10 Questions about linux asked by windows users.

January 9th, 2009 | by admin |

As the popularity of linux increasing day by day but still there are lots of peoples using windows and still unaware about linux.Specialy in the countries like Pakistan the use of linux is minimum I told some of my colleagues about linux who were unware about linux when i told them about linux they ask tons of questions regarding linux to me i have listed 10 questions which most of windows user’s have in their mind.

1) What is linux ?

My Answer : Linux is an Open Source operating system, a large piece of software that manages a computer.The accurate name is GNU/Linux but “Linux” is used more often.

2) Why it is free ?

My Answer : There are several reasons available on internet for why linux is free but i think it is free because most of the softwares are developed by community or individuals and the aim of linux is Every computer user should have the freedom to download, run, copy, distribute, study, share, change and improve their software for any purpose, without paying licensing fees.

3) Is this a new version of windows ?

My Answer : When this question was asked by me i couldn’t stop myself laughing and i answered while laughing that windows is an operating system by microsoft and not free but linux is an open source operating system developed by different communities and free.

4) what are the system requirements ?

My Answer : This is a much better question and i think that lots of readers also have this question in their mind.Well the system requirements for linux are

* 32-bit x86 processor (386, 486, Pentium, Pentium MMX, Pentium Pro and Pentium II. Also supported clones such as Cyrix, AMD and TI)
* ISA, EISA, PCI or VLB Bus.
* 4MB or more of RAM
* 1 1.44MB or 1.2MB floppy drive
* VGA Compatible video card
* 40MB of Hard Disk Space (after installing all modules)
* CD-ROM drive(If you are installing from CD)

5) Can it be installed with windows ?

My Answer : Yes it can be installed with windows on a separate partition.In fact i m using ubuntu linux with windows XP and Windows Vista.

6) why should i switch to linux ?

My Answer : Some of the main reasons why you should switch to linux are:

* Open Source (Free).

* Most of the softwares are free.

* Much stable than windows.

* Great protection against viruses.

7) How secure is linux and what antivirus are available ?

My Answer : Research and user’s experience shows that linux is more secure than windows.You can check the list of viruses in windows and then compare them to linux there are very few viruses made for linux.Lots of well known antiviruses softwares are available for linux e.g. (Mcafee,Panda,Avast,Kaspersky and clam antivirus).

Is linux more easier than windows ?

My Answer : User’s have different answers to this question.Some user’s says that linux is easier than windows but some are against this statement.Well according to my experience with redhat linux i say that windows is easier than linux.Although ubuntu has made linux easier for home user but i still think some more work needs to be done to make it more easier than windows.Check out my post 12 reasons why windows is better than linux for non-techies

9) Can i player counter strike or any other game on linux ?

My Answer : Counter strike is available for linux and there are lots of other games also available for linux what you need to do is to just google and you will find tons of games for linux.

10) Is MSN available in Linux ?

My Answer : MSN messenger is also microsoft’s product and not available in linux but you don’t need to worry as there are MSN messenger’s clone available in linux.Check out my post How to install MSN messenger in Linux(Amsn)

Tags: Linux, linux questions

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11 Responses to “10 Questions about linux asked by windows users.”

By lawngnome on Jan 9, 2009 | Reply

For extremely non-technical users, I’d argue that linux *is* easier to use, so long as someone has preconfigured it for them. I set my friend’s folks up with it over christmas, simple gnome+compiz+awn, with all the most common tasks they use as one-click icons on the dock at the bottom. They were quite impressed with the speed boost, and even more so with how easy it was to do everything they wanted.

Apparently they haven’t used the digital camera they bought 3 years ago because they could never figure out how to get the pictures off it in Windows. I had them take a bunch of photos for christmas, and had them get the pictures off the camera, and print the ones they wanted by themselves, and they were delighted to find out they *could*, without any help from me.

There’s an inverse sweet-spot in linux, the enthusiast/power-user, that finds GNU/Linux difficult. They’re fighting years of ingrained Windows knowledge, and the system feels to foreign to them, and therefore difficult to wrap their head around. Those that take the time to learn how to do things find it superior, but it’s understandable why many Windows power-users do not want to basically go back to being a ‘n00b’.

By colonelcrayon on Jan 9, 2009 | Reply

> Much stable than windows.

Oh really? Do you have any data to back that up?

> Great protection against viruses.

Viruses are quite rare. Most so-called “viruses” are really other types of malware that depend on social engineering for infection. Signature-based antivirus scanning is moronic and useless. Common sense and a limited user account are all that are needed to keep any OS safe.

By the way, I use Linux myself (Slackware).

By Hussein on Jan 9, 2009 | Reply

Great list of FAQ about Linux.I am a happy Linux (Ubuntu) user. Found this article in Digg

By The Unix Geek on Jan 10, 2009 | Reply

I found this a great list for beginners, except I would change the answer for the last question to be that there is a similar program that is similar to use called Pidgin installed in popular distributions such as Ubuntu, and with it you can not only talk to your friends, but also get free support from over hundreds of members of the Linux community (IRC).

By 6205 on Jan 10, 2009 | Reply

If linux is much stable than Windows, than i am Michael Jackson…

Awerage user will kick your ass with great stability of crashing GNOME applets, panels, nautilus or entire X server, various daemos slow, crashing apps and so on…

By stability you mean probably finetuned kernel, but that is not what most people cares for, so please FOSS advocates, stop posting this BS about linux stability. Vista is much more stable.

By Marion on Jan 10, 2009 | Reply

No OS is stable if the user is stupid!

By admin on Jan 10, 2009 | Reply

@ Marion
I totally agree with your comments the main thing is that how users uses the computer.But we can say linux more stable in terms of viruses as it provides better protection again viruses by protecting system and doesn’t allow viruses or malware to write and infect system files.