1. It Doesn't Crash
Linux has been time-proven to be a reliable operating system. Although the desktop is not a new place for Linux, most Linux-based systems have been used as servers and embedded systems. High-visibility Web sites such as Google use Linux-based systems, but you also can find Linux inside the TiVo set-top box in many livingrooms.

Linux has proved to be so reliable and secure that it is commonly found in dedicated firewall and router systems used by high-profile companies to secure their networks. For more than ten years, it has not been uncommon for Linux systems to run for months or years without needing a single reboot.

2. Viruses Are Few and Far Between
Although it is possible to create a virus to target Linux systems, the design of the system itself makes it very difficult to become infected. A single user could cause local damage to his or her files by running a virus on his or her system; however, this would be an isolated instance rather than something could spread out of control.

In addition, virtually all Linux vendors offer free on-line security updates. The general philosophy of the Linux community has been to address possible security issues before they become a problem rather than hoping the susceptibility will go unnoticed.

3. Virtually Hardware-Independent
Linux was designed and written to be easily portable to different hardware. For the desktop user, this means that Linux has been and likely always will be the first operating system to take advantage of advances in hardware technology such as AMD's 64-bit processor chips.

4. Freedom of Choice
Linux offers freedom of choice as far as which manufacturer you purchase the software from as well as which application programs you wish to use. Being able to pick the manufacturer means you have a real choice as far as type of support you receive. Being open-source software, new manufacturers can enter the market to address customer needs.

Choice of application programs means that you can select the tools that best address your needs. For example, three popular word processors are available. All three are free and interoperate with Microsoft Word, but each offers unique advantages and disadvantages. The same is true of Web browsers.

5. Standards
Linux itself and many common applications follow open standards. This means an update on one system will not make other systems obsolete.

6. Applications, Applications, Applications
Each Linux distribution comes with hundreds and possibly thousands of application programs included. This alone can save you thousands of dollars for each desktop system you configure. Although this is a very small subset, consider that the OpenOffice.org office suite is included as well as the GIMP, a program similar to (and many people say more capable than Adobe Photoshop); Scribus, a document layout program similar to Quark Xpress; Evolution, an e-mail system equivalent to Microsoft's Outlook Express; and hundreds more.

For the more technically inclined, development tools, such as compilers for the C, C++, Ada, Fortran, Pascal and other languages, are included as well as Perl, PHP and Python interpreters. Editors and versioning tools also are included in this category.

Whether you are looking for Instant Messaging clients, backup tools or Web site development packages, they likely are all included within your base Linux distribution.

7. Interoperability
More and more computers are being connected to networks. No system would be complete if it did not include tools to allow it to interoperate with computers running other operating systems. Once again, Linux is very strong in this area.

Linux includes Samba, software that allows Linux to act as a client on a Microsoft Windows-based network. In fact, Samba includes server facilities such that you could run a Linux system as the server for a group of Linux and Windows-based client systems.

In addition, Linux includes software to network with Apple networks and Novell's Netware. NFS, the networking technology developed on UNIX systems also is included.

8. It's a Community Relationship, Not a Customer Relationship
Other operating systems are the products of single vendors. Linux, on the other hand, is openly developed, and this technology is shared among vendors. This means you become part of a community rather than a customer of a single manufacturer. Also, the supplier community easily can adjust to the needs of various user communities rather than spouting a "one size fits all" philosophy.

This means you can select a Linux vendor that appears to best address your needs and feel confident that you could switch vendors at a later time without losing your investment--both in terms of costs and learning.

9. It's Not How Big Your Processor Is...
Because of a combination of the internal design of Linux and development contributions from a diverse community, Linux tends to be more frugal in the use of computer resources. This may manifest itself in a single desktop system running faster with Linux than with another operating system, but the advantages go far beyond that. It is possible, for example, to configure a single Linux system to act as a terminal server and then use outdated hardware as what are called thin clients.

