Five and a Half Reasons I Prefer Linux (as a power user)
Fri, Jul 9, 2010
Linux is growing in popularity for many reasons, and as an operating system it is many things to many people. While we all have our own reasons for liking Linux and open source, here are my top five (and a half!) reasons why, as a power user, I prefer to use Linux. You’ll notice that these reasons are quite a bit different from why I think Ubuntu makes a great operating system for Mom, which just goes to show how versatile Linux can be.
- It puts you in charge
- Software repositories
- Safety
- It’s got the apps
- It’s rock-solid
- It’s what I know best
Between my day job at a software company and my work on TechThrob, I spend a lot of time on the computer, doing technical things. Nothing compares to the power of Linux when it comes to managing technology, whether it be administering severs, writing code, or interfacing with computers in some other way.
Windows intentionally puts a barrier between the user and the underlying machine, whereas Linux completely exposes every aspect of the system: all you have to do is open up a terminal. As someone who works with technology on a daily basis, this is invaluable to me.
I don’t have time to manually search the Internet for the right tool to do a job. When I need to download a new application and I don’t know which program is appropriate, it’s usually because I’ve hit some stumbling block that’s preventing me from moving on with my work. The last thing I want to do is to start googling for reviews of shareware programs that may or may not work, and might even be harmful to my computer.
Having a centralized software repository completely solves this problem. Instead of spending time searching the web for the appropriate application, I just execute a single “yum search” or “apt-cache search” command, and find precisely what I need in seconds. It’s hard to appreciate just how priceless that can be until you are in a situation where you need to solve a problem immediately and you don’t have a software repository available.
A secondary advantage of centralized software repositories is that they are safe. Even as someone who understands the dangerous parts of computing (trojans, worms, malware, etc..), I know that even the most well-educated, best-protected Windows user is still vulnerable due to the sheer number of exploits available. When you’re using an operating system that’s under constant attack by virus writers and bot-net operators, you’re eventually going to get stung, no matter how well you protect yourself.
Using Linux alleviates most of this concern. It’s important not to develop a feeling of invulnerability, because you still need to be careful (for example, don’t run scripts or programs from untrusted sources, or you’re just asking to get bitten) but there isn’t the ever-present danger that exists when you are using a Windows machine.
I have to admit that what I consider a “killer app” isn’t necessarily the same as what a graphics artist or a sound engineer would consider a “killer app.” But as a power user, Linux gives me what I need to make my life easier and more productive. From utilities that track down IP address conflicts to programs that securely wipe my hard drive, the toolset that you get when you run Linux is simply unrivaled by a standard Windows installation.
Admittedly, Windows may very well have similar programs available for it, but that simply goes back to my second point about software repositories– on Windows, I’d have to hunt these applications down one by one, but on Linux, everything is a single command away.
I don’t have the time to be rebooting my computer because it’s grown inexplicably slow. I can’t be bothered trying to figure out why some application won’t close, and I certainly don’t feel like dealing with the frustration of having a single program lock up my entire machine. I need my computer to work for me, not against me, and this is where Linux truly excels.
Windows tries to hold your hand when you use the computer; consequently, when it trips and falls, you wind up face-first in the mud along with it. Linux doesn’t do this — if a process misbehaves, it rarely affects anything else on the system. If it’s eating up too much CPU or memory, I can just kill it; on Windows, a run-away program might lock-up the machine to the point of requiring a reboot.
I’m only counting this as half a reason, but it’s important to point out that while a lot of the above applies to Linux because of the way it’s written and the way it works, I am also able to take advantage of Linux because I’ve had years of experience with it.
I know a handful of Windows power-users who are able to do some pretty impressive things with that OS because they’ve learned the best way to use and manipulate it. But for me, it’s much easier, faster, and better to use Linux — precisely because I don’t need to manipulate it into doing what I need.
Do you consider yourself a power user? If so, what are some tools that are indispensable to you, and could you be as productive if you weren’t running Linux? Share your favorite things about Linux in the comments below!
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I agree with all of your points. I use different Operating Systems on each one of my computers. My netbook is Linux for the same reason you say, it works for you (aka less resources are hogged, and it can run the simple stuff much better).
My laptop on the other hand is Windows because it was designed for it and does all the cool stuff that I bought it for in Windows without the hassle that would be involved with getting it under Linux.
