Linux on the Desktop
This writer says it better than I can, so I’m simply copying his text verbatim. For more, read the full article.
…Desktop Linux has matured so well that you could deploy it in a greenfields scenario, i.e, one where there were no computers used previously, and the users would take to it as quickly as they would acclimatise to Windows.
That doesn’t mean that migrating to Linux is a quick or painless process, however. Unfortunately, Windows is an extremely difficult platform to move away from. This has nothing to do with the qualities or inherent capabilities of Linux mind you. Migrating from Windows to the Mac would be about as painful. And the Mac is considered to be the most polished and easiest to use of desktops.
…Due to the reality that Windows ships with so little functional software, you need to acquire an awful lot of software – office suites, graphics suites, calendaring, educational, development, technical, specialist business software and more. With few exceptions, most of that software you buy for your Windows PC is in reality only available on Windows. Certainly, almost all of the Microsoft-published software is only available for Windows. This is an example of Application Programming Interface (API) lock-in. That is, lock-in which occurs when software vendors don’t write portable code, but lock their application development to a single (or small cadre) of operating system platforms and programming libraries.
However, there is software available that is cross platform, most of it from the Open Source community.
OpenOffice.org was designed to be a drop-in replacement for Microsoft Office… Firefox is available on Windows, while Internet Explorer isn’t available on Linux. The Gimp is available on Windows, while none of Microsoft’s graphics apps are offered for Linux. Scribus, an excellent entry-level desktop publishing suite runs on Windows. MS Publisher doesn’t return the compliment for Linux. Apache? MySQL? PostreSQL? Sendmail? All run on Windows as well as on Linux. Microsoft’s IIS, MS SQL Server and Exchange, refuse to consider Linux. Programming languages? There are perhaps 50 open source interpreters and compilers which support Windows – not one of Microsoft’s supports Linux.
While Microsoft goes out of its way to curb your every opportunity to migrate away from Windows, the open source community makes every effort to be platform agnostic and ecumenical, once again, giving you as a user, control.
So now what? Try out some of the excellent open source cross platform programs. Once you are familiar with them, if you want to switch to Linux, you would have no problem using it, plus gaining advantages of security and stability!