Are you deciding between a Windows system and a Linux system? Here’s a comparison to help you out.
Price
Microsoft Windows is a piece of proprietary software and must be purchased for anywhere from $100.00 to $300.00 if you don’t purchased a PC with Windows pre-installed. Linux, on the other hand, is open source, and available for free. Linux is often obtained by download over the internet. Some retailers sell pre-made copies of Linux on CD or DVD for around $2.00 to $5.00 a copy. Occasionally you can find a Linux pre-installed desktop, like Wal Mart’s Green PC, for around $200.00. The Green PC featured a custom distribution (version) of Ubuntu.
Installation
Installing Windows and Linux are both fairly easy experiences. They both use graphical interfaces with boot disks and entail straightforward procedures. The only detail in this respect is that you may have to burn your own Linux boot discs.
Ease of Use
Linux and Windows both provide a graphical interface and a command line interface, or CLI. Windows has one GUI, explorer. Linux has multiple options for the GUI interface, such as KDE, Gnome, Xfce, FluxBox, and many more. The GUI in Windows is a much more integral part of the OS than in Linux. This benefits beginners in certain cases, because whereas some Linux software may not even have a GUI, virtually all Windows software does.
Viruses
Malware, adware, spyware, and viruses are all programs that intend to harm your computer in one way or another. This is an area where Linux shines above Windows. Linux has virtually no malware. Whether this can be attributed to quality or simply that malware writers ignore Linux due to its small market share is an ongoing debate.
Third-Party Software
Windows has been around for quite a while, and has been the most common operating system on desktop PCs for most of that time. Due to this, most software is written for Windows and not Linux. Adobe PhotoShop and Microsoft Office are two major software packages that currently have absolutely no support for Linux, making it difficult for Linux users to inter-operate. Games are also a problem for Linux, the vast majority of advanced games will only run on Windows. Some view this as the number one barrier to widespread Linux adoption.