Hey There,
Linux is an operating system created by Linux Torvalds and it was based on the operating system that came before it, Unix. Linus Torvalds sent Linux out into the wild in 1991. This was the beginning of the operating system that has had an enormous impact on the computing world in the past 31 years since it’s inception. Linux is an open source operating system. This means that it is designed to be open to the public and built by a community of people all across the earth. This is a very different model than what Microsoft built.
Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Bill Allen in 1975. Microsoft created Windows and the first version was released in 1985. Windows is a closed source operating system. This means that the code is not available to the public. This is a fundamental difference between Windows and Linux. Windows is a product of a business. Linux is a product of a person, given to the internet and world for use.
Open source software has disadvantages and advantages. I run a business for a reason, as opposed to a ministry. It grants me more control over available resources, such as people, to get things done. It also forces me and obligates me to deliver on contracts. Open Source has no obligation to deliver outside of the motivation of the person designing the software project. Many open source projects have failed and are dropped by their lead inventor. The advantage is that this code can be taken up by someone else, this is called a, “Fork”. The disadvantage is that you lose the talent and visionary for the project often.
Now, for linux in particular, the advantages are great. It has been in production and used by a huge portion of server infrastructure for decades now. The internet runs on linux. All of our servers run a flavor of Linux called Debian. We had started with Centos, but Redhat decided to change their model on this, so we switched to Debian about a year ago.
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It’s hard to explain, but Linux is a purer type of computing than with Windows. It’s much harder to understand and use, but once you understand it, you just know it’s better. It is the computer operating system for builders. I have been using Linux extensively now for about 6 years, and I will admin it takes years to get used to it. I use Debian on my desktop and I’m writing this article on my laptop which is running Popos!, which is a type of Ubuntu, which is a type of Debian, which are all running Linux (See, it can get a little confusing)!
Linux based operating systems are weaker on the creative front. We do use Windows based computers for our livestreaming and production machines. We are using more and more open source software that works on linux, so in the next few years I would like to never have a Windows machine in our office or in use again. This is becoming more and more feasible as software improves in the open source community.
COVID was actually a great thing for open source software. All this turmoil has caused many IT developers to create and spend time on building their own open source projects. These projects are great and many useful tools can be found at Awesome Self-Hosted Github repository. We use this whenever we have a new project or idea. We look there to see if someone else has already built it, then we use it!
For those of you who want to make the switch to Linux, I recommend Popos!. Second recommendation is Ubuntu. Straight Debian is too technical and requires too much tweaking to make work, especially on laptops.
Hire Us to help you migrate to Linux.
Sincerely,
Jared
Owner, Altha Technology