My desktop is Dual-boot with Windows and whatever linux I need to do a specific task. Works well. With virtualization getting so useful though, I am installing Linux as primary on more of my machines because I don’t have to worry about special programs not being available anymore…
I’m not a power user ALL THE TIME, but when I need to be or get into one of those super-interested weekends and start really putting my software to good use, there are many tools that I absolutely love. The terminal is great if you’re comfortable with it and know some options for the program you’re running in it. To me, it’s just as simple to tell recordmydesktop to start recording as it is to open the program and click a bunch of stuff. Being able to type one command to accomplish dozens of tasks is really amazing.
However, since the beginning I’ve actually become less and less familiar with the terminal and file system, mainly because it’s rare that I ever touch either of them.
The repositories, and the GPG stuff are REALLY important to me. Part of the reason why I don’t think a Mac is quite so secure- no way to externally authorize and check for the safety of the software you run. It still has the UNIX style of permissions, and you can’t run rogue software without verifying it like in Windows (yes, Vista and 7 are the same thing, most viruses don’t use installer packages), but you still run the risk since all the software you get is untrustable without the source.
But to be honest, I love me some Banshee, Amarok, the Ubuntu One Store, and many other things that you can’t enjoy very easily on Windows. The closest I could get is running andLinux, which I don’t think works in 64-bit Windows.
Every time I use Windows at school, I feel kinda’ sick. Luckily, the teachers allow me to run Ubuntu from my USB and use Wine for class projects, so I don’t have to deal with it very often anyway.
A mushy, rotten apple will taste good until you find out there’ s a better kind. Now, using Windows (and even OS X at times) feels like a bit rotten gush in my mouth. Hopefully that changes with the next iterations of their OSes, and they catch onto these concepts.
Hi Jack,
I think you’re certainly right about the terminal becoming less and less important in recent years. I remember not too far back when you basically had to have some command line knowledge to get by in Linux; today, I don’t think that’s the case any longer. The GUI has come a long way…
And I definitely know what you mean about the sheer frustration that comes when you are used to being put in charge, and then you move to a Windows box and it really puts up walls everywhere. It’s frustrating to the point where you just don’t want to use the computer.
Thanks for stopping by; hope you enjoyed the article. Come back for more fun items!
I have used Linux since 2004.I agree with all of the reasons that the other commentators and author wrote about.But one of the best features of Linux is the documentation that is open to you.Unlike Windows when you have a problem you can research and find the answer yourself. Yes there is a learning curve to using Linux but it is well worth it because of the power, security , stability and versatility of the operating system.
Hi Stephen,
You’re absolutely right. One of the best parts of Linux is the man pages; when you have a feeling you know the right command for a job, but you aren’t exactly sure how to use it, everything you need to figure it out for yourself is right there.
The fact that there are tens of thousands of mailing list and group posts doesn’t hurt, either.
Thanks for commenting, and I hope you find other articles on the site useful and interesting as well.
Hi,
I have to agree with most of your points. The ones I disagree with are 4 & 5. I have not found linux to be more stable than windows – hate to say it, but I’ve cussed about working with linux more than windows. Even though it’s true that windows will tend to bog down and get slower, I’ve not found this to be untrue of linux. I’ve heard many over the years describe linux as more stable – and I’m sure it’s true for them. But for me, unfortunately these last 3 or 4 years of linux has shown it to be MORE buggy and unreliable than windows.
I still use linux, still prefer it for most of the reasons you describe above. Oh, and the other point, I think the apps in windows are better (mostly, not all) and certainly more prolific. But I still prefer open source and usually can do fine and sometimes great with linux software.
When people ask me why I use Linux, It’s most because of the freedom to use it, customize it, tweak it as I want. Unfortunately, that also means I sometimes tweak it into instability. I’ve never had a distro that I didn’t tweak quite extensively. So perhaps if I just popped vanilla ubuntu on a machine and didn’t do much to it, it’d be more stable than with all my tweaking.
In any case, since I’ve turned over to linux, it’s hard for me to believe I’d ever go back to Windows – just too boring and uncreative.
Peace
Well with Linux I don’t have to reinstall every year or every few months. My desktop is still as fast as the day I installed it with Ubuntu 9.10 an now runs 10.0.4. My friends Ubuntu machine was installed with 8.10 and had been upgraded each time up to 10.0.4 and still runs very fast with no trouble and my main server has been upgraded since 8.0.4.
This is why you are finding it buggy:
“Unfortunately, that also means I sometimes tweak it into instability.”
I prefer Linux too, however Linus lack of useful applications for web edition like dreamweaver…I could use Gimp instead Photoshop, but there is no quality HTML/PHP editor…so I have no switched to Linux yet.
