Why do I use GNU / Linux?

I want to share with you through this article what are the real reasons why I have been using it for more than 5 years GNU / Linux.

I remember that I have already talked about the subject in my old blog [here, here, here y here]. In fact, I can summarize everything that I will say below by quoting my own words:

»... Using Free Software goes beyond escaping from malicious programs, having a fast, secure, stable (even beautiful) system which you can control at your whim and desire ...
... To make use of Free Software is to feel in your hands, palpable and predictable, that basic need called Freedom to which every human being aspires and that many due to ignorance, or simply because they do not understand it, can never have ...
… That's why I use Free Software, to have my piece of Freedom, how I want and when I want… «

It is precisely Freedom to do what I want with my System, the main reason why I love to use GNU / Linux. But let's do a little history:

A few years ago, I was a happy user of Windows XP. Be able to make changes to the Registry Editor, changing some little things in the appearance of the desktop with Tune UP, or finding the crack or serial number of an application that I needed, were for me feats that kept the illusion in my head, that I could control my operating system.

He lived pending the antivirus updates on duty, pending if Nod32 could eliminate a virus that Kaspersky no, or vice versa. Whenever the latest version of Macromedia Flash, Dreamweaver o Fireworks, I downloaded the trial and the rest was to look for a pirate serial number on the net. Unbelievably, I was happy, or so I thought.

I remember when the first version of Firefox. A free browser (a term I did not know), fast and price quotation. I was in awe of the speed of that browser with respect to Internet Explorer, the use of tabs, but above all price quotation, it was something that unconsciously rumbled in my head.

Somehow I began to realize that not everything that is free is bad. Little by little I tried to find applications, games and everything that I could install that had no cost and incredibly I found very good applications. Sure, it was free, not open.

Reading news on the internet, I come across a site which I don't remember now, where there was talk of a Operating system (OS) that ran from a CD, without the need for a hard disk and also, if you signed up for a service called Shipit, they sent it to your house at no cost.

Can you imagine my expression? WTF? 0_o

It was the first time I heard of Linux, and when the records arrived, the joy of trying something new did not fit within me. In the shipment came the discs of Ubuntu, Edubuntu y Kubuntu and that's when the curious little bug began to eat my insides. What was the difference between them? Why could that system run without the need for a hard disk?

I was amazed at the beauty of KDE, but I always liked the simplicity of Gnome, ugly as it was. As I did not have much knowledge of what Linux was, nor how the forums and irc dedicated to the subject worked, I put those records aside for a while when I had to enter the Military Service.

Some time later I start working in my current workplace. In the labs there was dual boot with Debian Etch (Testing) + KDE 3.x and Windows XP. And there I began to divest myself of Microsoft and its SO. In my eagerness to learn, I had to format the PC assigned to me 50 times in a month. Everything to solve things that today, it makes me laugh to think about them. It was the moment to know the System Logs, and where for the first time I learned that it was necessary to read the error messages.

Debian It was my first distribution and since then, I have been hooked on it. But returning to the issue at hand: Why do I use Free software?

Over time I learned that I could have full control over my Operating System. He could know what he was doing, what was running, and best of all, he could see and modify a large part of the settings of the applications he used.

Use an application that you like, and be able to modify it as you wish to adapt it to your needs (as i did with Turpial) provides a feeling that only users of GNU / Linux we know. They say that one of the disadvantages that Linux has is the variety of distributions, that there is no standard, and I say that this is the best it has.

A Windows user, for example, is obliged to use what Microsoft offers, without being able to modify anything, having to adapt the Hardware to your SO. In my case it is the other way around, I can choose and adapt my OS to the Hardware I have. Tomorrow can go out Debian 7, 8 o 100, that if I want, I can continue using Debian 6 or even a lower version.

My boss would say: I can keep using Windows XP until I die. To which I always respond: And the day that you Kaspersky You can't update it because it doesn't have support for XP. What do you do? Do you think to live without putting a flash memory in the PC thinking that it is infected? Or without a network cable for fear that a bug will enter you somewhere?

Besides, I tell you, here in our country it may not be, but in any other place in the world, I don't have to live with the fear that the licenses I use are pirated, or that the FBI have a backdoor on me SO. Nor do I have to pay ridiculously high prices to have an Office Suite or any other Software that allows me to work and live from my job. I can lend my installation disk to the neighbor or give it to him, without thinking that there is a EULA that I am raping.

I can download the SO from the internet, put it in a memory, use it, install it, remove it. All at no extra cost. And I learn. I always learn something new, how such a thing works, how to do this or that. That is not to say, that the performance of my PC is much better.

That is called Libertad. That is why I use Free software. That's why i use GNU / Linux. That's why I'll be weird, bug, Taliban, full of letters, or whatever you want to call me.