Most of us in our mid-forty's and younger grew up with one of the hot home items of the 80's - a home PC. My mother bought an IBM Dos PC for the family in 1984, when I was 16. I enjoyed the floppy disk games, but I had just read 1984 by George Orwell, and I was afraid of computers!
I purchased my first PC – Windows 3.1 – in 1995 after hearing my friend brag about how he balances his checkbook on a computer. He also had an encyclopedia CD for his PC. And he got an email the other day. An email, what’s that? It did not take me long to drive down to Circuit City and purchase a brand new Windows 3.1 PC. Hot off the shelf, right? Well, I kid you not, only several months later Microsoft released the new Windows OS version – Windows 95. “Scandalous!” I thought. Why can’t they stay with the old version? Well, a couple of years passed until I finally gave in and purchased the Windows 95 upgrade CD; just in time for the release of (you guessed it) Windows 98. I was beginning to sense some sort of a conspiracy. The pressure of having and using the latest upgrade was getting expensive. I got Windows 98, then XP, and I have had XP for over 10 years until I finally purchased a Windows 7 laptop for my college assignments, and I also just upgraded my desktop to Windows 8. But up until 3 years ago I did not realize that there was a thing called Open Source Software - you can have a computer and surf the web, and the OS software is free. System upgrades are free. Millions of people did not know, and many millions probably still do not know about Open Source software. They have Windows. Windows was everywhere, but not so with Linux. Why not?
People are just used to Windows. Linux, compared to Windows, is like turning the easy mode to "OFF" in a video game. It is for the hardcore programmer (which I still am not). It is an adventure of one’s passion for the advanced user, but still, it can be basic enough for everyday use. You can become more enlightened and go off into the programming codes at the command prompt, but you do not have to. You could just simply do the things you normally do on a PC – email, uploading photos and mp3 files, games, etc. But then, it is different from Windows. Linux is not Windows!
Finally, after several years of having Ubuntu OS on my slave drive, Windows is still my OS of choice. Hey, I guess the old sayings are true - we are creatures of habit. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks! Ubuntu is still cool, but I grew up with Windows, and Windows 8 is great.
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