Hi Raul, I’m curious if you’ve used Bluefish (http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/), and if so, what you think of it.
Thanks for reading!
Try Eclipse for PHP Developers, I use it everyday, and it’s great.
also try Kompozer
I work in Windows all day, but prefer Ubuntu Linux for 95% of my home computing. I’ve been using Linux for about 3 years and it has continued to improve and mature. My favorite Linux apps are:
Video- DeVeDe, MPlayer, Nero;
1) Internet-Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Deluge, qBittorrent, Thunderbird mail;
2) File Manager- Nautilus;
3) Music Player- Clementine, Decibel;
4) Music Ripper- Audex or Asunder Ripper, Gnac audio converter, Sound recorder;
5) DVD Burning- Brasero;
6) Office- Open Office;
7) Graphics- gThumb, Picasa, Pinta;
9) Utilities- 7zip, Screenlets.
For a great list of Windows apps and their linux equivalents see: http://www.linuxalt.com/
Enjoy.
Jim
Indeed there’s no Windows app that can rival the awesome Deluge
Another way to compare GNU/Linux and that other OS is the potential to grow. With GNU/Linux, a six-year-old child can manage the usual things from the GUI in a few minutes. That same child can be learning about the OS for more than a decade adding one skill after another because of the abundance of tools and system in GNU/Linux. I was 50 years old when I had my first date with GNU/Linux and had 30 years of experience with a variety of hardware and software but here I am ten years later, still learning from it like a kid. Problems I had with Caldera GNU/Linux which took me hours to solve now take only seconds to solve with Debian GNU/Linux. I can deal with a building full of PCs with a single command from anywhere in the system. I love the APT packaging system compared to RPM.
Conversely, to keep a few PCs running that other OS is guaranteed to be a dreadful chore. Malware, anti-malware, slowing down, re-re-reboots… With that other OS, I was working for M$ and not myself. Slavery is not growth. Where I work, six months ago there was only one GNU/Linux machine sitting on a shelf. Today, 90% of our machines run GNU/Linux and six months from now there will only be 3 or 4 machines in the building running that other OS. The whole crew is learning quickly what can be done with GNU/Linux.
I’ve been running linux as my primary desktop since 1997. I mostly agree with your points. I particularly agree about the huge advantage of having a trusted repository that can be counted on to be relatively safe and complete in its app offerings.
I recently had a hardware failure of my desktop box. I upgraded from 6 year-old unitary AMD processor and integrated Nvidia graphics to a quad core Intel chip, new motherboard and new video card. I put the new hardware and a new power supply into my old box with its old drives. I used a spare PATA pci controller to connect the drives. It booted right up. I used the package manager to get the newer Nvidia driver and the PAE kernel and it all just worked. No full reinstall, just a couple of tweaks. Try that with Windows.
My experiences with linux have been almost uniformly positive. I used RH through version 9, Fedora Core and then Fedora. I stayed with FC and Fedora when they became “cutting (some say bleeding) edge” because I liked having pretty much the latest and greatest. That occasionally cost me time in debugging a bad update.
The latest update disaster was this weekend. An update screwed up video on two machines running Fedora 13 with different levels of Nvidia video hardware. For quirky reasons a simple software downgrade didn’t restore things. It was annoying, I couldn’t find hints from googling when it happened, and it made me once again reconsider that “cutting edge” stuff.
The issue eventually was resolved when it became clear that two levels of downgrade were required because there were intervening versions in the repo that were also buggy. To be fair to the Fedora folks, it was proprietary Nvidia drivers from an unofficial repo that caused the issue.
This kind of problem is getting rarer as things mature, but it points out what I think is the most problematic issue with linux: to get the best video performance often requires proprietary drivers that may not integrate perfectly with the latest kernels. Even when companies like Nvidia make a generous and honest effort, they typically don’t go all the way and open the source and work with the kernel developers. Similarly, scanner manufacturers have typically kept things proprietary and incompatible with linux.
I’ve had good luck with Nvidia hardware and its support of linux, but this weekend’s situation should not have arisen. I will remember that sometimes a single level of downgrade may not reverse the effects of an upgrade. It would be nice if there was a package manager “restore to before the update” function that took into account the versions that worked before the update process instead of just getting the repo’s next lower version.
Hi Don,
You can try to use “yum history” command (new in Fedora 12) for your problem. http://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2010/yum-history-list-info-summary-repeat-redo-undo-new/