Linux is one of the most customizable operating systems out there.
 

Linux is so customizable you can strip down a Linux operating system down to 50 Megabytes and still be fully functional. My example DSL("Dang Small Linux" is what I like to call it.) Gentoo is a fully customizable distribution you can edit the provided Python scripts to install any package you want.

For anyone who doesn't want to learn a new operating system stick them with Ubuntu and make it look like windows they have a script out there for that. If you want help with your Linux machine there are at least 50,000 people willing to help you. If you don't like viruses Linux is for you.(Considering you don't download random junk off the Internet and like to play with the file permissions.)

When I was researching Linux for the first time I found a list of reasons why to switch. A few reasons were if you want something you can customize, keep your porn safe(I am not a fan myself of it.), or etc. (I put porn in bold to get your attention, well it worked.)

Ever since I switched to Linux windows for me has been like :banghead:. Linux is as simple as you make it. If you are a C or C++ programmer looking for code Linux is your gateway not mentioning Unix and Unix based operating systems are the programmers operating systems.

All I have to say is :twocents: for your thought.

Nice, but there are a lot more than 50,000 people willing to help. :cool:

Exactly why I changed to Linux: The "I can customize it exactly to my needs"-thing. So I could get rid of Windows on all my systems, because I just don't need it anymore, only thing that runs Microsoft here is my XBox360.

It just works - everyday, all day, 24/7. I rarely reboot.

This is dumb. How about, if the user wants to use Windows, let them use Windows. Linux is not Windows, I think it is idiocracy to try to make it look like Windows.

I've had way way more problems with linux than windows or mac. Updates break things way too often, they require constant maintenance, nothing "just works".

I think maybe if you use ubuntu or one of the really user-friendly distros and are careful not to do anything out of the ordinary, if you "customize" it only in a few ways, then maybe its not so bad. But even with that, I imagine people have trouble using flash and opengl still, etc., etc..

That said, its true that people are pretty helpful in the community.

Here is my Windows experience. I install Windows, there are very few drivers installed out of the box. I have to look at the labels on all of my hardware to figure out what brand each piece of hardware is, then search the web for suitable windows drivers. (I haven't installed Windows since XP, so I'm not sure how much this has improved).

Once the drivers are installed, Windows seems to run fine for a while. After a while, it gets slow, my computer freezes from time-to-time, I get blue screens etc...

With Linux, a lot of drivers are built into the kernel, so I normally don't have to worry about searching everywhere for drivers.

I am wondering if you are talking about Windows machines that you bought with Windows pre-installed. If this is the case, of course there was virtually no setup, everything would work out of the box. The same is true for Linux, if you buy a computer with a Linux distro pre-installed on it, then everything will work out of the box also.

You must be joking. There's no comparison between linux and an officially supported OS. Downloading and running a couple drivers off of company websites versus guessing which of several open source drivers works best and how to add just the right configuration lines to xorg.conf or whatever else and which libraries work well with that version and which software does and doesn't work. And then there's an update and it all breaks.

If anything its the price of the "freedom" of open source, but let's not go making linux out like its good for an everyday desktop.

I don't know what you are doing with your systems, but my systems run, regarding to drivers, out of the box, only exception here are the graphics drivers, but these are in the repositories and configure themselves, so no guessing the driver and fiddling with configuration files. I am running Debian unstable on all my systems, except my fileserver, and it never "broke". Even better, my drivers are updated by my system, I don't have to look at the manufacturers website all the times, if there are bugfixes.

The only fiddling and tinkering with my systems is that fiddling and tinkering that I want to do, to learn and to try new things.

By the way, what do you mean with an officially supported OS? An OS that gets security updates once a month, instead of when the fixes are available? Or is the official support that from third party vendors, from whom I have to buy antivirus/-malware software, because otherwise my system will be rendered unusable?

I'm not saying those other OSes are great either, I'm just saying the hardware companies actually support them and the drivers work better and always will than on linux or BSD or whatever.

If you've had an easier time setting up a linux system than a windows or a mac than you're lucky. Right now, I've got occasional graphics glitches, occasionally the usb driver crashes, sound was working but stopped with a library update. On a debian testing system I have, things have been pretty stable and that's definitely improved in terms of ease-of-install. But its never going to work as well as an officially supported OS. And even on that debian system that's been pretty solid, there's all kinds of stuff that just works out of the box on another OS that linux is spotty with.

I'm not criticizing linux, it has some strong points and some real advantages over other OSes, but its not a walk in the park to use or maintain.

I asked you what an officially supported OS is, but you gave no answer.

Linux is a OS that was made to work out of the box 24/7 as a everyday desktop. . Especially Ubuntu, Debian, Mandriva, Redhat, etc... I don't know what you do to your system, but I have a old worn out System, and it's Ubuntu works faster that Windows on a New computer

I would say that you are joking + you don't know what you're talking. Will not bother to explain.

And I agree with lewisforlife. I guess I missed it in my first post.

Um, Linux IS an officially supported OS. Do you know how many people are behind it's development? It's not just one guy in his basement.

Do ATI and nVidia offer linux drivers side by side with their Windows and Mac drivers on their website? No? Then its not officially supported. That's what I mean. Obviously.

As for virus protection, yeah, linux viruses and worms are rare. But I've never used anti-virus software on windows or mac and I've gotten one virus that I accidentally installed myself in many many years. So I could just as easily ask what are you doing to your windows and macs systems to cause them to be so unstable.

The number of bugs and issues I have to deal with for a linux desktop far exceeds the number I have to deal with on windows or a mac. And far far less software is supported. That's just how it is. It doesn't mean linux doesn't have some real strengths, but user-friendly desktops aren't one of them.