Five reasons for Windows users to move to Linux

Take back your power

As the October deadline for dumping Windows 10 is fast approaching, many users are considering their options. This is for many reasons but is generally rooted in the ever increasing enshittification of Windows.

There are also many articles out there that list all the reasons why Windows is so terrible, and we’ve published a few of those here on Both.org. But I want to switch the viewpoint from Windows to Linux. I’ll still be hard on Windows, but I’ll be exploring the strengths of Linux.

1: Linux respects your privacy

Linux doesn’t require personal information or any type of account just to install. You can just download it and install it on as many computers as you want. There are no product keys to enter, and no personal information of any kind. None of your data will be automatically transmitted to a cloud unless you want it to be and set it up yourself.

These items of personal information are required by Microsoft in order to be allowed to install Windows.

1. Name and surname
2. Birthdate
3. Country / region
4. Region

No matter that you’ve already purchased the product and have a computer capable of running it, this information is allegedly needed “to enhance security and user experience of Windows 11.” Of course they “allow” users to enter additional information. The complete list of information they’re trying to collect consists of nine items.

1. Name and surname
2. Birthdate
3. Sex
4. Country / region
5. Region
6. Postal code
7. Time zone
8. Phone
9. Address

That looks to me like enough to steal your identity or to at least convince you that they’re calling from your bank or credit card company as they go phishing for your account data.

Linux has no Orwellian spy software like Recall that snapshots your screen — your screen — with your data displayed, every few minutes. This data includes everything that you see on your screen. Personal and confidential data such as financial, medical, pictures — including the ones you don’t want anyone else to see, legal documents, work products for your job, and more, is being captured and sent to the cloud as an image just as if someone had taken a picture of your screen and posted it on social media. In this case, the Microsoft cloud. This feature is allegedly so that you can — ummm — recall it to see what you were doing on your computer in the past and recover the data from a point in time. That also assumes that their AI can correctly scrape the information off the snapshot of your screen. And we all know how reliable and secure AI is.

And, of course, your privacy with Recall is totally dependent upon Microsoft being able to prevent bad actors from cracking into the M$ cloud.

Even with opt-in being required for Recall to be activated, this is a scary proposition.

2: Linux is highly Secure

I’ve been using Linux since 1996 and — with one exception — I’ve never had a security breach, malware infection, ransomware, on any of my Linux hosts.

That exception was on one web site on my server that I was not diligent about ensuring that WordPress updates were properly installed. However I discovered it quickly and recovery took about an hour to complete. None of the other web sites were affected. The malware was introduced to that web site using a known vulnerability that had a patch available but that had not been installed by the WordPress automated update process.

That’s one single infection in 49 years and it was my own fault that I didn’t check that those updates were being properly processed.

Linux is locked down right from the initial installation. It has a firewall that is set to block all incoming attempts to connect to your computer. There aren’t any processes running that would provide points of entry, even if the firewall were to fail and be breached. Updates, including security updates, are provided as a stream when they become available rather than once a month on a Tuesday. You can choose when to install updates and continue to use your computer while the upgrade is taking place. You can also choose when to perform a reboot if one is even required — which is not always the case.

Of course, I do recommend that updates be installed on a regular basis and that you reboot your Linux computers when necessary. Some distros, Fedora for one, include an easy to run tool that can tell you if a reboot is required.

Linux has many open source and free (as in beer) options for preventing and detecting malware on your computer. You can install as many of those as you need to feel comfortable. This includes tools like Tripwire that informs you if a cracker¹ has managed to gain access to your system, chkrootkit (Check RootKit) that can suss out rootkits that may have been installed by a cracker, and ClamAV anti-virus software that can detect viruses that have infected your system as well as scan incoming email for viruses. Many of us Linux users depend on these tools to verify the continuing integrity of our computers, despite the knowledge that they are extremely secure in the first place.

If you want the ultimate in protection, the NSA wrote an interesting bit of software and made it available to the open source community as Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux). It’s not a distro, it’s just a bit of software, a kernel module, that can prevent changes from being made to the programs and configuration files on your Linux computer. Even if someone does gain access, they can’t do anything like install malware or modify your files. The NSA uses this tool to protect its own computers. SELinux has been part of the basic installation of many Linux distros for over 20 years.

OK — so you’re thinking that the NSA is a government spy agency and how do we know that they didn’t install a back-door or other spyware with SELinux? Thousands of independent programmers around the world, who specialize in security have examined the open source code for SELinux and found no such code embedded in it.

