Test Driving Linux

Summary

Henry Ford is reputed to have said, "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants, so long as it is black." One reason he may have said this was because black paint dried the fastest on the assembly line. That means the choice of paint color was expedient for the manufacturer, not for the customer. Thankfully, the automobile industry has changed since his time, and it is now possible to buy cars from dozens of manufacturers, in hundreds of styles, painted in practically every color under the sun.

Unfortunately, the same has not yet been true of the computer world. You can buy a PC computer from dozens of vendors but they all come with just one operating system: Microsoft Windows. Though it is expedient for Microsoft to continue to sell an overpriced, buggy, and insecure operating system, the situation really isn't that good for you, the customer.

Don't let this test drive of Linux be the end of your Linux experience. Pick a distribution to try out; in fact, pick several. Most are free or can be obtained at little expense. (If you can't decide, I recommend trying both Mandrake and the open circulation version of Xandros.) Though it does take a little bit of time to try each distribution, your gain is a stable, secure, and low-cost operating system that will enrich your computer experience.