InsaneJournal

Current mood:

accomplished

confessions of a hacker, pt. 2
I am writing this in links (text-only web browser) just because I can. I have an operational Gentoo system. This makes me semi-elite (I won't be elite until I successfully customize my kernel; right now I'm using a generic one.)

Today, I'd like to talk about why I love Linux. Ahem.

1) It's free! Although one can buy a Linux distro (on CD/DVD, with professional support) there is normally no reason to bother. I bought my first, but all the later ones have only cost me in CD-Rs (a cost I ultimately eliminated by laying in a one-time stash of CD- and DVD-RWs) and bandwidth.

2) It's infinitely adaptable. Want a pretty GUI? Want no GUI? Want a minimal one? Running a server? Just surfing the 'net and playing games? Doing graphics work? Need accessibility tools? If there isn't a distribution specifically built for your preferred setup, tweaking one is simple.

3) It's accessible to all skill levels. You can know nothing about computers and get by just fine with something like Mandriva, Fedora, or Debian; or you can be a power user and hack happily away in absolutely any distro. Power users aren't restricted.

4) Upgrades are also free -- and optional. If I want to upgrade my Mac OS side, I'll have to shell out money. But I'm already facing problems with applications not being available because my system is dubbed obsolete. Windows similarly forces upgrades. In Linux, there's little pressure to upgrade, and plenty of people do just fine with distros several versions behind the most recent. And when they do upgrade, it's free.

5) Did I mention it's FREE?

Hacking makes me happy.

Disclaimer: see relevant xkcd.