HOWTO Promote Linux and gentoo, or why Gentoo linux instead of another OS
From Gentoo Linux Wiki
Bug: NPOV
this page is too biased ,see discussion
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[edit] Why Promote Linux?
- Promoting linux allows people to understand its benefits better and will encourage them to switch to linux, thereby increasing the number of users and making the linux community better.
- A few of these new users will also help develop and contribute back to linux and open source software. This helps Linux stay revolutionary and competitive.
These sections are aimed at presenting and promoting GNU/Linux in general and Gentoo specifically
[edit] Free or Open Source advantages over closed source
The core issue in software and increasingly in other media (eg music/film/ebooks) is one of freedom for the general public. As computers become ever more ubiquitous, it is impossible to live as part of modern society without some part of your life being dependant on them, be this medical care or banking details. This dependence can only increase dramatically.
This article sets out some specific, practical advantages of a particular approach to software development, however first it is good to be clear about some basic ideas.
Free. Free software means free as in freedom. Open Source is a slightly different idea - it takes emphasis away from the core issue: you and all humans deserve certain freedoms, which proprietary licences take away. Open Source does not necessarily extend full freedoms to you. It can, but often it does not. This has led to the coining of the term fake free. Thus, in the following discussion, there is always the danger that 'Open Source' may not give you these freedoms - careful choice of licence is required. We will assume that we refer to licences which do extend proper freedoms.
Having an Free or open source operating system and associated components, lets you distribute and modify it under the conditions of the GNU General Public Licence.
[I think this section below needs a lot of work, I've corrected some typos, but I don't think all of these hold water] Some advantages of open source software:
- For administrating a network, you can more easily manage it because you can copy and modify the software, so you can create tools meeting your needs or install workstations more easily and faster.
- You can use GPL software to create your own aplications that are faster and cleaner with fewer bugs because you can use some bug-free base software.
I.e. If you need to develop a web browser that meets your needs you can modify the mozilla Firefox web browser that is very stable.
- More reactive
It's true for bugs and features but not only some closed source operating system have some enormous dificulties to use new hardware such as processors for example, the Windows OS there is a very bad gestion of hyperthreading, and moving to a new architecture is nearly impossible
- Free / open source helps the economy:
- It raises the productivity levels with the interoperability and its easier and faster administration
- It decreases the costs of software by allowing to reuse already written and debugged code and so helps developing countries, narrowing the digital gap. In some areas so called 'third world' countries lead the world in technology - one example being in use of Free Software in education.
- The SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) are advantaged because they can use open-source software, which is much cheaper and more stable. and so, knowing the fact that the dynamism of the economy of a country is principaly due to theses entreprises, that's a great advantage, and that also creates a good concurrence that the users can benefit from.
- Helps closed source software that change it's positioning and that car run on top of open-source OS and software so that result of a better product because the advantages of the open source are here but on a lower level
- Create also new segment with real support (not as the most famous OS) and derivate product and services
[edit] linux
- The linux kernel
download the last stable kernel and look at all the great features it support.
there is also the fact that:
- It is stable
- It works under a enormous number of architectures, linux is one of the most portable operating systems in the world
- It has the biggest community of developers
- There are a lot of things developed for Linux because it's the most used open-source OS
- Because it's open source, more people have access to the code and can therefore contribute (this is not true of closed source software)
- It runs on cheaper hardware
- For example, you can use linux on bad ram modules with bad-ram and bad-mem patches.
- Linux does not require new hardware, it can run perfectly well on older systems.
- It can do (root) software raid, crypt the entire hard drive, etc.
- With the preemptible option, Linux gets very responsive (but it consumes a little bit more resources, deactivate it for clustering)
[edit] Gentoo
[edit] Others os presentation and portage
[edit] BSD
http://www.freebsd.org FreeBSD
http://www.netbsd.org The NetBSD Project
http://www.openbsd.org The OpenBSD Project
http://www.opendarwin.org OpenDarwin