3: Linux offers many choices

The choices we have as Linux users are almost limitless. Of course the first choice is whether to use it or not. No one will force you to use Linux. You can choose to purchase a computer that has Linux on it, or to install it on a computer that you already have.

The next choices you have are which desktop and distribution to use. The desktop is the graphical user interface (GUI) that allows you to interact with the computer. The distribution is a completely packaged group of programs and the Linux kernel that can be installed on your computer. There are many distributions like Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Arch, Slackware, Fedora, and more. Each has a preferred desktop and set of application programs. However, most distributions provide alternate desktops for you to install and try.

No — I’m not going to tell you which desktop or distro to use. I stick with Fedora because I like it and I’ve used it for a long time. I use other distros like Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, and Ubuntu in VMs for testing and research. I do tend to switch between three or four different desktops on a regular basis. The three current ones I use are Xfce, KDE Plasma, and Cinnamon. Many more than these are available.

Applications are the reason we use computers. Whether it’s to write books, articles, reports, or other documents; to create budget spreadsheets, keep track of business or personal finances; to create and edit audio and video programs; plan your astronomical viewing session and implement it by aiming your telescope; create and manage digital pictures and artwork; browse the web; and so much more, Linux usually has multiple applications for each task from which you can choose.

There are also hundreds of games available for Linux.

4: Linux is about freedom

Freedom has an entirely different meaning when applied to free open source software (FOSS) than it does in most other circumstances. In FOSS, free is the freedom to do what I want with software. It means that I have easy access to the source code and that I can make changes to the code and recompile it if I need or want to.

Freedom means that I can download a copy of Fedora Linux, or Firefox, or LibreOffice, and install it on as many computers as I want to. It means that I can share that downloaded code by providing copies to my friends or installing it on computers belonging to my customers, both the executables and the sources.

Freedom means that we do not need to worry about the license police showing up on our doorsteps and demanding huge sums of money to become compliant. This has happened at some companies that “over-installed” the number of licenses that they had available for an operating system or office suite. It means that I don’t have to type in a long, long, “key” to unlock the software I have purchased or downloaded.

Freedom is the ability to choose when we install updates. We can also choose when to upgrade from one release level to the next, such as from Fedora 41 to Fedora 42.

Linux is free from pop-ups that are simply advertisements for more M$ or “partner” products. It’s free from icons in the Applications menu that are for software that isn’t installed and which we must purchase to use. These are misleading and quite frustrating.

Freedom means that we have control over our operating system and the applications that we run on it — not some humongous organization whose only care is about profit.

The value of any software lies in its usefulness not in its price.

— Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux

Our software rights

The rights to the freedoms that we have with open source software should be part of the license we receive when we download open source software. The definition for open source software is found at the Open Source Initiative web site. This definition describes the freedoms and responsibilities that are part of using open source software.

The issue is that there are many licenses that claim to be open source. Some are and some are not. In order to be true open source software the license must meet the requirements specified in this definition. The definition is not a license – it specifies the terms to which any license must conform if the software to which it is attached is to be legally considered open source. If any of the defined terms do not exist in a license, then the software to which it refers is not true open source software.

I have not included that definition here despite its importance because you can go to the web site previously cited, or you can read more about it in my book, The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins. I strongly recommend that you at least go to the web site and read the definition so that you will more fully understand what open source really is and what rights you have.

I also like the description of Linux that originally appeared at Opensource.com and that we’ve reproduced here. Opensource.com has a long list of Linux and open source resources that you should also check out.

5: Linux is helping to save the planet

Linux is always an option for old computers — even the really old ones. I have one old Dell that will be 20 years old in August of this year. It has a rather minimal hardware configuration but is currently running a full install of Fedora Linux 24×7. And it’s not just sitting there, I use it for real work, like research for my books and articles, and the World Community Grid. This old Dell is also my primary test platform for my “How long can I keep an old computer running” experiments.

The best option for the planet is to keep old computers running as long as possible. Replacing the defective components as they go bad can keep a computer running for years longer than the currently accepted lifespan and significantly reduces the amount of electronic waste that we dump in landfills or that needs recycling.

Linux can keep old computers running for as long as the hardware continues to work. Of course, most old computers can be fixed by replacing defective parts for far less than purchasing a new computer — but that’s a different article.

1. Free On-Line Dictionary Of Computing (FOLDOC)
   cracker, cracking
   An individual who attempts to gain unauthorised access to a computer system. These individuals are often malicious and have many means at their disposal for breaking into a system. ↩︎