Windows versus Linux

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Windows vs. LINUX

Both Windows and Linux come in many different forms. All the different forms of Windows come from Microsoft, the various distributions of Linux come from different companies (ex. Red Hat, SuSE, Linspire, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Knoppix, etc). Windows has two main lines: “Win9x”, which is consists of Windows 95, 98, 98SecondEdition and ME, and “NT class” which consists of Windows NT, 200 and XP. On a side note, Windows first had version 3.x which was made before Windows 95 by a couple of years. The various types of Linux are called distributions. All the Linux distributions released around the same time frame will use the same kernel, which are the guts of the OS. They will differ with the add-on software provided, install process, GUI, documentation, technical support, and price. Linux is a whole lot more customizable in a way that Windows cannot and is not. There are a lot of special purpose versions of Linux as well.

If you were going for desktop use, Linux is free or very cheap, and Windows is expensive. For servers, again, Linux is very cheap compared to Windows. Microsoft only allows one computer per copy of Windows. On the other hand, once you purchase Linux you can run it on any number computers at no extra charge. As of January 2005, Windows XP Professional sold for about $200, and the “full” version of XP sold for around $300, and Windows Server 2003 with 10 client licenses was about $1,100. You can download Linux for free from each of the Linux vendors.

In order to run Windows it has to be installed onto the hard disk first. Linux can run just from a CD. Normally Linux also runs off of the hard disk, but there a quite a few versions of Linux which run entirely from a CD without bei...

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...d due to the security and cost concerns. There are virtually no viruses for Linux, while there are millions for Windows. In the end, Microsoft will fight the spread of Linux. When Thailand wanted to use Linux based computers available throughout the country, Microsoft then stepped in and made a deal with the Thai Information, Communication and Technology Ministry. You can buy Windows products along with Windows XP and Office XP already on the computer, ready to run and activated for the very low price of the equivalent to $37. When there is a company who is willing to go through these lengths to keep their competitors down in the gutter, there is no way that a non main-stream product can become successful when they are competing with a company such as Microsoft. In the end I think that you should choose which ever operating system fits your personal needs the best.

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