The Linux operating system is misunderstood on many levels. At first, even I made the mistake of thinking you always have to pay to get a quality product with support. After 7 years of using Microsoft products, I learned that even when you pay a high licensing fee, you still do not get support or a good product. Have you every tried to call their Technhotlinepport hotline? Mind you, it is Not a toll-free number to call. The average wait time is well over 2 hours. 2 hours, to Redmond, Washington. I have never actually spoken to a live representative from Microsoft, after running up almost $15 in phone fees, I figured it would be easier to do it myself.
When you think commercial software, you think, oh, a nice box and instructions should be included for this $89.99 upgrade. In fact, you get a cheap cardboard holder and an instruction manual that barely even explains how to install the software, no less use it. After you struggle with the install, which includes finding every single driver for every singe Plug and Play device on your system. (If its plug and play, why do I need a driver?) You find that your $89.99 upgrade gives you an operating system, 4 ancient computer games, and a web browser…and that’s about it.hugheat deal,hugh?
If you go to a store to buy a copy of Linux (You don’t have to buy it, you can download it for free!) You get for $29.99 (orcdoromsg): 3 cd roms in a professional looking holder, no serial number to enter, a 300 some odd page user s manual,and a 60-page installation manual. The installation process is so easy I could not believe it the first time I did it. All I had to tell it was what language I wanted, where I wanted it installed, and how many programs I wanted installed. No special drivers were needed for my hardware. All the plug and play devices were just that, plug and play. After the painless and short install process, which involved no restarts, I found a very complete, mature, and well equipped environment to work with. Linux included several word processors and spread sheets, a whole office suite, dozens of games, ainternets of internet programs. It even includes a professional web server and many compilers to create my own programs. In total, nearly 2000 applications were included in the Linux distribution I purchased. Compare that to SWordpade and Wordpad included with windows.