Ubuntu, Linux, and Free Software

After months of trying out Linux Mint (and after more than a year of using Ubuntu), I buckled and reinstalled Ubuntu on my PC again yesterday. I'm no techie, of course, so don't go judging me here. I simply went by my consumerist instincts and went for what I felt was the best product. 

Linux Mint is a great OS. It provides out-of-the-box functionality for most everything you need to do. You get Flash and different audio and video codecs. I get that. However, as I evaluated it for a few months, I decided that Ubuntu has the best support system.

First of all, Ubuntu is backed by Canonical, which also offers the OS plus support-for-a-fee to companies worldwide. The OS on its own, however, is free, as are most Linux-based operating systems. That's great for me because I don't want to spend a dime on Microsoft software. And THAT really is expensive. 

Both Linux Mint and Ubuntu are great. They provide non-techie users like myself a way to get work done quickly and to browse the web safely. I ultimately chose Ubuntu, though, because of the possibility of more software and greater support. It is, after all, the most popular Linux distribution. 

That's what's so great about free software. You get to choose the OS you want. It's "free" in the sense that you don't have to pay anything for most distros, and in fact you can create multiple copies of these distros to share with friends. You really can't do that with other operating systems, now, can you? 

However, in the free software community, "free" also refers to freedom from restrictive software licenses. That means people who want to modify free software can do so without fear of litigation. 

The possibility of openly modifying software benefits all of us, I believe. It leads to more innovation and more possibilities. For us end users, it gives us more choices in software. That way, we are not chained to Microsoft or Apple, which really don't give us much of a choice. 

This is why I would encourage everyone to use Linux software and operating systems. Frankly, I don't care whether you use Fedora, openSUSE, Ubuntu, or Linux Mint (or a host of others). If you are not dependent on Microsoft or if you want to move away from it, I suggest you use Linux. There's a slight learning curve, of course, but generally these distributions work quite well.