Linux is an Alternative to WindowsThere is an alternative to Windows, it is called LINUX Late last year a NEW external hard drive crashed. By NEW I mean less than 4 months old. When it crashed it wiped out most everything I had, Backups to my laptop in total, XP, all applications, I mean everything, While waiting for a new external hard drive, my internal Hard drive did a crash and burn, do not know what happened, but I had no computer of any kind. I first tried to get a replacement Cd's for XP, they were willing to sell them to me, but I did not see any reason to buy again, what I had paid for once when I bought my laptop. I would have then had to do all of the SP1 and SP2 plus all of the updates. I started looking for a different OS at the same time I was looking for a NEW internal Hard drive. I found 2 flavors of DEBIAN, and UBUNTU. These two are totally FREE. I have added a NEW PAGE called Linux-Tips. There is a link to it at the bottom of this page. There is also Redhat,this one is not totally FREE as they also provide E-Mail support with a 2-3 business day turnaround. The cheapest I have found is for this is $80.00 a year. They also have a FREE one called FEDORA. Each flavor has it good points and not so good. DEBIAN is for the PURIST, if it has a some what restrictive licensing or no source code, they make very hard to get. Instead of Firefox they have Iceape and Iceweasel, which are derived from Firefox. Also it is very hard to get Flash player. Something about the licensing. UBUNTU on the other hand takes a more pragmatic approach,if they have It, you can get it. Ubuntu has Firefox. I have tried 3 times to get the 30 day trial subscription to Redhat's Linux Desktop edition.I have yet to be successful.I sent 1 email to them, I got a non-sense reply(may have been an auto-response). I filled out an on-line questionnaire, with negative comments, no response.This to me seems to be typical way they respond. One of the big draw backs to these OS's, as I see it, is that a lot of times to do anything you have to use TERMINAL Mode(Command Line)as ROOT. This is much more powerful than what is done using GUI'S, And a lot more DANGEROUS!! This is very similar to using DOS, before Windows. One of the things I have discovered about people that are very conversant about Linux, is that they have little tolerance of, or for people that are trying to learn. Generally speaking, whenever I have asked a question or asked for help, I have gotten a Smart-Aleck response. So as a matter of course I know longer ask for HELP. At my age I do not suffer fools, PERIOD I am slowly discovering stuff about LINUX which I am putting on a page with a link at the bottom of this page, The link is called TIPS
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