Linux Beginners FAQ – The Linux Portal Site

Last Updated on March 27, 2020

Why should I use Linux?

There are lots of reasons why Linux might be the perfect operating system to meet your requirements. Here are a selection:

• A Linux Distribution offers thousands of dollars worth of software for no cost (or a few dollars for physical media).
• Linux is a complete operating system that is: stable – the crash of an application is much less likely to bring down the operating system under Linux; reliable – Linux servers are often up for hundreds of days compared with the regular reboots required with a Windows system; extremely powerful.
• Comes with a complete development environment, including C, C++, Fortran compilers, toolkits such as Qt and scripting languages such as Perl, Awk and sed. A C compiler for Windows alone can set you back hundreds of dollars.
• Excellent networking facilities.
• The ideal environment to run servers such as a web server (e.g. Apache), or an FTP server.
• A wide variety of commercial software is available if your needs aren’t satisfied by the free software.
• An operating system that is easily upgradeable. After any length of time a typical installation of Windows and software gets into a complete mess. Often the only way to clear out all the debris is to reformat the hard disk and start again. Linux, however, is much better for maintaining the system.
• True multi-tasking; the ability to run more than one program at the same time. This releases the power of the modern PC to sparkle by serving multiple users over the network.
• Excellent window systems such as X and Wayland; the equivalent of Windows but offering far more flexible. You can even open a window on another computer with security and work or display remotely.
• Learning Linux is fun, profitable and liberating.
• Much less prone to virus, trojans and other nasties than Windows.

Can my Windows applications run under Linux?

There are a number of choices that are available. One popular commercial program is VMware, which lets you run multiple operating systems on an individual machine. A wide number of operating systems are supported including Windows 95, Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Windows 10, and FreeBSD. Their website is www.vmware.com.

Alternatively, you might want to try Wine. It’s an open source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix. Wine makes it possible to take advantage of all the Unix strong points (stability, flexibility, remote administration) while still using the Windows applications you depend on.

If you want to run Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Project, Photoshop, Visio, Notes, iTunes, FrameMaker and others, you might be interested in CrossOver Office, a commercial project that has built upon the success of Wine.

The downside of both VMWare and CrossOver Office is that both applications are proprietary. However, there is a no cost (and open source) alternative to VMware; VirtualBox. Their website is www.virtualbox.org.

Read more about VirtualBox with a quick demo of the software in action at OSSBlog’s ‘A Beginner’s Introduction to Linux’.

Which Linux Distribution should I install?

We have compiled a comprehensive list of Linux distributions. They are available in our award-winning Links directory.

There are a number of factors that need to be considered:

• Installation and configuration of Linux is not always trivial. Although email and telephone support can resolve most newbie problems, there’s nothing that can replace face to face support. For home users, having a friend guiding you through the initial stages is invaluable, so it’s recommended you try a distribution which (s)he regularly uses.
• Choice of the distribution can be dictated by the hardware in your machine.
• Some distributions are considered to be more ‘technical’; for example Debian and Slackware, excellent in their own right, rely less on attractive Graphical User Interface (GUI) tools.