This server/thin client configuration makes it possible for older, less powerful hardware to share the resources of a single powerful system thus extending the life of older machines.

10. Linux Is Configurable
Linux is a true multi-user operating system. Each user can have his or her own individual configuration all on one computer. This includes the look of the desktop, what icons are displayed, what programs are started automatically when the user logs in and even what language the desktop is in.

(quote from here )

the source is a magazine especially for new linux users...

1. It doesn't crash..
It crashes, really, if you know how to crash it though.
Especially if you use root account to do everything.
And try to edit some very very important files trying to adapt your new hardware. I had some experiments.
But it is harder to crash it than windows.

2.Viruses Are Few and Far Between
Very very right indeed.

3.Virtually Hardware-Independent
Virtually right.
If it doesn't know how to deal with the hardware it won't work virtually. Win32 also works on 64bit desktop systems but gives you 32bit support only. Linux is clever than windows, but windows is designed for x86s only. There are other versions to work on different hardware, as far as I know.

4.Freedom of Choice
This is the best thing I like on it.
Well, but much freedom can be confusing for simple people like me. Suse, Mandriva, Ubuntu, Slackware etc...

5.Standards
Everyone has his standards. No comment on this one.
Well, there is one. You cannot compile every program with every compiler. GCC. You need the right version for that the source code standard require. And if you are missing one single library, that is bad, you are out of standard.
Kernels are not standard yet.
Standards of Suse are different than Slackware...
Actually, it is improving and developing, leaving old standards back and bringing new standards.
Keep up with the time.

6.Applications, Applications, Applications
This is one another thing that I like.
There are soooo many good and not-good applications that it is hard to choose the correct one.
You can put the above 'Well.....' here too.

7. Interoperability
Really good. As far as I know I didn't have any problem. Except making an always working network between my girlfriend's computer and mine. Sometimes works, sometimes not. But I know that it is my fault.

8.It's a Community Relationship, Not a Customer Relationship
Right. In some rare cases you will be a customer too.
For very professional systems though.

9.It's Not How Big Your Processor Is...
Perfect. Even in case of a crash in 'wish' which eats almost 90-99% of my CPU, everything works perfectly.
So I can do CTRL-ESC and kill the 'wish'.
But in windows it is even hard to get to the task manager with CTRL-ALT-DEL in some cases to kill the crashing application.

10.Linux Is Configurable
Very configurable indeed, depending on what you are configuring. Just be careful.
------------
It was kind of joke what I wrote above.
I didn't want to criticize Linux.
But I can say tha it is not perfect, like nothing is perfect in this world.
It may be perfect for some professional needs, but I am not a professional user.

It looks like an ad and windows has its ads too.

Try and see, I say.

An addition,

As far as I know, some time ago, windows web site was managed by Linux server. I think it was before when they came with win2000. Not sure very much though.

But +1 to Linux.

I like your post, and it didn't sound to me a kind of joke at all. Anyway, overall a good approach to Linux!

Thanks!

Did you try XGL or with the other name compbiz?

Vista is new and compbiz is older than it by 1-2 years if I am not wrong, still vista doesn't provide one of those features. And vista requires a powerful computer and brings a lot of incompatibility issues for this moment. It will be better later.
Well, windows was always following behind and imitating apple and Linux visually.

Linux had a perfect multi-desktop support since I knew it. Long time ago I mean. You can have it through different applications on windows. I have this by the courtesy of Nvidia drivers on my windows, but never used it and it is not as good as the Linux multi-desktop support.

XGL is turnable desktops, like a cube and you can use 4 sides/surfaces of it.
I couldn't make it work with the top and bottom surfaces.
But those surfaces help a lot when you are busy with many things on your computer at the same time.

And those jelly effects. When you minimize, maximize or drag a window.

Also have rain effect. Can be used as a screensaver.

Full support of transparency. If your eyes are good enough you can watch 2 movies on the same screen, making the top one around %25 transparent.

You can also easily drag your windows among each surfaces.

