Seemingly free, but Linux installation has hidden costs

Article title: seemingly free, but installing Linux contains hidden costs. Linux is a technology channel of the IT lab in China. Includes basic categories such as desktop applications, Linux system management, kernel research, embedded systems, and open source.

You may be able to download and install Linux for free, and Linux may provide you with the freedom that commercial software does not possess, but never think that everything about Linux is free of charge. You may have saved a lot of money, but you may have spent some hidden costs without knowing it.

The first hidden cost is uncertainty. Although it is difficult to clearly define what is uncertainty, it does not mean that this problem can be ignored. When you follow the correct system requirements to install Windows XP, Vista, or Mac OS X, unless your configuration is incorrect or your components are damaged, otherwise, all the things you want to install can be installed smoothly (such as wifi adapter, Nic, and video card) and work properly.

This is also true for purchasing hardware. Some hardware can only work on a specific platform. if you plan to purchase hardware, you must understand the system requirements to ensure that the hardware can be used normally. Although this is not always true, the chances of errors are minimal.

However, it is not that simple to use Linux. First, Linux has a small market share (about 0.7% ). Because the market share is too small, it is difficult to attract software and hardware vendors to actively invest. Although the Linux community thinks that 0.7% of the user base is already quite large, and some companies are beginning to claim to provide support for Linux, due to the low market share, even the world's top vendors, the effort invested in Linux is not too high. In addition, it is not profitable, so manufacturers are not interested in providing support for various versions of Linux.

Another hidden cost is time. Although the installation speed and convenience of Linux have been improved in recent years, this process still needs to be improved. Some of the common problems still exist (such as wifi adapter ). If you accidentally run the tar compression command, you have to wait for a long time. There are many other problems, such as Vista and Leopard, which can be played directly, while Linux users are still confused by Codecs. Of course, you can purchase the playback software, some of which are really good, but the advantages of free OS will not be any more.

In addition, support questions are quite time-consuming. you need to post your questions to the Forum and wait for others to answer them. Usually experienced people will answer your questions properly. However, if the problem you described is obscure or rare, you may have to wait for a long time before proceeding.

Another problem that will take you a lot of time is version selection. Many in the Linux community indicate that such a variety of Linux versions will actually impede the transition to Linux. Of course, making choices is not a bad thing. For example, the rapid growth of Ubuntu has made it a mainstream version, and gOS has also achieved success in the low-price PC market. However, it is really time-consuming for users to choose a suitable version from so many versions, especially when they are confused between the two versions. Too many choices are sometimes a burden.

These problems do not mean that people will reject Linux, but they should be paid more attention when selecting the Linux version. Although the word "free" is very attractive, it is important to remember that in addition to downloading the free operating system, if you want to make the system work normally, you still have many considerations.