Linux is multiplatform.
This means that by choosing Linux, you choose a portable operating system on which you can run or develop portable applications. Linux runs on Sparc (Sun), Alpha (Compaq), Mips, ARM, x86 (Intel), PowerPC, 680x0 (Motorola), RS6000 (IBM), and so on...
Intel running IBM compatible PC !
Choose Linux to
choose freedom of choice !
Linux is multiuser.
On a Linux box,
several users can logon simultaneously. This means that you have the
freedom to share the same computer among various tasks launched
by various users. This means you can share the same program
installation among various users.
This allows you
to
– Save license costs
– Save installation
time
– Save
backup time
– Save upgrade time
This is only possible if the operating system is
very stable and separates efficiently the data and code belonging to
various users. Choose Linux because it is multiusers
Linux is opensource.
This means you have
access to the code of the operating system. You can actually learn
computer science, change the code and experience the result. You can
even participate to the development code.
Linux is good for
students. Other non opensource operating systems do not allow learning how
a system works.
Linux is
multivendor.
This means that by
choosing Linux, you choose to depend on a set of (more than 50) Linux
distributors in the world, plus the opensource community.
This is definitely
safer than depending on a unique vendor.
Choose Linux to
avoid monopolies !
Linux is stable.
It manages properly
the memory, tasks, user rights, access to the I/O and hardware, so that
some Linux hosts are running actively since more than 5 continuous
years !
When does a Linux
system stops ?
– When there is a
hardware failure
– When there is a
power outage
– When there is a
system upgrade
– When it is
shutdown by its owner
Linux development
team started even the development of a system allowing upgrades
without interruption of the services ! Compare this kind of stability
with Win NT4: Microsoft recognized that an internal bug caused the system
to crash after only 47 days ! Nobody notice, because Microsoft systems are
always crashing anyway !
Choose Linux to
choose stability !
Linux manages
properly the memory.
Linux properly
manages the memory (demand paging).
The consequence ?
• If a buggy
software crashes, you don't need to reboot the computer
• If a software
ends, it does not leave unused memory (memory leaking) leading to
"Low on resources" error message.
• If a malicious
code gets executed, it does not spread among the entire system memory.
• Two users sharing
the same computer at the same time can't corrupt the other user software
memory.
Choose Linux to
increase your productivity !
Linux gives you the
choice !
On Linux, you have
choice. Tenth of different office suites are available, for various
prices, with various
license models, open
source or not, with various key possibilities.
Ex: StarOffice,
OpenOffice, Koffice, ApplixWare, WordPerfect, Latex, ..Same applies to
mail readers, web browsers, ... Linux is not a monopoly. You have choice !
Choose Linux to keep
your customer choice !
Linux is cheap.
Linux, as operating
system, is and will always remain free (in the sense of a free beer).
There is no license to pay to anybody. More than that, Linux cost of
ownership is very low because of:
• You don't need
expensive antivirus software.
• You don't need to
maintain a license database.
• You don't need to
reinstall crashed/corrupted systems
• You don't need to
install expensive remotemanagement software
• You harmed by very
old well known bugs that have not yet been fixed
• You can choose
your operating system supplier (no monopoly)
• You can choose
between various equivalent softwares (alternative solutions exists on
Linux)
• You can adapt the
system to your exact needs: you remain master of your software solution.
Choose Linux because
it's cost effective !
Linux is efficient.
Oracle made a
comparison between Oracle 9i running on a Windows 2000 and the same
computer running Linux. The result is 2530% more efficiency with
Linux... The problem is that the Windows 2000 license prevents you
(the licensee) to compare Microsoft software with other solutions...
However, Oracle published the result because they claim that
they don't compare Microsoft's software efficiency, but their Oracle
implementation...
Nobody is faked:
Linux is advised
officially by Oracle as operating system of choice to run
their relational database !
Choose Linux
because it is efficient !
Linux is not under
the control of NSA.
The NSA (National
Security Agency, USA) and Microsoft recognized that two sets of secret
keys where shipped with Windows in order to allow either Microsoft
and NSA to enter any Windows running computer in the world. Do we
accept a foreign security agency to control our bank accounts, our
official mails, emails, our justice records ?
Do we accept our
armies to run such software ? Linux is opensource. Anybody can check
if there is such a backdoor in it. NSA is working on
a certificated secure version of the Linux kernel for USA use,
because they know Windows is not secure. If USA chooses Linux for
security, why not India ? Use Linux because it's not
controlled by foreign intelligence agency.
Linux is not under
the control of a software development company.
As software
development company, you can choose Windows as preferred operating system,
delivering Windows solutions to your customers. If you do that, you know
that soon or later, you will loose your business in favor of Microsoft.
Why ?
Because as soon as
Microsoft will identify your business as significant, they will use the
same technique they used against Corel, Netscape, Borland, ... They will
change the API such a way that your software will become unstable,
inefficient and buggy. They will develop hidden API that only their
software will be able to use, giving them unfair market advantage...
And they will win: they are playing on their backyard... And it's
you that choose to fight with them there !
A good
counterexample is the success of Sony in the game market: their
PlayStation II is NOT RUNNING Microsoft system. That's why they are still
on tracks.
Choose Linux to not
choose some competitor's controlled system for your developments.
Linux is a standard
respectful platform.
When you develop on Linux,
your software will likely use
standardized APIs from standardized
programming
languages (Perl, Bash, Tcl/Tk, Java,Posix, AnsiC, C++...) so that your
software will be
easily ported on
other operating systems:
• BSD
• Mac OSX
• Solaris
• HPUX
• AIX
• True64
• Irix
• Hurd
• QNX
With a bit of care,
it is even possible to develop directly pure portable code. So Choose
Linux to develop
platformindependent code
Linux is a
longterm platform.
Linux has no
(marketing) reasons to become incompatible from releases to releases. Far
from that. When you develop on Linux, you know that you are using
longterm available development tools, APIs, languages... So that your
software will last and will not require porting on new
operating system flavor. Ex: The bank software developed in 60's on
Cobol is\ still usable on Linux. What about availability of VB 4 on
XP ? What to do when an operating system provided by only one vendor
is not maintained even less than 10 years after its first release
? Can you rely on such a system for your business ? Choose Linux
because it's long lasting.
Linux is
multitasking operating system
What does this means
?
This means high
productivity. You can at the same time print, work, download, write a CD,
play music, compile, compute, backup your system, and so
on... By the way, you may be even not the only user to do that on
your system at the moment, because Linux is also multiuser...
Click twice on an
icon. Linux will launch twice the application. Did you already tried to
overload your system while writing a CD on a non multitasking system
? Your trash would be full of missed CDs... Multitasking means that
instead of using in average 25% of your CPU, with Linux, you can use 100%
all the time.
Choose Linux to use
100% of your hardware !
Linux is
multiconsole.
Linux comes usually
with 6 textbased consoles, plus 1 graphical one. On that graphical
console, you have by default 4 virtual screens. First users gets
confused by so many "screens". Once used to it, systems
providing only one desktop will look frustrating to you. Why should you
be limited to only one desktop ? Why not launch the word processing
tool in plain screen on one console, the web browser in an another one, and
leave my preferred game paused on the third one ? Soon, you will
increase the number of such consoles to 8, 12 or 16... And surprise ! You
will not even need to reboot to enjoy it !
Choose Linux to
increase your working environment
Linux is a new
technology !
Linux is modern: its
development started in 1992 (only). Compared with other systems that are
DOSbased (DOS comes from the 70's), it is strange to heard about
"New Technology" when speaking about Windows... So, Linux
had no problem with the (unpredictable) year 2000 issue. Linux doesn't
know 640KB or 64MB memory problem. Linux systems works with up to
4096 MB... Linux has no problem with "8.3" file names (such as
MYDOC~11.DIR or hard
disks having more than 1024 cylinders...
Linux has no problem
dealing with time zones or Ipv6 because it's a modern operating system !
Choose Linux because
it's new technology !
Linux is the
stateoftheart for R&D
IETF (Internet
Engineering Task Force) engineers the new protocols and applications for
the worldwide Internet. It is the meeting point of all the
R&D (Research and Development) teams in the world (Cisco, Nortel,
Alcatel, Philips, Lucent, Nokia, Ericsson, IBM, Sun, ...). Their working
groups are writing the RFCs: the standards for the Internet.
They are mainly
using
• Linux
• BSD
• Solaris
for their prototype
implementations, for their validations, their tests... During
meetings, half of the installed computers are running Linux. Only the
employees of Microsoft are developing on Windows, because other have
no access to the core of the system.
Choose Linux because
it's the state of the art at world scale !
Linux runs on a
Journalized File System (JFS).
What does this means
?
It means that in
case of unexpected system crash (not a bug, we are speaking about Linux)
as a power outage, the file system is not damaged. The next use of
the file system (when the system will bootup again, as example) will lead
to a very fast (some seconds on very large file systems) recovery,
with guaranteed rebuild of all the files, including the one that were
opened at the crash instant. This means no file corruption, no file loss,
no system corruption (lack of DLLs....) and very quick
system availability. Some very well tuned Linuxbased file server
have recovery time of 25 seconds in case of system crash. This delay
is perceived by users as a network overload, while actually the entire
server rebooted !
Use Linux to save
your data !
Linux provides
software RAID services.
What is RAID ?
RAID is a way to get
protected from harddisk failures. An example of RAID ? Let's imagine
the three directors of CocaCola company. If one of them knows the
entire production secrets, he might build his own company. If each of
them knows only the third of the secret, as soon as one dies, the product
is lost. So, let's divide the product secret in three: part A, B and C.
Director 1 knows secret A, director 2 knows secret B and director 3 knows
secret C. For redundancy reasons, let's learn to director 1 the secret
B too, to director 2 the secret C and to director 3 the secret A. In this
case, none of them knows the entire production method, but any of them
might die, the remaining knows what to learn to the newly
hired director. The only thing we know about harddisks is: they
will die. But no one's know when. If you want your data to survive
your hard disk, use RAID (as Linux provides you for free). You will have
the opportunity to replace your crashed harddisk and see the system rebuild
the missing data without even stopping you to work ! Use Linux to
save your data !
Linux proposes the
stateoftheart desktops environments.
Linux means freedom.
Also freedom of choice: you can choose between several desktop,
window managers, ... It's not only about customization: you really
can choose between alternative solutions to manage your working
environment.
• Gnome
• KDE
• CDE
are various
graphical environment available on Linux. They are not only curiosities:
the well known Sun Microcomputers ships KDE and Gnome as desktops
with its very famous Solaris operating system ! Choose Linux to enjoy
the
stateoftheart
working
environment !
Quick facts about
Linux...
Linux is the most
used operating system in the
world.
Linux is (quiet) a
safe platform.
The famous ISS company
(Internet Security System) selling Internet security tools advises
officially during trainings the use of BSD or Linux as platform of
choice to run their products.They state that they had the possibility to
check and/or amend the code of the underlaying operating system to
guarantee the security of the overall system, while they can't guarantee
whatever about the security provided by their security software when
running on non opensource operating systems, such as Microsoft's
products.
Choose Linux because it's
a almost safe platform
Linux is used by the
most prestigious companies in the world.
Other companies
wants to hide this, either because they are not proud of using free
software for marketing reasons (as RollsRoyce or Microsoft) or because
they don't want their competitors to know about this leading technology,
considering the use of Linux as a trade secret. Some are no more free
of taking the right decision: some commercial operating system vendors are
shareholders,or they signed a commercial agreement... However, prestigious
companies are using
Linux, such as:
* Toyota * EDF *
Deutch Bank * Boing * Alcatel * Nortel * IBM * NASA * France Telecom *
P&T Luxembourg * AT&T * British Telecom * Pixar * Sun Microsystems
* SESAstra * Google *
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