Mike Seidle ...notes from the road

If you have not yet taken a few moments to try out Linux, it's time. Things have changed dramatically for the better and for most users Linux has more that caught up with Windows - it's passed it up like it's standing still. Here are a few reasons you should try Linux out:

• LiveCDs let you test without messing up your Windows files.
  How about this for easy: download and burn a cd, leave it in the drive, restart your computer and boot from the CD.  A few moments later, you are running Linux.  All your Windows files are accessible, and you can connect to your network (wireless or not) and use applications like OpenOffice right away! 

• No Lost Time
  I switched to running Linux exclusively a year ago because I was fed up with losing days to fixing software problems caused by Windows going off the rails.  I was also tired of paying for subscription software that kept spyware and virus off the computer and a license for backup software. I tried Vista but found the constant continue or cancel questions were so annoying that you lost whatever time in reliability Vista had to answering the question "Do you really want to do what you are doing?" Windows backups have always been problematic for two reasons: file locking and the windows registry.  You can't copy files that are in use, and the registry file is ALWAYS in use.  By moving to Linux, I now have no issues with virus, spyware and my backups are reliable and cheap.

• No Reason You Can't Run Windows, Too.
  I still have a couple of Windows applications I like to use: Corel Draw (yes, I know it's Corel, and I've been using it since the late 1980s) and a few select web building tools that only run on Windows.  So, I downloaded VirtualBox and set up a virtual machine that lets me do everything short of gaming from my Linux Desktop.  Ironically, because my laptop is 64 bit and has more memory than 32 bit version of Windows XP supports, Windows runs very fast because Linux has superior memory management and caches most of the Windows swap file to memory instead of thrashing the hard drive. Here's a look at VirtualBox in action: