The author of this article likes to poke at the glitches in the Linux desktop. None of that sounds any worse than Windows.  With a Linux desktop I don’t have to fear it slowing to a crawl under the load of malware you accumulate simply by installing “free” software or browsing the “free” Internet.  With a Linux desktop I’m confidant that 99% of the drivers I need are already included and require no downloads or installs or extra work for me.  If I want to install Windows 7 on a Windows 8 laptop how many hours will it take to get all of the drivers downloaded and installed?  How many reboots will it take?  How many calls to support or the help desk will it take?  Does Matt’s straw man feel the brisk breeze blowing him down the way?  The reliability and flexibility of the Linux desktop are unequaled.  Even when canonical goes in some lame direction, the community forks and good things keep happening.  How did the community alternatives to Windows 7 fare?  Oh, they’re impossible because they don’t accept the value of openness or competition?  I know I can keep running a Linux desktop forever and I can pay somebody to write patches if I desire.  Someday Windows will follow OS/2, geos, and AmigaOS to the dust bins of history.  No corporation can do that to Linux.  

+Matt Asay   You can keep propping up the proprietary monopoly that can’t make a good email client, but I have better things to do than scan for malware and praying that the next batch of patches address the bugs I care about.  The free software movement is living up to its promise of giving users what they want and Microsoft is left trying to get laws to ban it and retreating to older designs.  If we’re going to stop talking about something it should be the buggy proprietary crap.  Let’s spend more time talking about the Linux desktop where there’s hope for an even better future.

Shared with: Public, Matt Asay

+1’d by: Infected PC