Do you know what makes Linux such a great OS? Choice. You get to choose the distro you want, with the programs you want to run. You have the option to run the KDE or GNOME GUI (or another of the many Window Managers - it's up to you). Or you can do everything from the command line with the shell of your choice. Linux supports many different OS filesystems so again more choice. Many applications can even import and export Microsoft Office files, so you get to choose which application you're going to write "that report" in. You get to choose.

This is what drives Microsoft crazy. They have never liked people having a choice in anything. They proved this time and time again by underhandedly crushing competition. They want you to have to use their products exclusively, and if they have anything to say about it, that's what happens. Thankfully there's still other options, even on the Windows environment, for office suites, and just about anything else you want to use, if you take a look around. Usually you find that the Microsoft "alternatives" are superior in a technical sense, and also cost less as a rule. Of course since they run under Windows there's a lot of "baggage" that goes along with them, that simply cannot be avoided, since it's totally out of the hands of the software developers. Things like Windows routinely crashing are beyond the control of the developers, as they don't have the source code to Windows to do anything about it. Microsoft don't even document all of Windows features, to allow them the edge over their competitors.

Which brings me nicely to the topic of Open Source. You'll recall in my last blast that I pretty well "skewered" both Microsoft and Intel for their complete disregard for the privacy of the individual. Especially irksome to me personally are the actions of Windows 98 sending off your personal information to Microsoft - with or without your consent - and usually without even your knowledge. I'm not sure exactly how that particular story broke, but you can be assured of one thing, it was most definitely not by way of Redmond as an act of "belated morality". If Microsoft hadn't had that particular little "bug" (yeah, right) brought to light, I assure you they would still be immorally gathering your personal information. And no one would know about it. Why? Because Microsoft is not a part of the Open Source community, their OS (hah!) is most assuredly anything but Open Source. So there is no one to find out what lies beneath the surface, and bring it to the attention of the public.

Linux by contrast, could never have something like that "stealing information" as part of the OS - either as a "bug" or as a "feature" - because there are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of people actively working on the source 24/7, all around the world. There is no way something like that could "slip by" the notice of so many programmers. And in any event, Linux people would never resort to such blatant invasion of your right to privacy.

I hear a lot of people (Microsoft fanatics mainly) complaining about how hard Linux is to learn. They bitch and moan about the CLI (Command Line Interface) as if it's some kind of a crime against humanity. How quickly they forget. Microsoft didn't start out with Windows did they? No, of course not. They started with DOS. A CLI. And if I might add, a pretty lame one at that. I've used alternatives for MS-DOS in the past (4DOS springs to mind), that had many of the features Linux users take for granted, like aliases, and the ability to write scripts (4DOS called them .bat files of course, but included some rather useful commands nonetheless), but since it was a single-tasking system you couldn't "kill" an errant application, like Linux users can.

Let's talk about "process control" for a moment. If you run Linux, one of the first things you learn about, is how to put a program "in the background". And soon after that, you'll learn about the ps command, used to display the jobs currently running, and of course the kill command to get rid of programs "gone wrong". Point is, with DOS or Windows (any version) you don't have those options available to you. Yes, NT has a "Task Manager" (as does Windows 98), but what happens when you try and "kill" a program gone wrong? It may, or may not, shutdown. But even if it does shutdown like you want it too, I can almost guarantee that you will still have to reboot your system anyway. Why? Because it has almost certainly managed to "corrupt" the memory during the course of its errant behaviour. And we all know that Microsoft hasn't a clue about proper memory management, don't we?

So is there a point in here somewhere? Yes, there is. The point is that with Linux you have a choice. And even if you must run Windows: for business; for games (Hi Laurence!); for whatever reason, you no longer have to be "locked-in" to that environment alone any more. Linux is perfectly content to live in "peaceful co-existence" on the same drive as Windows 98. It can read from, and write to, the Windows 98 partitions. Windows of course, cannot do anything with a Linux partition. Good thing too. You don't have to worry about Microsoft deciding to "wipe" your partition for you if they can't read it, or send of information on it, back to headquarters.

I'll close this with a short (I swear!) story about a friend of mine that lives in Redmond (yes, that Redmond!). I recently had an opportunity to go shopping for a system for my friend L. She runs a small business and knows more about running a business than running a computer, so I was glad to offer my assistance. One of the things that happened that day, was we spent some time - quite a bit of time actually - talking about Linux. Long story made short is that she's planning in the not-too-distant future, to install Linux and try it out. But it's what she said that just stuck in my mind, "I've only run Windows, that's all I know, and I didn't know I had a choice before. Now that I know, I want to at least take a look at it."

And that my friends is really what Linux is all about. Offering people a choice and not "locking you in" to any one particular anything really. You choose your Window Manager, or run the CLI. You can choose to run dual-boot with Windows 98, and Linux won't mind a bit. Once you have a chance to see how incredibly stable and robust Linux is, you'll probably find yourself moving away from Windows bit-by-bit, until finally all you have left is the "bare-bones" W98 install and that last program (or game!) you just can't seem to give up yet. So be it. No one says you can't run both OS's on the same box. I've said as much, more than once before.

Bottom line - run what you want to run. But let it be because you made a conscious decision to do so, and not because someone in Redmond tried to make the decision for you.