Free Computer Software
Since the first release of Microsoft DOS, the software market is dominated by Microsoft operating systems and software that go with it. This is not necessarily a good thing, because this way one company drives the industry forward. Without competition there’s no rush, the software giant can choose not to update its software for long periods of time. There is also the financial side of the problem too, a small business or home user may have to spend up to 10-20 times more on software than the whole computer’s cost. Luckily in the last few years foundations and other kinds of low-profit companies started to offer free computer software, including operating systems, and much more.
UBUNTU is one of the most popular free operating systems around, based on Debian linux, it runs all linux programs on a very friendly graphical user interface (GUI), similar to Microsoft Windows. Even more important was the centralization of most applications into one frequently updated database that can be accessed by all users by a few clicks. After the user chooses the software he needs, he presses install and then all applications are downloaded and installed automatically. How cool is that?
Although UBUNTU’s performance doesn’t come close to Microsoft and Mac paid software, it offers a wide range of free programs like Openoffice (similar to Microsoft Office, but free) that has all the basic features of MS Office and it was also released on Microsoft platform for free.
Playing media isn’t a problem either, all codecs are supported. Serious deficiencies show only when users want to play games, because no profit-oriented company will address linux users that generally want everything for free. It would be financial suicide, however some games are available on linux platforms too or can be run with a windows simulator that offers DirectX support too. One of these simulators is WINE:
Strangely enough Misrosoft Windows applications run on linux with WINE run faster than the same applications designed especially for UBUNTU. One of these programs is the RAR archiving software:
UBUNTU also has a free photoshop program called GIMP. It doesn’t have all the functions of Adobe photoshop, but it gets the job done and doesn’t cost $700 like Adobe’s similar program.
It’s no news that major WEB browsers are free for UBUNTU too, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and others, that have all the functions of their MS equivalent.
The only serious problem with linux operating systems is hardware compatibility. While they run just fine on any hardware configuration, speed isn’t optimized and that’s why in most cases a linux operating system runs slower than MAC or MS. The darker side of the problem is that not even MS and MAC use the full potential of computer hardware, they stay around 50% efficiency, meaning that programs could run twice as fast if software developers would work more on optimization. In conclusion it’s smart to at least try the free stuff before buying MS or MAC software, you may be pleasantly surprised. Also keep in mind that even expensive software isn’t fully optimized.
Written by Karpat Zoltan, date Apr 17, 2010 in Software topic
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