What about...

Invariably, when talking about changing to a different operating system, the questions arise about various types of software that might be used, so first, let me say that there are still a few times when I have need of a Windows-cased machine. Those times, however, are few and far between these days - tax time each year and about once a month to do my business billing. Occasionally, I'll fire it up to check how a website looks in IE, but even that is a pretty rare occurrence as more folks seem to have migrated to Firefox from IE. I don't totally hate the Windows environment, but I really do like saving money, so I prefer finding alternatives.

If we all had as much money as we need these days, some of the benefits I talk wouldn't really matter, as we could all go out and buy all the toys we want, but, for many of us, right now, money is tight. There are, no doubt, some folks who have particular computing needs that can only be met through the Windows environment, but for many of us, there are lots of alternatives that could work out just as well, if not better.

One of the things to decide first is how you will be using the machine - what the application types that you absolutely need to have on it? Your answer to that question will help you decide if you really need Windows or if a Linux alternative would work instead.

Old Machines and New Operating Systems

One of the major differences that separates Micro$oft from many of its competitors is ever increasing resource requirements needed to run its operating systems. While many of the newer Linux distros also require large amounts of system resources, there are also quite a few distros that have been created to be run on older machines with smaller hard drives and lower memory capacities. In many cases, this will allow older machines that would never be able to run any variant of Windows to be used happily as Linux machines, more than capable of handling modern computing tasks.

As I write this, I am running a Linux Mint install on a decidedly older laptop - an HP Omnibook 500 that is at least 10 years old, with a 40 GB hard drive and 256 MB of RAM. After a bit of a glitch because the system didn't find the driver for the wireless card, it's now happily downloading updates. Luckily, the install process copies a bunch of wireless drivers to the disk, so that it's pretty simple to find the right one and get connected properly.

There's something quite satisfying about taking an old machine that most would simply send to a landfill and giving it a new purpose though turning it into a Linux box. Since Linux and the vast majority of the software written for it is open source, there is no huge investment in software, for either a home user or a company, so Linux solutions can be a huge money saver as well. What's not to love about that?

The Frugal Geek

When I first started messing with computers, I had a very limited budget, so wherever possible I looked for the cheapest solution to whatever issue I was facing. The commercial packages tended to be pretty pricey, so I spent a lot of time investigating shareware and freeware options to save money. I couldn't even begin to count how many different software packages I've looked at over the years. Most of them were DOS-based and were designed to run on the low-end machines of the day. Some of them were pretty robust, some were not, but that was the premise behind shareware - you got to try it out on your machine first before investing any money in it.

In those days, I was pretty committed to running Windows as an OS, though my job at the time required my supporting Macs as well. It wasn't until about 10 years ago that I really started to look at alternate operating systems - not counting some early experiments with OS2 and NT. Since my first web project was running on a Linux box of some variant, I had learned some real basic commands, but hadn't given any real thought to the idea of Linux on the desktop until about 2001.

Linux as it existed for the desktop back then was a much more difficult beast to tame than it is now. There were an awful lots of areas that had to be configured by editing files rather than using a graphical interface, so it was a daunting proposition at best back then. Frankly, since most of my work involved Windows applications aback then, it wasn't really helpful to me, so after awhile, I didn't mess with it and went back to doing things in Windows.

About three years ago, I decided it was time to take another look at Linux. I had stopped working for the big corporate place which provided me with most of my Windows-based software for free, so it was time to consider the options again.