Book Review: Linux Made Easy, Part 1 - Page 2

When you get a computer, unless you buy it at an Apple store, you are more than likely buying it a place that has decided to pre-install Microsoft Windows for you. And unless you've been completely asleep for the past few years, then you know that's not always a favor to you. Between virus attacks and system crashes, most people have just come to accept the fact that computers are out to get them. Computers and robots hate mankind and want them destroyed, as any viewing of either I, Robot or Short Circuit will quickly prove. But we've accepted the fate that these sadistic and often ill-tempered machines are the only chance we have to "globalize synergistic processes" and "maximize core effiencies" in the modern workplace (and any other craptacular business jargon phrases that you might like to string together using nonsensical words that no rational person outside of a boardroom would ever say unless at gunpoint).

So we know we need computers, and know that Microsoft has already wiretapped our machines. After all, most people see Windows as akin to eating out for lunch during the work week: taking your lunch is both cheaper and better for you, but it requires getting up a little earlier than normal and spending some time in the kitchen. And such is the world of Linux.

Linux is one of those things that's out there in the world, available on the internet just for the taking, but most people have never even seriously pondered the concept that they can do everything they're currently doing with their computers but without all the headaches and baggage that having a Windows machine seems to carry.

In the computer world, it's not necessarily that Windows is bad (and Apple is much farther along with their ease-of-use and lack of problems, so they are generally left out of this argument), when in fact they have come up with a lot of great software ideas that people depend on every day. Microsoft Office? That's a solid benchmark regardless of how much you hate corporate America. Visual.Net? Programmers swear by it, and the open-source Mono project is making great strides to incorporate and be compatible with its framework.

Article Author: David R Perry

Lost somewhere in the rolling hills of Tennessee, David R Perry can occasionally be found doing dark, unspeakable things to words. Printed words, spoken words, electronically mangled words... really any kind but twittered words.

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