Why did you move from Windows?

[Pimp Daddy]

There are many people on this forum at the moment who are 'newbies', but this question can apply to anyone who's moved from the Windows system to a distro of Linux or, like me, now uses a dual boot of Linux and Windows.

I have a few reasons for choosing Linux. I have a great interest in operating systems and it does me no good in my opinion to stick with one OS right the way through my life. Not only does it allow me to broaden my knowledge it also increases my chances of getting a decent job. For all I know, the jobs I will want all involve Linux so it'll be no good if I don't experience it.

I also want to program for operating systems - either by creating applications or making integral parts. As I have access to the source code with Linux so I consider it easier to get started in that area.

Windows still has it's uses for me though - that's why I have a dual boot. XP is a big influence on the world of computing, there is the .NET framework - I do a lot of programming using that and a lot of companies will probably be using it so it does me no goo to ignore it. You can see that I'm not totally anti-Microsoft. However, their string of OSs does have it's faults from a developer's point of view.

As it is designed for all types of users Microsoft have a need to protect their source code from being accidentally corrupted by someone who knows nothing about programming. However, for a developer this means that the OS is more restrictive and it's harder to program for certain areas of it.

XP is also built on old technology (Windows NT). This means that unless the programming is near perfect, you will inherit at least some of the flaws from the previous technology. If they started from scratch, then they might have a better chance of creating something to rival the volcano proof qualities of Linux.

As Microsoft is a commercial company it also wants to make more money. That's why it forces us to use software such as Internet Explorer which, at this current stage, is an inferior browser compared to the likes of Mozilla Firefox and Opera. Sure, you can install other software, but because they integrate their products into the OS code, it's hard to remove them.

Anyway, there are my reasons for choosing Linux - what about the rest of you?

[sarumont]

The First Amendment.

[white scorpion]

i'd like to learn more about computers, and know what my computer is doing when i give it a command, this is not really possible with windows.
(don't misunderstand, i know most of the things are also possible via command line, but it is very hard to get info on it)

since you have the wizards for just about everything, there are fewer tutorials on doing everything manually, while with linux, you can do everything manually, which gives you a greater knowledge of how stuff works...

one other thing, i like to play hackchallenges, and it comes in pretty handy when you have knowledge of both OS's.

and of course, i want to become a network administrator(as a job) and this also requires knowing linux....


and in a couple of weeks, i'm going to start with "linux from scratch" so i get an ever greater understanding of how linux exactly works, and this is also very usefull for windows, since they both have the same base, a kernel, services, etc,etc.

but i keep windows since i need it for my job, and future job, and there are some things (e.g. games) that doesn't run on linux...

they both have there own properties...


only disadvantage of windows is of course not open source, but also it is so expensive!

[Tetsuo]

I grew tired of constantly fighting with my computer to make it stable ( Win 98SE) which is really annoying if your run lots of p2p applications - takes a while to restart them again, you lose seeds etc.

I grew tired of the BSOD, especially because I could never understand what prompted them, or any other random program freezes and crashes.

I grew tired of worrying about viruses,trojans and other exploits and finally I just got bored with windows in general. It may have excited me when I was first learning it in '96 but by this year I was just sick of it and was ready to unleash the penguin

[Chris H]

I let cfdisk loose on my disk that indicated only 37.1 Gb out of 40Gb. Methinks I deleted a hidden partition. Then my OEM version of windows wouldn't reinstall.

Result all round!

[U-Turn]

I had only been using computers about 6 months when I started looking for something other than Windows. I was using 98se at the time and had just finished writing a 2000 word essay on the way the "Bill of Rights" has been raped by the legislature and the supreme court over the past 3 or 4 decades.
I pulled in to the Sturbridge Isle truck-stop in Sturbridge, MA, grabbed the laptop, went to the drivers lounge, connected to the land-line and proceded to download my e-mail. AVG warned me that one of the e-mails was infected. I ran the program and quarantined the worm but apparantly I was too late. I shut down and returned to the truck. I tried to start the laptop but Win.com and several other necessary files were missing and I had no way to recover without destroying everything on the hard drive.
Sorry MicroSoft. Any time downloading an e-mail can destroy my hard work it's time to find another way of doing things.

[hafnium]

i made the switch to linux since i wanted to try something new that was different than windows. mainly my win 98se just wasn't satisfying me enough, rebooting daily isn't appealing. plus i just started college, so i finally had a computer that only myself controlled, and could afford to just play around with it. if gates himself can't keep his own os from crashing, then average joe has no chance of attaining it.

the added bonus was that linux was free and easily attainable. so then i tried a ton of distros, mostly the bigger distros such as redhat and mandrake. and finally settled on slackware 8.0 at the time. and have been using slackware fairly consistently ever since.

[Mandark]

Does it count if you have both?

Winblows is too unstable, especially XP.

[scientica]

why? I'm only asking my self, why not sooner?

stabillity, securoity and _real user/admin friendly/useable/real consoles_

[tr_wright1]

i made the switch to linux since i wanted to try something new that was different than windows. mainly my win 98se just wasn't satisfying me enough, rebooting daily isn't appealing. plus i just started college, so i finally had a computer that only myself controlled, and could afford to just play around with it. if gates himself can't keep his own os from crashing, then average joe has no chance of attaining it.the added bonus was that linux was free and easily attainable. so then i tried a ton of distros, mostly the bigger distros such as redhat and mandrake. and finally settled on slackware 8.0 at the time. and have been using slackware fairly consistently ever since.

gates is useless when trying to keep his os afloat! check this out! you may die laughing......



http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9804/20/gates.comdex/