It is also aware of activity. If something happens in one of your windows in other surfaces, that surface will turn to you automatically. I am not sure of the awareness level though.

And many other features that I cannot recall now.

It also doesn't have any weird effect on your computer's speed. I really found this issue interesting. I have expected it to eat a lot from my CPU power, but it doesn't.

You can also play a game in one of the surfaces, watch a movie in another one, while surfing the web in another face and whatever you want in the last one.
Well, you need to pause the game or movie manually if you don't wanna die or don't want to miss some parts of the movie while doing another activity on another surface.
You also have chance to say applications to be visible on every surface.

The only problem, if you get it as a problem, you cannot use KDE styles when you are on XGL. But it works with KDE without any problem with gnome styles.

Could you share your ideas or experiments with me?

Yes, I tried both XGl + Compiz and Beryl versions in order to see if they would work with my low hardwares, and I too were surprised, as everyone trying them, they indeed worked flawlessly even with my on-board graffical card. Well, frankly speaking, they aren't much useful, except for the 4-desktop cube in the center of desktop. But, since I use Gnome desktop, on the tool bar there are already a feature to switch between 4 desktops. I find those 3D Desktop effects just eye-candy, sweet, something that would leave on everyone's face a smile. That's all.

It is however worth to mention that Microsoft will market and sell to the whole world the similar features, (called 'Aora' or something like that)inside Windows Vista as "new technology", "excellent look" and so on, and deceive millions of people again. This applies to the "tab extention" inside Internet Explorer ver.7. I am sure there are still millions of people who believe it is the invention of Microsoft. As always, it is the policy of Microsoft drives me mad!

Why problems with Coca-Cola and McDonald's, but not Microsoft?

OK....go sleep...

Thanks for the info on MS Servers.

--- Viruses Are Few and Far Between ---

Linux is more open than windows. So it is easier to write a virus for Linux systems than windows.

I don't have detailed info on kernels, but you NEED to COMPILE the virus for your kernel flavor.
And if you are not a good programmer then there is a chance that your virus will not work on every kernels.
There can be direct ways to run a virus on Linux, but your file system may or may not allow executions of direct system calls. Ext2, ext3, ResiserFS, JFS etc...
Well of course there is possibility to have a virus working independently from kernels or file systems etc if there is such programmers.
There are development groups independent from each other as you know. Kernel, X, File systems etc. So if you don't want your virus to fail, you have to know very details of those things, this includes reading of millions lines of source codes.

But the main threat is EXPLOITS as far as I know. There are many exploits to use on Linux computers. Such as kernel, X, file system exploits as well as many application exploits which helps the executer to have root(GOD ?) rights on your system. And I always say that the most stupid person is cleverer than a virus if he has root rights on your system.
But the weakest point of those exploits is they require the exact version of applications. An exploit, working on XXX.10.2.15 will not work on XXX.10.2.16.
So do your updates daily.

I am happy with auto-update application on Suse.
It usually updates 1-2 applications everyday automatically, thus decreasing the chance of infection with an exploit.
Updates depend on your software installed. You may or may not have an update everyday.
I am not sure how many system updates that I am getting from auto-update system. I usually click update button without checking what they are about.

And on windows aspect, nobody knows anything about the kernel, I mean the source code is one of the top-secrets in the world, but this also prevents antivirus programmers to clean the virus if you are infected.
Except some very very hidden APIs, most of the APIs in the win kernel are known to people to allow them do their programming on windows. If not, we wouldn't have most of the great softwares.
And also because of NTFS source code is not known to people and because it has some things like NTFS streams, if I recall right, which are not visible to operating system, it is really hard to get rid of some infections.
I had once, a malware. I don't know where did I get it but I was about to format all my disks to get rid of it.
User rights on windows are really annoying. You cannot install or make changes in the system if you are not an administrator. This is the correct thing actually, but sometimes it really annoys. As I cannot burn my cd from my user account. CD burning software says that I don't have the right to burn a CD and warns me to switch to administrator account. So I usually use an administrator account for my daily works. I think most of the people out there are doing the same thing. So it is really easy to be infected on windows.
And it is true that it gets more attention from virus writers, because it has millions of users.

