Open Source Evangelism

The first time I installed Linux on my computer was right in the first week with my desktop. I was in standard VIII then. The installation was a failure, I had only one of the two installation disks required. But, the installation interface had enough charms that, today I am writing this post using an open source browser (Firefox 3) running on an open source OS (Ubuntu 8.04).

Earlier, if I ever told anyone that I used Linux, I would get comments about Linux not being user friendly. If I told them I use Red Hat or Mandrake/Mandriva I would just get blank stares as if I was talking French. But, that was 5 years ago.

The time has changed now. Today, we open source users no longer need to be on the defensive, we can directly go for the kill. Now, when someone asks me why I use Linux, I reply by asking them to state one reason to use Microsoft Windows. I do get a few feeble responses even today.

First one being the old cliche that Linux is not user friendly. I counter this by telling them to use Ubuntu for 5 minutes. Most people end up saying that 'Wow! This is similar to Windows!'. There are many words of appreciation too, like the system menus being better organized in Ubuntu. The power users find the concept of multiple workspaces awesome. Though you can practically have all of these in Windows too but it would take a lot of customization, and most people would rather not to do that. So, this usually ends the debate on which OS is more user friendly.

Next point which I normally get is about availability of softwares for Linux. I fire up the package manager and people are baffled by the sheer number of pacakages available. There are open source equivalents available for any proprietary software you can think of. I normally bind up the discussion with a demo of the Desktop Cube on Compiz.

The number of Ubuntu users around me is constantly increasing. But, I would like to see a day when people would use Linux as their primary and only OS, and not dual boot it.

The next open source software I am going to talk about is a clear winner around me. Firefox 3, has become the de facto web browser. Basically, the reason behind this is that the only competitor here is Internet Explorer 6.

Firefox has charmed people with its tabbed browsing, alas the first version of IE with tabs is IE7. The number of addons available to spice up Firefox is mindbaffling. There is a addon for almost anything you can think of. And, if you are hungry for power just keep Firefox light and addon free.

I feel lucky to be born in an age when the popularity of open and community based products is growing leaps and bounds, VLC, Wikipedia, Firefox, Fedora and Ubuntu are just a few examples. These have grown from small projects to become a significant part of our lives today.