Why Linux?
That’s a very common question. You may notice on this blog that I use Linux to most of my tasks. I would like to cover this subject to view some very nice advantages of this OS. I will not denigrate other (commercial especially) operating systems, that’s not the point. I hope to present Linux as a promising and useful OS.
So… why to use Linux?
First of all – because it’s free (as in freedom). I can hear you saying “Oh, that’s it?!”, but think about opportunities that gives you free operating system. You are not dependent on any company standing behind your OS, you can do whatever you want with your software and hardware. It’s yours. End users, especially desktop computer users may not notice this as a big deal, but for developers and big software consumers it is really blessing not to be dependent on anybody, especially big companies.
In my opinion the most popular platform that runs various software should be a free platform (opposite to current situation). Thanks to this, progress in software development and computer science would be much faster than it is on closed platforms. That’s because when everybody works on an open platform then everybody cares about it and generally pushes it forward.
Imagine a situation that you want to write your own application. Fine, you can do it for every platform that gives you a compiler, but to run your own program on closed platforms first you have to buy this platform. The more programs you have for this platform the more dependent on company that distributes it you become. That’s of course great situation for this company, not for you. The situation touches not only developers but also consumers that use software dedicated for commercial platforms.
That was economical part of subject, now take a look at technical matters. Closed platforms are unchangeable, the only way to improve it is ask it’s producer for features or fixes and wait to see if your wishes will come true. When you work on free platform like Linux you can do improvements by yourself with no waiting or asking anybody, it’s your platform. You don’t have to pay someone to develop your software. You can even distribute entire operating system with your software if it’s needed.
Ok, that could be said about every free operating system. The thing that makes me pick Linux from other open OSes is it’s popularity and availability. In fact, Linux is the most developed free operating system. Of course there are other good OSes like FreeBSD or OpenSolaris, but these are popular for servers, on desktop there is no good hardware support. Linux works on almost every architecture and supports most of hardwares. It has support (not big but always something) from hardware manufacturers like Intel or Nvidia. It runs on servers, desktop computers, laptops, mobile devices and many other devices. Linux make use of every processor if it’s possible. That’s why it is good candidate to make some kind of standard out of it. Worth to say is that Linux is compatible with other POSIX compliant operating systems so usually it’s very easy to port programs from Linux to other free OSes and vice versa.
Finally, the thing that concerns end users. Sometimes you may hear phrases like “this will be year of Linux on desktops”. Actually Linux has reached the level when it runs really well on popular desktop computers and laptops. It runs well and offers plenty of nice features for everybody, from programming tools through office programs to multimedia players. Beside this Linux distributions have great software package managers like APT in Debian or Ubuntu. After some time of using that tools you never want to go back to Windows style messy installers. Linux is chasing Windows with useful software and often offers even better features. Everyday more software producers consider writing for this platform. The only thing that is needed to make it the finest operating system is popularity. So start to use it and show your friends how cool it can be 
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I had a dream
Imagine how nice it could be if Linux was not only very popular on desktops so you have all useful programs like Photoshop on it but also was used as a gaming platform. Open platforms works in this way that companies which are developing for it and using it are also building parts of the OS. So if open platform like Linux would be the most popular platform then it would be developed not only by one company like Microsoft but by all software and hardware producers. I don’t mean that everybody will give software for free. No, developers have to earn on their software but it is their interest to make the OS a bit better every the time.
