Advantages of Linux?

I have been thinking about switching to Linux for a while now, but the lack of games developed for it have been stopping me. I may be willing to change to it if I knew some of the advantages, what are they? I have heard Linux is more secure and respects its users privacy which is important to me, but not enough itself to warrant me switching operating systems.

 

The great thing about Linux is that you don't have to switch to it, you can install it side by side with windows. If you aren't sure if you want to install it on bare metal you can install it on a virtual machine or download a Linux distro and burn it onto a CD or a pen and try it out without installing it.

 

There are some minor privacy concerns depending on the distribution you choose. Linux is more secure in regards to root file access but contrary to popular belief it isn't immune to malware or attack. Try a distribution on a usb stick or live dvd before deciding.

 

Have you heard about steam for Linux? There is a huge amount of content there. Granted, Windows continues to dominate the pc gaming realm but the number of Linux available games is growing exponentially. You could always dual boot though, a lot of people do this and it probably pays to have a Windows installation there just in case, you never know if you are going to be required to run some piece of software that only runs on Windows for your work, school, or something, so, simply have both, or mess around with virtual machines.

 

I am switching over to linux primarily for the fact that the dramatic rearranging and reshuffling of unnecessary components just isn't there. Problems are more streamlined to fix, if its bizarre than someone will fix it for you because they're intrigued or curious, and it's just overall a better approach as opposed to going with what's preinstalled imo

 

I'd like you to re consider Linux, as it will be one the best OSs you will ever use. If you are really concerned about gaming, let me assure you most major games have Linux versions, and benchmarks show that the games tend to run better on Linux than Windows. Also, you can use a framework called Wine to make Windows programs run on Linux!

 

CaptainOblivious, ohh, that is certainly new information for me.

I did not think it will be practical to game with Linux, let alone think it'll beat Windows!

I thought Linux has bad driver support from Nvidia and AMD? Have things changed?

 

Actually, you really should post or cite some data to back up your claim that "most major games" have Linux versions or run better on Linux. I am a Linux user and I support using it, but I also believe that overselling or pushing it with unverified generalizations is bad. That is setting people up for failure, which does more harm than good.

In my experience there are some decent Linux only titles as well as any number of cross platform titles that are lesser known, but for "most major games" as you put it you are going to need wine and in many cases you will take a performance hit. Also, whether or not a game will even work with wine is very dependent on which Linux distribution and which version of wine you use combined with configuration details.

It is possible to run an large amount of games in Linux with the right configuration and the know how. Some of them will work better, some of them will run worse, and many wont run well enough to play. Using wine to get a selection of games to run requires multiple versions of wine and different prefixes for each game. Something like PlayonLinux can help with this, but only to a degree. For example, in most cases at this time you would need to either do trickery with the libraries that Playonlinux links against to get World of Warcraft running or use the most current development version of wine on a distribution with the right kernel. In other words you have to jump through hoops to run a wildly popular game on Linuxmint or the current LTS of Ubuntu (14.04) but if you use the regular release of Ubuntu 15.10 in the development version of wine it works. This all for a game that is frequently rated platinum or gold at the winehq appdb. You simply can't claim that most major games work to somebody you are encouraging to try Linux. Even if they will work it isn't usually going to be out of the box or with the same performance.

 

I have been hearing and reading of Linux but until now I still have no clear idea about it. With the high cost of Microsoft OS, there are several friends who have turned to Linux. Am I right that Linux is free and has no license requirement? In the office we are using the Open Office to evade paying license to Microsoft Office. It is quite inconvenience at first but getting used to it needs just a few days.

What if we buy a new laptop with Linux to do away with Windows 10, are we bound to get a bigger discount minus the standard OS?

 

Yeah, one might wonder, if it's the safer, faster or better OS overall, why don't people switch to Linux?

I've thought of this analogy: (Could be incorrect / inappropriate, but this is the closest I can think of.)
Why do Macbooks stay competitive against all these Windows based laptops?
Why do Monster Dr. Dre Beats headphone, who came out of nowhere and rofl stomps all the other already established headphone manufacturers, dominate the headphone industry?

Answer: Looks and "great" marketing.

 

Marketing is a lot of it. I will have to try to remember the source, but my understanding is that "Beats" aren't actually very good headphones compared to equivalent priced competitors.

 

Yes exactly, audiophiles look down on it, the same way PC enthusiasts look down on a Mac. I've tried it myself, a $300 Monster Beats headphone cannot beat a $150 Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphone. The sound is a mess, the bass is bloated, no way it's worth $300. Marketing really did a good job luring the unsuspecting.

 

Haha this blew up!

I apologize, because what I said was partially incorrect. Games will run better on Linux, but only when they are optimized for it. The reason for ports running slower is that DirectX function calls have to be translated into OpenGL calls and this requires extra processing. My original comment was based on a HN article I read, and I forgot to add the 'optimized' part, which is key.

 

Both Nvidia and AMD release proprietary closed source drivers for Linux and there are standard Xorg drivers that are capable of 3D rendering installed by default now as well.

 

If gaming is your concern, you can always dual boot. That's what I have done as well. The advantages of linux outweigh those of the windows OS. The fact that everything is free or open source is really helpful. Plus you are not bound by what Microsoft wants you to use in terms of an OS, you can modify everything and anything if you want and have the know-how.

 

Well, no. Not exactly. This is only true if you use a completely free distribution, which most people don't. There are proprietary components that most people coming from a Windows environment are going to want. You can not modify those components.

 

You have a strong point there. I to have gone through a phase of trying to only have open source software on my box, but it gets very tedious, very fast. It makes more sense to me to get those components which are proprietary, because sometimes they may be the best on the market.

 

Yeah. I have had issues mainly with drivers. But, other than that, everything else I use is free or open source. And having the choice of modifying parts of the OS or building your own OS is something really great. Granted most people can't do that, but having choices is a good thing.

 

What kind of driver issues? In most cases everything should work out of the box. You may need to use proprietary drivers for AMD or NVIDIA display adapters for best performance, but those are easy to install in most cases. What distribution and hardware setup did you experience issues with?

 

Linux is free. There are some additional advantages to using Linux. One of them is that Linux is more stable than windows, and it doesn't have a registry, which means that it doesn't get registry errors like Windows. Another advantage is that there is much less malware and viruses that exist for Linux. There's also the option of choosing between many different distros.

You can try Linux without installing it. Just download a distro that runs off a USB stick or CD.