Why do I force myself to write a virus which will only work on kernel version xxx.xxx.xxx and not work on xxx.xxx.xxx.1
I do it on windows easily, because there are not much versions to think about.

Anyway, I just wanted to share some of my thoughts.

May the god protect your computers from viruses

Bod and speaking technically and formal...

That must be the end of the world!!

You are so hung up on Mircosoft that you must have nightmares about them,

'Bill Gates creeps into your room at night, he opens your computer, shock horror, you don't subscribe to Microsoft, but you have some other (sorry I have never heard of it)software. EEEEEEKKKK what shall I do :-S , (check that AllTooHuman is sleeping ). Sleeping like a baby, HeHe, I will remove the Linux software and replace with Microsoft'

Oh no AllTooHuman has woken from his dream, just in time it seems, a cold seat running from his brow.......... phew! I still have my trusty Linux software, I better sleep with my computer, just in case

And as for unethical Companies:

Nike
Reebok
Coca Cola
McDonalds
Disney
Apple
Walmart
Gap

and these are the ones I can think off the top of my head.

AllTooHuman I think YOU of all people will love this joke....



http://www.gameweb.cz/loadVid.php?id=83

I just wished that they made Vista language changeable on demand. <- Not a clear sentence I think. ->

In my Linux, I can change system language to any language I want with just one logout and login.
Not all though, some application which doesn't support other languages remain in English.

But it is nice to use most of the programs, in your own language.

Say, a foreign friend of your came into your house and needs computing for some reasons and he/she doesn't know a word or enough words to use your computer. Then you can change it to his/her language with some clicks in Linux.

I bought my notebook when I was in Italy. But the pre-installed system was in Italian.(windows xp)
I had hard time using windows till I get back to Turkey. Then formatting and installing a new windows xp in Turkish did the work. But Linux helped a lot during this time. I got a Linux DVD when I bought a computer magazine in Italy that costs 9 euros. I chose Turkish in the setup menu. I also added Italian for Italian friends there. So there were no problem. When I logged in it was Turkish. When they logged in it was in Italian to use.

Nice, isn't it?

Had my weekly crash just some minutes ago.
I am happy that I click SAVE button on my document in Hangul 2007 before it happened.
It was Lan Cable this time.
The internet connection speed was so low that I couldn't open any site on Firefox.
There were many applications working at the same time.
Firefox with 6 tabs, Hangul 2007, Hangul Dictionary, Music Player, MSN with some chat windows and many background processes. I could feel the slowness in the computer but it was OK. But net speed killed me.
So I took of the lan cable, just to reset the NET service.
It was ok when I plugged it off. I waited some minutes then plugged it back. I was waiting for ''Lan cable ....'' message. It didn't appear. I waited for some more time, due to running applications could slow down the discovery.
Then I moved the mouse and tried to click on msn, but it didn't reply to my click. Then CTRL-ALT-DEL. O-oh. Nothing appeared. I could see that something was going on with the harddisk. Waited for the harddisk light to go off. Did another CTRL-ALT-DEL. Nothing again. CAPS lock light was working though. So I turned off the computer completely.
Did a restart. Then did a scandisk. But windows cannot do scandisk on C. It required another restart.
Now, back to my study after loosing a long important time because of the crash. Thanks Firefox that it restores all my tabs back after a crash. I can just hope windows restored everything back after scandisk.
There is a menu, you can get with F8 when windows is starting.
But there is no SCANDISK command on this menu. And windows doesn't do auto-scandisk after a crash while restarting.
It crashes so strongly that it cannot notice that it is crashed

Hope Vista is clever enough to notice it crashed, and does a scandisk after a power-off restart sequence.