Softwars

Apologies. This post is very, very geeky.

I've been banging on about the philosophical benefits of free and open source software for quite a while, but lately I've come back into contact with the closed, proprietary Windows empire that my Desktop PC came loaded with. It's a bind. 2 years ago I stuck with it simply because certain things were impossible in Linux (BBC iPlayer, Audacity & recording support, etc). But now - and this is a credit to the brilliant pace of open source software, Linux in particular - these are no longer problems. The only reason to go back to Windows is because certain of my files live there.

And here's the issue. At idle, Vista uses about 1.2 of my very generous 2GB of RAM. Linux uses about 0.3GB, performing roughly the same tasks. My computer is a relatively fast one, crippled by Vista, but freed by Linux. The free operating system makes my system work better, faster, seamlessly - very unlike the expensive, paid-for Windows.

Worse still, every time I go back to Vista - simply to retrieve my data - it mostly takes a good 30 minutes or so to get to the Desktop. The constant updates seriously hamper productivity. In Linux there's no such problem. Re-starts are sometimes required by updates, but since they happen in the background, they never get in the way. Snap. Linux reboots in 40 seconds. Vista? I was waiting for 2 hours tonight.

Now, there are some who're put off by Linux because it's apparently a very demanding system. You have to know a lot to be able to work the thing. But it's simply not true. Ubuntu is a very user-friendly Linux flavour, and will seriously improve the performance of any computer. Why pay for sub-par software, when you can get more done, better, for free?