Re: windows XP
I myself would be going Linux. now if I could keep my daughter from downloading malware and other crap on her wincrash 8 tablet.....:facepalm:
Yeah I hear you!
Back when my daughters were much smaller, I built computers for each of them. I started out with Winblows Xp because I had a 'friend' that worked for Microshaft and he got me copies of Xp (Home) at the company store for $20. A lot of MS employees do this for friends (there is a limit though) and MS is seemingly ok with it.
Problem was, I was spending a LOT of time 'fixing' the Xp computers from all the crashes and virus's they were getting.
So, I switch both of them to OpenSuSE Linux on their desktop computers and when they went to High School and Jr College, I had laptops ready to go running OpenSuSE complete with Open Office (NOW LibreOffice) , Gimp, FIreFox, Thunderbird etc.....
Everything was available and there was no virus's or spyware that would work on Linux boxes so my workload went WAY down.
I set them up so they looked pretty much like XP so the interface was similar.
When my youngest went to the JR college the first week, the college network was hit with somesort of virus that just about KILLED everybody's school desktop and student laptops! Just about everyone got the virus and had big problems (everyone except those running Linux and Mac's!)
The biggest reason that the software for Linux distributions are safer is each version of Linux has software repositories that are unique to that distribution. Firefox for OpenSuSE for example comes from the Opensuse repository that is already available. you do not go out and find individual software packages....... you just select whatever (approved, and verified) repository you want and add it. Then you search for the packages you want to install from that repository.
The groups who maintain these repositories will not let anyone add software to them until they've been fully verified and vetted.
You CAN go out and find software 'in the wild' and install it but there's several processes to prevent you from do it by "accident" and you don't need to............ Pretty much everything you need is already in various repositories.
Apple did much the same thing and I think MS is FINALLY going to have some sort of software repository or equivalent. The main difference is that you'll have to buy most software from Apple and MS, where just about all Linux software is open source (and free)
Linux is not a "replacement" for Windows. You cannot use Turbotax on Linux. It doesn't exist. You can however do Turbotax (online) and it works ok.
What you can do is take an older computer (at least a dual core with some "horsepower" and memory etc) and use it with Linux for internet browsing(firefox) , email (Kmail, Thunderbird and a host of others), Photo editing (Gimp), etc etc.....
Linux Equivalents to Windows Software - Linux Links - The Linux Portal Site
There's a LOT available. Also, for those that think it's some sort of command line thing like DOS, yes you can do that if you want. That's so 90's though. There's several desktop interfaces to choose from. I use KDE but there's others that you can make look literally like anything you want including Windows XP, the MAC or neither!
Most people just use the various desktops in their default modes instead of customizing.
All I did was makemine look mostly like windows so my wife wouldn't complain!
(although she has her own computer running Win7) She uses mine once in a while and doesn't have any problem making do anything she wants it to do.
Sorry for the soapbox! I get a little carried away sometimes!!
(by the way, if you have a Lowrance GPS, TOM TOM GO, any wired or wireless router, handheld GPS, DROID tab or phone, You're already running Linux and you don't know it!!)
Cheers,
Rick
