Linux

For those who don't know what Linux is, I will explain it; Linux it's a free operative system (what that you use to operate your computer, like Windows 7 or Mac Leopard OSX), developed under the GNU General Public License; this means that Linux costs no money and anyone can manipulate it's source code (the "heart" of the operative system). In this practise, I'm going to explain some general concepts about Linux using for help me the Linux Oficial Home Page.

In the Linux web page you can registrer yourself; this is not compulsory, but with your work you can help other devolopers and, if you are a very prolific collaborator, you can earn som Tux Points interchangeable with money in Amazon. With this you can get information and code from other devolopers and participate in forums, that it's a good way to help others and help yourself. Registration it's very easy and typical: you just need to enter your personal data (name, last name, country...), choose two passwords, and enter you email (if you have two or more, you can also give it).

Like other operative systems, Linux haves a large catallog of applications, but the main difference with others O.S.s, it's that many of them are free. The number and the type of applications changes between the different distros (distributions; the several formats of Linux: SuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu...). There are applys for any purposal, like other O.S.s, being administration applications the most powerful: multimedia, graphics, devolopment, office... like Linux, many oh this applications are under GNU General Public License and anyone can use their code to make it better or develop other applications.

If there is something good in Linux, it's the large amount of information and documentation; There's a "how-to" document for pretty much everything, and normally you can find all the help on the internet. But be carefull, because it's easy to get lost searching what you need, or maybe that what you found it's not what you need; this is the main problem of all the documentation generated by every Linux devoloper (remember that if anyone can develop a program for Linux means that everyone can generate documentation for it).

As I said, Linux haves many distributions; this distros are packages designed for every user archetypical profile; for users who want to use Linux for entertainment purposes, there is, for example, Ubuntu with many multimedia and leisure programs; for user who want to use Linux as a "work office" O.S.s., there is SuSE; for advanced users who want to use their O.S.s at the highest level, there is Fedora, etc. Every distro haves its visual desing, but pretty much everyone haves the same performance.

If you have a good connection and you know how to burn an ISO image (that it's a conversion of a DVD or a CD into a file), maybe the best option for getting a Linux distro it's downloading it. ISO images are very huge files, so if you don't have a powerful computer, maybe the best option for you it's order a CD or DVD of the distro that you want, and it will reach you by mail or courier service.

Linux started as a hobby by a finnish student called Linus Torvalds, and it was created from a UNIX base. Linus initial purposal was what Linux actually is; a free operative system shared for everyone, made for everyone and developed by everyone. Over the years, Linux was not only a project of an operative system and became other interesting and very kown projects, like Mozilla web browser, OpenOffice.org or GNOME.

If you want to learn more about Linux, or if you want to increase your knowlge about this O.S.s, there are several online courses with some practise and teory lessons. There are to some "how-to" tutorials and Linux tips and triks that you can consult when you want.

My personal opinion about this operative system is that it's not the perfect one, although Linux people say it, and this is what dislikes me; because if even Linux is free and you can make with it any thing you want, this doesn't means that you can make with Linux things that you usually make with other O.S.s; for example, Linux it's not a very good platform for playing games, make designs works, develop graphical applications or, the worst of all, make programs for other operative systems, because the big problem of Linux it's that this O.S.s "excludes" the other ones, in some ways. Is it true that Windows or MAC OSX also do it, but in the case of Linux the problem are not the economic interests, it's the O.S. performance. You can make, for example, a game in Ubuntu and it will work with Fedora, SuSE, Red Hat or someone else, but if you want to make a game for Windows, and all of use know that Windows is more popular, we can't do it without using a virtual machine running in Windows, for example.

And because my purpose is working with graphics and multimedia in the future, I don't think I'm going to be a big friend of Linux. In summary, Linux it's perfect to users who want to sift and dig into every corner of their computers, but not for everyone else. For making work Office, design, develop or using day-to-day applications, work with multimedia, or just relax, I recommend other operative systems.