Do we need our own Linux?, May 26, 2009

I downloaded a pre-release version of Bayanihan 5, the upcoming version of the state-sponsored Linux distribution, hoping to put it through its paces.

Today, more than a year after I switched, there’s very little I can’t do in terms of business and personal productivity on my Ubuntu Linux PC that I did when I used Windows.

When I switched from Windows to Linux last year, a decision I had to make as a technology writer was what to do with readers who were still on Microsoft’s proprietary operating system.

Software patents favor only large corporations such as Microsoft, who can afford to apply for them and to maintain a battery of lawyers to enforce them. Small developers cannot, and would be forced to pay license fees to develop the most basic of programs.

The tidbit about the chairman’s new notebook was yet another sign that the computer maker is taking Linux seriously as a viable alternative to Windows.

By aiming its program at developing countries, Microsoft seems determined to head off Linux in markets where the free alternative is most likely to thrive at Windows’ expense.

Why should you put up with expensive and buggy software, when you can get a stable and modern operating system and excellent programs for free?

Like the boy in the movie, Linux as a desktop operating system has come of age, and like the band he follows around, it’s on the verge of stardom.

Years of speculation and wishful thinking have not yielded a Linux version from Adobe, nor does one look likely to come anytime soon.

FOR the last few weeks, I’ve been running Ubuntu Linux on my home computer. Windows XP is still there, sitting on a separate partition of my hard disk, but I hardly fire it up these days because I like Ubuntu and want to learn more about how it works.

Double-clicking on it, I overcame years of resistance to installing Linux on my home PC because I didn’t want to risk screwing up my existing Windows system and other files.