And the question is?

To start with, the historical reference in your first post, as I suggested a few posts above, if completely false. Linux dates from early 90's (91, if my memory serves, check the wikipedia yourself).

What are the advantages of cars? Well, that depends on what your objective is, and what are you comparing cars to. Having a car in the middle of the sea is no advantage when compared to a boat. If you truly want insightful answers you need to ask something that makes sense; so, stop a moment, think a bit what is exactly what you want to know, and then reformulate your question.

Linux is just filled with Win.

You're welcome.

On a more serious note, Linux can be all things to me - a great home server operating system on the command line (secure as anything - I can see exactly what is going on and add additional functionality through coding my own things) which makes it more like messing with computers in the old days when you could hack it to your hearts content and also something more OSX-like and user friendly with Ubuntu on my netbook with Docky installed for just surfing the web or whatever. The fact that I can do with it what I like and don't have some corporate overlord deciding how I can use my computers is just gravy Pretty much any functionality for a computer I can dream up, I've managed to do with Linux (and learnt a lot in the process) - I don't think I could say that with Windows, no matter what my coding experience.

Your mileage may vary, of course - but each to their own.

Advantages of Linux?
1: I can mess about with it. I can delve into its innards. I can find out how every bit of it works. Given sufficient knowledge I can change whatever I want about it. Because of that, it's a hell of a lot more interesting and involving than the closed, proprietary alternatives.

2: It's mine. I own it, I'm not just licensed to use it. I don't need to pay for it, but I can donate voluntarily to maintain it.

It just freakin' works unless I break it. It is very rare for any of the stable distros to choke and puke simply by doing everyday tasks.

What do I really likke about Linux based systems ....Hmm let me see,I am not "renting the OS "(whereas M$ states in the agreement that they CAN effectively shut down your system without prior warning). I can inspect the source code at any given time thereby helping fix "bugs".Try That with M$ and you'll end up in jail!I can modify to my hearts content .I can also choose which applications I would like by simply opening Synaptic,or by using a CLI.Again try that with M$ and you'll pay through the nose (30,000 packages can't be all wrong)!!I can configure my system to do pretty much whatever a windoze can do for less than 1% of the cost (my only cost is a few DVD/CDs or a flash drive and some time).

I think the inconvenience of a paid license is more serious than the cost. Much of this applies to Red Hat, etc. as well as to Windows (though obviously more so to Windows).

A paid license means someone has to keep track of which computer is permitted to run the software. That is a big inconvenience when installing the software and a bigger inconvenience when repairing or upgrading a computer (replacing important parts).

A paid license is usually not the most full featured license the vendor offers (or intends to offer at some time in the future), so usually something is limiting the use of the computer (number of cores, max memory, number of users, etc.) so that you don't get the benefits of some more expensive license when you only paid for a lessor one. Use of a computer is often complex enough that the boundaries between what the license should allow and what it shouldn't can't be cleanly enforced, and you end up prevented by the license from doing things that should have been permitted.

Whether those boundaries are well defined and enforced or not, they still add a third layer of complexity to planning the use of the computer. Is the software able to support the feature; Does the hardware have the capacity; plus does the license permit it?

Paid licenses (excepting Red Hat etc.) usually need to be protected by secrecy. That secrecy makes it harder to steal the intellectual property behind the license. That is fine. I make my living writing very specialized software and if my employer couldn't charge a lot for that software, they couldn't pay me. But the same secrecy stops the customer from being able to diagnose malfunctions, and in the case of an OS, gives a big advantage to malware writers relative to system administrators. That makes the customer very dependent on the responsiveness (to problem reports etc.) of the vendor. That works well with a vendor such as my employer that charges so much per license that being unresponsive to customer problems would be insane. It doesn't work with MS or other dominant vendors of moderate price software whose market share is not sensitive to the quality of support. (Long way of saying, when the vendor won't support my use of the software, I want the possibility to support it myself).

The advantage of linux is -- IT IS TOTALLY AWESOME!!!

And it is not window$.

One of the advantages is that you can keep your old hardware and keep on using it until it dies on you. There will nearly always be a distro that will let you do that.
So you don't have to change for new stuff all the time.
Linux is an ecological Operating System if anything.

Never even thought of it in that sense although I do resurrect older computers with it! LOL

Don't forget that linux is more geared toward learning how the system works, making you less dependent on a tech to fix your machine. If you break it you can most likely fix it.

A thread like this 1 will probably be on the top of the LQ list for another month, nothing like getting the pros and cons.

I used wins, put it in, it works, but when it breaks go to tech & hand wallet.
When it gets infected get AV, if you got wallet back from tech.

Did I forget to tell you I had to reinstall wins7, not everything works out the box.

That is a huge misconception that people have. I had to install XP recently and very few things worked "out of the box."

If anything Linux keeps up with this more then Windows does. Windows has more hardware manufacturers making drivers for it to. Premade computer companies, (HP, Dell, etc,) bundle all the driver support, (and other crap,) together as well when the ship their computers with Windows. Of course this is slowly changing for Linux in that area.

It is only a matter of time before Linux catches on more and the amount of computers that are shipped with it preinstalled increases, so will the driver support.. Recent years have shown an increase in Linux users, (still a small percentage so far. But I feel that this will change over the next ten years, approx.) We will probably start to see a spike in those using and buying Macs first though, (if they dropped the price a bit I bet a lot more people would be using Macs then they currently have.) Of course with this Cloud computing fad, who knows what will happen.

[quote]Of course with this Cloud computing fad, who knows what will happen.[quote]

You hit it right FAD!!!

So, that will have to be a 'no' then

Not all/not completely.

If your question here is whether there are more popular, presumably in the sense of a greater number of users, operating systems than Linux which use the Linux kernel, the answer seems to be a clear no. Then, that's what you'd expect as an answer to that rather strange question.

Both unlikely (Linus's programming abilities at age 2 probably were exceptional, but not that exceptional) and entirely wrong.

More difficult to answer, but there are other operating systems which allow or facilitate the use of Open Source Software (I don't know what you mean by 'providing open source software', but, assuming that you mean something beyond 'the Linux kernel is open source and when you have that, you have that' the kernel itself does not provide other open source software) than have not become as popular, in the sense of number of users, as Linux. So,I'd probably have to say that it is arguable whether the popularity of Linux is because it allows the use of other Open Source software.

If the question is about distributions, you could argue that a factor in the popularity of distributions is that they commonly provide a handy way of getting a collection of Open Source software in one easy hit. But

• for this argument to work (it is all about Open Source), you would expect that that distros that are 'purer' in sticking to the 'Open Source, only Open Source and nothing but Open Source' philosophy to be the most popular, and they're not
• even distros that don't give give you 'everything in one easy hit' can have quite devoted followings, so it isn't necessarily about getting everything on one disk either

It is easy to argue that there are advantages; more difficult to argue that those advantages are unlimited. So far, Linux has not done my washing or cleaned my floors, but it has provided me with valuable route guidance and phone calls, so maybe that day will come.

Give it some time. It will.

And here are few reasons to convert to Linux; 25 Reasons to Convert to Linux.

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