting edge hardware companies to invest in creating a Linux driver for their hardware. But drivers come out anyway eventually as programmers around the world hack them into existance. It just takes longer. Until the manufaturers get on the ball in being motivated to create Linux drivers like they do for Windows this will remain the case.

Carlos

Edited February 5, 2005 by carlos123