If you've gotten this far, then you've got goals in your sights. You wanna switch to a better means for your computing life. But there are often alot of question about what you'll be leaving behind. Other than the obvious things you'll be leaving behind (frustration, vulnerability, crashes, system slowdown, and so forth...), there could possibly be a few things which depend on Windows that'll get left behind. Or will there be? No operating system can be considered a legitimate contender by me unless they can do all the things that we enjoy as modern users: get online, play music, watch movies, burn CDs and DVDs, create art, all that good stuff. Fortunately, the teams behind any OS want to ensure that theirs will be the best you've ever used. Competition is what drives innovation after all, and ya can't compete if you're not even able to keep up. With that being said, all of the significant alternative systems have their own utilities for doing these things, and some even have significant libraries of games. But this deal with games is most often the only barrier preventing free and open conversions away from Windows. But we'll get to that in a moment. The following section is meant for the average or "beginner-level" user, who simply uses a computer as it's been popularly used for ever since the mid-90s: a really awesome addition to your home entertainment systems. Internet, email, music, and otherwise just dicking around. Now read these questions and determine if switching is indeed in your best interest. Things You Must First Ask Yourself: What type of internet connection do you use? I ask this because there is often very little dial-up support for alternative operating systems, as this slow technology has been eagerly abandoned for quite a while now. However, it's not gone yet, as I still know people who use AOL dial-up for instance. This is done for only two reasons: the person is either superbly unsavvy and has no clue about anything relating to upgrading, or, they live in a secluded area where high-speed methods simply aren't available, and therefore they're just SOL. As long as you use DSL or Cable, the two most common methods of high-speed internet connection, then read on. What do you use a computer for? Most people use Windows, obviously, and most of these "most" people use a computer for nothing more than an extension of home entertainment. Internet, email, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Pogo.com games, music, movies, YouTube, porn, and /b/. If this is you, and you don't really use a computer for anything "specialized," then your ability to make the great switch is looking good indeed. Any other OS can do all of these things just fine (without crashing!), and your computer and operating system will be kept much safer by default, considering the much superior design of each OS. Now for the make-or-break... Are you a PC gamer? As stated earlier on this site, this is the last thing which Windows truly has by the balls. But believe me, Broken Windows aims to change that. This will be far easier said than done, and any person with deep-level knowledge of computers will back me up on this. Besides the issue of corporate deals, there's technical reasons. For the same reason that you can't just simply fit a Ferrari engine inside of a Hyundai, it's not easy to write a natively-run port for other systems. While greatly-hailed tools such as Wine, VirtualBox, and VMWare are helping to break down this final barrier, they're certainly not perfect, as this also is no easy task to take on. So ultimately, if you're a gamer of the World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, Halo 3, Bioshock, and Call of Duty varieties, then at the least, it would be best for you to keep Windows solely for the sake of your games. I know good and well that gamers are hardcore about them, and it'd be silly to ask you to give up the very purpose of your computer, in favor of a superior OS which happens to not yet be able to run them. Consider either a second machine, or making use of a "dual boot" option, using your second OS primarily, and only booting into Windows in order to slay n00bs online. If you feel that you meet the "minimum system requirements," then go ahead and take a look at the "Operating Systems" page on my site, and do plenty of research on these and other OS'. There are widespread active communities for every single one of them, and all of these people will be glad to welcome you into their families, so ask questions! These folks will have you up and running alot quicker than any Microsoft tech support person would... |
