The license I’m talking about here is the license needed for some operating systems (OS) such as Windows XP, Windows Vista or a MAC OS.
If you have been working on one of these OS’s for a long time it will probably not make sense to you to move to another OS. Unless your willing to learn new things and have a basic understanding of what you’re doing on a computer.
I’d like to suggest that people only starting out with a computer and don’t have any working experience should give Linux a try (a fully installed and configured Linux computer off course). There’s lots of different distributions of this very popular Open Source OS. All you have to do is search for Linux Distro’s in Google, and find the one you like most.
I’m no Linux expert, but after some discussions with people I think are very knowledgeable on the topic, I found the same answer popping up about the easier distro’s for novice users to use. These are the tree I found popping up the most (in no specific order).
These links will take you to their respective home pages where you can brows their features to see which one you’d like to use.
After you’ve decided on the one you’d most like to use, find their download section and get the latest stable version. Now you can download the ISO file copy it to CD or DVD and boot it up.
Remember to copy and save the documentation of your respective distro, these will be a valuable source of information in the learning of your new Linux distro.
The distro’s mentioned above are not he only ones available, but just a few popular ones for Linux newbies. If you know someone that knows Linux, and he/she recommends something they know and use. Try it if you like, who knows, you might like it more than the ones I recommend for beginners. The other reason is, if you know someone using a different distro and they know it, you’ll have someone to ask questions when you have a problem. Let me tell you, it’s much easier to help someone with software you have on your own computer than trying to help with software you worked with 5 years ago.
I’ll look for more helpful Linux sites and post them here for you to get to know the ins and outs of Linux and the world of Open Source.
When you look at the question in the topic “To licence or not to licence”, depending on where in the world you live, you could save yourself a lot of money throughout you computing life by using an Open Source operating system. You’ll probably upgrade your computer every 5 years and save on your OS every time you upgrade. You can do the math on that one, but I think it could amount to quite some saving.
Do your homework and you’ll really enjoy the freedom that comes with the whole Open Source movement.
Till next time.
