Its Wednesday, so its time for me to do my post about me & linux. This post is a little later than usual, just been relaxing after a hard term, finally its the Easter holidays!

Today I’m going to do my top 5 reasons to switch to Linux, which none of them are about Linux being free. These are in no order, they are all great reasons to switch (or at least try Linux).

  • Linux is Stable & Secure! I have been using Linux for over 3 months now, and I have never had a crash. My PC is slow machine, when I had windows on it, I got the blue screen every week, it was just the norm. However, now with Linux, I don’t ever have problems with my PC slowing down or crashing. Even if there is a bug, it will be fixed within a matter of hours. This is a huge plus for windows users, Linux has no viruses or trojans or worms. They don’t exist. So there is no need for protection against these. You won’t even have to worry about what you download and if you need to update your virus scanner. Linux is very secure.
  • Great Community! One thing Microsoft is missing is a community. When you buy your copy of XP or Vista, you install and just use it. But what happens if you have problems, you don’t know how to do something, you find a bug, what can you do. Linux, especially Ubuntu, have a great community. 1000s of people using the Ubuntu forums and IRC each day. All talking about Ubuntu, asking questions, asking for suggestions, asking for help. With Ubuntu you can very quickly get an answer from a member of the Ubuntu community very quickly. The Ubuntu dev team is also very closely related with the community, so an bugs or suggestions can be discussed with the dev team and then added or fixed if needed.
  • 1000s of applications & games! Windows and Mac users may be thinking that Linux has no applications and games, because they are not in the shops. Well, Linux has 1000s of apps and games. You can get a free application to meet anyones need. Many distros, like Ubuntu have a thing called the package manager. It is very large database which allows you to search for an application or game you want. This will then download and install the app or game for you. There are also many applications and games which you can find on windows, also on Linux. Such as Firefox (which is basically designed for linux) Quake series, Doom series and Unreal Tournament.
  • Runs on Old Hardware! As software gets more advanced, the hardware needs to be faster. OSs like OS X and Vista have many great new features, but all require fast computers. Linux has also many great new features which were originally on Linux but now on Windows and Mac. The difference is that Linux has been able to run on old hardware. Distros like Damn Small Linux can run on a flash drive and only require about 16mb RAM. The more advanced distros, like Ubuntu needs as little as 128mb. My setup is a prime example, 7 years old PC and can still easily run Ubuntu quickly.
  • Fancy Desktop! As I was just talking about, advanced operating systems with new features. Well this is a great example, you have seen fancy desktops on Mac OS X and Vista. Well, Linux has been doing it years. If you see my Ubuntu Advert post, you will understand and see what Linux’s fancy desktops are really like. “see through” windows, animated windows and virtual desktops are just a few of great features which can be found on the Linux desktop.

That is my brief list of my reasons why I like Linux and why you should try it out using a live CD. If you will like to see more reasons to switch which goes into more detail, go to whylinuxisbetter.org (also, reason why not to switch). Next week, I’m going to do my reasons why to stay away from Linux.