Computer hardware prices have dropped noticeably in the past few years, to where a computer is sold more like an appliance. While the power user and gamer computers are still pricey (as they should be, with a lot of heavy duty hardware inside), the average household user is now able to buy an affordable computer. And as some consumers buy new computers, they hand down their older ones to friends or family members. One hidden expense, though, is software. What can you do to lessen the pinch?
You can buy a computer for $299, but many of these lower-cost computers do not include much in the way of usable software. And technically, the operating system is an expense as well, which usually ships with a new computer, but if the computer is a few years old, you may be stuck with an old, outdated operating system with nothing other than “recovery” discs to wipe out and restore the computer’s hard drive. And legally, if your buddy’s old software is still installed on that hand-me-down, you technically do not possess a legal license to use that software. But, not everyone in this economy can afford to drop a few hundred dollars for a fresh full version of an operating system, and decent software.
If you are dead set on sticking with Windows, I’m going to outline free software alternatives in another article in the very near future, as there are many ptions available that the general public is unaware of.
So let’s start with a fresh hard drive, completely clean. What can you do? Well, before you wipe out that hard drive, get on the internet and download one of the many Unix-based operating systems out there. Just about all of them are “open source”, meaning they are free for end users to install and use. Some offer support if you are willing to donate a yearly fee, and it may be a good investment if you are unsure of using a new operating system. But, if you have an internet connection, a CD burner and some software to create a bootable CD, you have what you need to create an install disc.
I looked at a couple of Unix variants a few years ago and, even as a computer professional myself, found them difficult to install. I can imagine a typical end user being confronted by the text-based screens I had encountered! A couple of months ago, I learned that Ubuntu had something called a “Live CD” that let you actually run a bootable OS from a CD! While you could not save anything (it could not read my NTFS file system), I could at least get to try out the OS and see if I liked it. A few others have Live CD distributions as well, and I’d recommend spending a dime on a CD-R to try one of these out.
On their own, Unix-based operating systems are text-based. But what the open source community has done is create graphical front ends that work very similarly to Windows. In fact, Apple’s OS-X is nothing more than a graphical shell that runs on top of FreeBSD, another Unix variant. The two most popular open source front ends are Gnone, and KDE (K Desktop Environment). To be honest, most of the underlying OSes are the same, where some support different hardware better than others.
A year or two ago, I had installed FreeBSD and KDE. It made for a nice system, and it actually mirrored the operating system that my web host uses. But installation was not as automated as it was with the others, although this may have changed with the newer versions of FreeBSD.
In the past month, I’ve downloaded both Ubuntu and Kubuntu. They are the same Linux-derived operating system, but Ubuntu is packaged with the Gnome interface, whereas the Kubuntus packaged with KDE. Despite running from a CD, both of these ran smoothly, although I have to give a slight edge to the Ubuntu package (with Gnome) as it ships with the Firefox browser already installed, and had a few different interface options I preferred. It is still very Windows-like, so I believe that most computer users would have no problems finding their way around. The big disappointment was in the fonts: they are nowhere near as smooth and professional as the TrueType fonds that ship with Windows. It gave the interface a rather amateur look. Fortunately, they do support TrueType, so one could easily copy any font they wanted over to the system.
Another free alternative is Vixta, which is built on the Fedora Core 8 (Linux) OS. The difference is that it uses a modified KDE interface that looks and feels a lot like Windows Vista. An interesting project, for sure! If they had a live CD, or I had a spare computer, I’d give this a try.
As for applications, these operating systems come with a handful of useful utilities. Some ship with the excellent OpenOffice suite, which pretty much replaces Microsoft Office. It’s a large download, but will give you the office functionality you need. For e-mail, Thunderbird will do nicely. Firefox is also available on the *nix platforms. For a multi-platform instant messenger, give Gaim a try. Gimp is an open source image editing program that will serve many casual users well. There are also many nice media players, CD/DVD burning programs, etc. available for Linux, all available for nothing more than a download.
My next installment will cover some free (open source) software that you can install on a Windows computer. Stay tuned!