What the hec is Linux and what is it good for?

People are telling me about linux an OS of some kind which is supposed to be so great and free and I'm like what the hec? Can someone tell me exactly what it is and whats so great about it. Personally I wouldn't want or use Linux because I never heard of it until now and it can't be all that good if it's supposed to be free. I would prefer Windows, but I'm curious about it. Can someone give me a link of a computer using linux unstead of Windows.

What the hec is Linux and what is it good for?
GNU/Linux is an operating system that is developed by a community of programmers who collaborate online. There are a bunch of operating system "distributions" based on Linux, which is the basic part of the OS that you need to run your computer. It's great because most distributions are available for free download online and are much more stable and secure than Windows. Most of the things you can do in Windows are easier in Linux with the exception of some games (you can, for example, play World of Warcraft in Linux, but you need a specialized program called Cedega for it.) Linux also looks much better than Windows, and is a lot more customizeable. I'm not sure what you mean by "Can someone give me a link of a computer using linux instead of Windows" but if you are interested, you can download what is called a LiveCD (or DVD) at http://www.sabayon.org which you can burn to a CD or DVD, which contains the complete operating system so when you reboot your computer, you can tell it to boot from the CD/DVD drive and try that particular distribution without affecting your hard drive. I hope this helps, as I am a GNU/Linux user, and I enjoy using this OS.
Reply:It's a free, constantly evolving operating system. To be honest you have to be very technically minded and now quite a bit about computers and UNIX to make much use of it.





Very good when it's working though. No crashes or problems with viruses and other malware.
Reply:A link to a machine that is using linux?





Well most of the links on the net point to a machine using linux. Most of the machines that have web pages, email accounts, hosting games, download servers, chat servers, forums, really just servers of any type.





On the other hand, most of the computers on peoples desks are running Windows. More toys and more pretty stuff. More single-user doing things type of stuff.





So.... thats pretty much the difference at the moment. Thats what they both do best. Of course Windows CAN do internet server stuff. And Linux CAN be a desktop computer. And both of them are trying to be more and more of the other thing. But at the moment, unless you want to play with more power but less toys then I wouldnt give up your windows machine for a linux one.
Reply:its a more complicate OS.You need a lot of experiance to learn to use it right...But is wonderful.It never freeze out like the windows or give you the Blue Screen Of Death.Windows is more friendly and any user oriented...it has his own programs too...like open office
Reply:Its awesome !





Once you have got your head around it, which takes a little doing, you will never want to work with anything else.





Go for ubuntu, its a free download at :





http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download...





When you really get into it and have incorparated beryl, you can achieve results like this :





http://blog.xychen.org/wp-content/upload...





It beats the crap out of Vista, and most of its Free !!!
Reply:log on to - www.fedoraproject.org





its best free flavour of linux OS.
Reply:Linux is a good operating system and works great, and above all is free. The down side to Linux is it doesn't have the support base that Microsoft OS has.


When you install Linux it will work with many of Microsoft programs, it will open and read most all MS Office Word programs, although it comes with a word processor called Open Office.


Linux can also be installed on a computer that runs Windows, so you can have a dual boot system. Linux will also run from a CD, so you don't have to install it to use it, if that's what you would prefer.


A huge plus to Linux is that it runs virtually virus free, because nobody writes viruses for lessor known systems, when they can infect millions of Windows based computers.


The Linux OS is gaining in popularity, and is now available on new systems from some major manufacturer's.
Reply:It's a free and open source operating system that is very powerful. Because it is free and open source anyone can make a version of it (these are called distributions or distro's for short). These can range anywhere in application. You can also dual boot it with Windows or any other OS so give it a try.





http://www.ubuntu.com is a great Linux Distro that is very professional, very powerful, and very easy to use even for people new to Linux.





Download it and give it a try.
Reply:It is open source. Which means that it is always being worked on by developers. Do you reccon thats why Gov Agency's use it. No Viruses, No Malware,


The safest most stable of all Operating Systems.


Don