I use Linux on almost all the gadgets I own, whether it’s Debian on my laptops, desktops and servers, DD-WRT on my routers or Ångström on my PDA’s.
PDA with OPIE.
People, notably those who don’t use and haven’t tried Linux, tend to ask me why, after all my routers worked fine with their stock firmware, my laptops came with Windows XP preloaded, my servers with Solaris installed and my PDAs with windows mobile. Why go through the hassle of putting Linux on them?
Price?
Obviously for most of the devices listed in the previous paragraph the cost of the operating system doesn’t really come into it. I couldn’t have acquired my PDA or Laptop cheaper without Windows on (in retrospect I realise I could have asked for a refund on the OS, but I didn’t), my Servers came with a copy of Solaris, so the operating system, in each case was essentially free anyway…
So the price of the OS is fairly immaterial, it is a small fraction of the total hardware cost, certainly not enough to make a huge decision when purchasing. So if not the OS, maybe there are cost savings somewhere else.
Package management with adept
The assumption tends to be that I don’t want to pay for the other software that I need to make those devices useful. Things like Office (about £250 for the full version) and Photoshop (something like £800) are expensive acquisitions, I also do sound editing, video editing, manage my music collection, take notes (on my tablet) and program using an IDE, all tasks that could be done using expensive software.
Of course many people (if not most) who use these pieces of software haven’t paid for them anyway. In any case I do own a copy of Office Professional (2003 as it happens) and Paint Shop Pro (from way back when), I even bought a boxed version of Windows 2000 at one point.
So I’m not shy about buying software if I feel it brings value, in fact the last piece of software I bought was a copy of Crossover Office, you can imagine my disappointment when not long after they decided to give a version away free for a day, even more so given that after the first six months of use I found that I have pretty much no use for it now.
So it isn’t about cost as such. What it is about is the cost of software versus the value I get it.
On the desktop I can do everything I could under Windows without paying a
KDE4.1 on Debian
penny, moreover I can do it more efficiently, faster and usually with better results. There are some penalties (some things aren’t as portable as I’d like) but they are more than made up for by the benefits.
From a small business point of view it gets even better, I don’t need to spend thousands of pounds to get a functional mail, web, database, file or print server (If I did I wouldn’t have been able to start my business). I don’t need to spend a massive amount on a backup solution, or on anti-virus or even on a Firewall and IDS system. Everything is there, easy to install, provided by one provider, trustworthy and very functional, more functional indeed than many of the non-free stuff out there, this is why Linux is king on the server after all.
How many small businesses can boast a full back office environment, a full development and test system, fully fledged security systems, internal mail, web and application servers and still claim that they are 100% compliant with their licensing requirements? I’d bet not many.
This, however is verging on the enterprise, most home users don’t need, want or care about any of it. They aren’t bothered too much by licensing concerns (they may not even be aware that they exist). So why would I want to use Linux at home on my personal machines?
Linux is… better
Well, mainly because Linux, even on the Desktop is better.
Annotating a PDF
I can do anything I used to be able to do, and rather a lot more with Linux on my desktop and laptops than I could with Windows. I can do all those things without worrying about cost, licensing, DRM issues, install keys, mal-ware, viral infestation and disaster recovery too much.
Most Linux distributions, and especially my distribution of choice, provides applications that are immediately available and can do pretty much anything you want or need to do.
If I need to quickly create an icon I can, liquid rescale an image? no problem, convert a directory of videos? Done. The tools are all there and most are very powerful. It is also often true that you will have not only an application with a nice GUI available to you, but also the ability to use the same (or a similar) application from the command line. Suddenly automation is easy, repetitive tasks become unnecessary (write a script once and keep hold of it) using the computer becomes more fun and less of a chore.
