A Mike Life – The Life of Mike!

#54 – Switch to Linux

// September 8th, 2007 // fun

Okay, I know some of the women may not be interested in this one but it was a huge step for me. If you don’t know what Linux is, think Windows but free, faster, more reliable and cooler.

I’ve never wanted to make the switch to Linux. Why? Well, it takes a bit more work to make things go sometimes. It’s not for computer novices. You can’t run Windows programs on it, like Word, Excel or whatever.

However, when I wrote about my switch to Web 2.0 and Google Mail, online chat, online backups, etc., this final step was needed to totally complete the move. I never talked about it, but the thing is, Linux is free! And it’s getting better all the time.

There are various forms of Linux out there, like Red Hat or Ubuntu. I am using Ubuntu, which is an African word for ‘Humanity to others’, or ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. This Ubuntu project is run by a billionaire who hired people to do this. He isn’t making a red cent from it, he only wants to help further the open source movement. Free stuff.

Anyways, now both my home and office computers are running Linux and I couldn’t be happier.

And this completes #53 on my 101 in 1001 list!

Edited: I am just editing this because of comment Scott made below. I made the point about not being able to run Windows programs, like Word, Excel, etc., but the thing is, Linux has their own programs to do that. Like OpenOffice, which does all the things Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access does. Windows has Photoshop that costs about $500, but you can download “The Gimp” for free on Linux and it does most of the same things.

In fact, with Ubuntu, I can search for programs in a Universal Database, right from my desktop, check mark them and hit apply. It downloads, installs and tells me when it’s done. And I’ve yet to encounter one that makes me reboot afterwards.

It’s pretty slick.