Why Linux?

Nobody:

Me: Why Linux?

Linux is open source, lightweight, fun, secure, and just works!

But, there are some caveats: It might take some work to get it to "just work", especially for more complicated tasks.

The other alternatives, such as Microsoft Windows or Apple MacOS, have licensing costs associated and to be honest, MacOS has not been a name in some while for server hardware/software.

According to statistics, a large amount of the Internet is Unix/Linux based Operating Systems, with as much as 53% Linux and 87% Unix ~ W3techs.com Usage Statistics

Linux is stable.

Early in my IT career I routinely saw uptimes (computer up and running without being restarted) of over a year or two on Linux web hosts, where Windows machines struggled to make it a handful of months or even weeks before needing to be rebooted.

I mean, just look at this crazy, oddly specific amount of days:

cengelhardt@spark-o-matic:~$ uptime
 04:43:09 up 2048 days,  9:12,  1 user,  load average: 0.12, 0.04, 0.01

Linux is fun!

Believe it or not, Linux is fun, customizable, and always getting new features. And if you do not like it, you can change it to how you like!

For example, if you do not like your window manager, you can install and configure another one to your liking. The file manager not doing something you need it to do? Find another with more features, or even do the task yourself.

With Linux, there are many ways to "skin a cat", as the saying goes.

And some of the more popular distributions (distros), such as Ubuntu, have large communities with many resources to help the newcomer.

So come, explore the world of Linux with us!

💡

In Linux, everything is a file! That includes devices such as mice and keyboards, as well as peripherals, like monitors. As such, we have control over everything if we have access to running as the root user!

cengelhardt@byte-into-linux:~$ cowsay "Linux is awesome!"
 ___________________
< Linux is awesome! >
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        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||