Things to Consider before using Linux

As you have probably gathered from my previous posts I have been doing a lot of investigating into the current Linux distributions and building 3 servers based around them.

The server editions of Centos 6, have been stable and secure the way I expected them to.  To be honest now that we have the servers installed at the proprietary software running, I feel one hell of a lot less stressed about being hacked and viruses. 

I have also been looking at a desktop distribution of Linux that I could replace my windows desktop with.  Therefore removing yet another entry point for hackers and or spy ware etc.  I mentioned BSD and it ran great as did quite a few others.  But I learnt some things you need to take into consideration before diving in.

1. Do you have another machine for windows or can you dual boot for the programs that don't have a Linux version
2. Are you prepared to try new programs
3. What desktop do you want to run, as there are several out there.
4. Try and find out if your hardware will work with the version you are trying.  For example my Microsoft web cam would not work under PC-BSD
5. Printers, find out if your printer model is supported by the version of Linux you are trying, if it isn't does someone else provide you with the drivers
6. Have the time to try a couple of Linux releases and see which one suits you best.

Linux is great secure fast and you don't have to reboot every 3 minutes.  Its infinitely customizable, and there are thousands of programs you can install for free using the package manager.

Using most of the latest releases of Linux as just a desktop is pretty good.  Me I personally was stopped because of my printer on most installs.  In the end I installed Ubuntu (which as luck would happen was the first Linux release I used back in 2003). The unity desktop is a little annoying and I had to install some font packs, but basically its all there.

So for now I run Ubuntu, for how long I am not sure.  I have not been totally able to move away from windows, as I need an accounting program that I have been using and it only works in windows.  I may give wine a go see if I can run it virtually.

So was it worth the headache of all the installs all the rebuilds.  Hell yeah.  I like my network to be secure and doing things this way achieves that with the minimum of fuss.  Plus the big one is that Microsoft no longer get to eat into my pay packet.