12 Reasons Why Linux Is Better Than Windows 10

It might be the right time to switch

Windows 10 has been around for a while, and many people bought computers with the latest offering from Microsoft pre-installed. Windows 10 is a great improvement on Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, and, as an operating system, it is good. The ability to run Linux BASH commands in Windows is a useful feature, as are the virtual workspaces which allow you to run applications on different desktops.

This guide provides an extensive list of reasons why you might choose to use Linux instead of Windows 10 because what is suitable for one person isn’t necessarily good for another.

Windows 10 Is Slow on Older Hardware

If you use Windows XP, Vista, or an older Windows 7 PC, chances are your computer isn’t powerful enough to run Windows 8 or Windows 10. You have two choices. You can either buy a computer running Windows 10 or run Linux.

Certain Linux distributions don’t provide much of a performance boost as their desktop environments use a decent amount of memory. However, some versions of Linux work brilliantly on older hardware.

For newer hardware, try Linux Mint with the Cinnamon Desktop Environment or Ubuntu. For hardware that is two to four years old, try Linux Mint but use the MATE or XFCE desktop environment, which provides a lighter footprint. For older hardware, go for AntiX, Q4OS, Xubuntu, or Lubuntu..

You Don’t Like the Windows 10 User Interface

Most people become disoriented when they first use a new operating system, especially if the user interface has changed in any way. However, when they get used to a new way of doing things, they end up liking the new interface more than the old one.

If you can’t get to grips with the way Windows 10 does things, you might prefer things to look like Windows 7, or you might decide to try something different.

Linux Mint provides a modern look and feel, but with menus and toolbars working the way they always have. The learning curve to Linux Mint is no more difficult than upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

The Size of the Windows 10 Download Is Huge

If you use Windows 7 or Windows 8 and are thinking about upgrading to Windows 10, the download for Windows 10 is very large.

Do you have a download limit with your broadband provider? Most Linux distributions can be downloaded in under 2 gigabytes. If you are tight on bandwidth, some can be installed for around 600 megabytes. Some are smaller than that.

You can buy the Windows 10 USB drive, but it costs a decent sum of money.

Linux Is Free

The free upgrade that Microsoft offered a couple of years ago has run out. This means you now have to pay for it.

Many manufacturers ship computers with Windows 10 installed. If you are happy with your current computer, the only way to get a new operating system is to pay for the latest version of Windows or download and install Linux for free.

Linux has all the features you need in an operating system and is fully hardware compatible. Some people say that you get what you pay for, but this is one example where that doesn’t ring true.

If Linux is good enough for the top companies in the tech industry, then it’s good enough to run on a home computer.

Linux Has More Free Applications

Windows has a few flagship products such as Microsoft Office and Visual Studio, which make some people feel locked in. You can, however, run Microsoft Office on Linux using virtualization software or running the online versions.

Most software development is web-based, and there are many good IDEs available for Linux. With the advance of .NET Core, you can create APIs to use with your JavaScript web applications. Python is also a major programming language that can be used cross-platform on Windows, Linux, and Macs. The PyCharm IDE is as good as Visual Studio. The point here is that Visual Studio isn’t the only option.

Linux has a great set of applications that, for most people, provide all the features they need. For example, the LibreOffice suite is great for 99.9% of the average person’s needs. The Rhythmbox audio player is better than anything Windows offers, VLC is a great video player, the Chrome browser is available, Evolution is a great email client, and GIMP is a brilliant image editor.

There are free applications on popular Windows download sites such as CNET, but you must know how to safely download and install software because bad things can happen when you use those sites.

Security

While no operating system is completely risk-free, Windows is a big target for developers of viruses and malware. There is little that Microsoft can do about this issue. As such, you must install an antivirus application and firewall software which eats into your memory and CPU usage as the constant stream of downloads required to keep this software up to date.

With Linux, you only need to be clever, stick to trusted software repositories, and avoid using risky programs such as Adobe Flash.

Linux is more secure than Windows because of the way it’s designed and handles user permissions. This is one reason why most of the web runs on Linux.

Performance

Linux, even with all the effects and shiny features of modern desktop environments, runs faster than Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

Users are becoming less reliant on the desktop and more reliant on the web. Do you need all your processing power taken up with the operating system, or do you want something with a lighter footprint, letting you get on with your work and play?

Privacy

The Windows 10 privacy policy has been well-documented in the press. It isn’t as bad as some people would have you believe, and Microsoft isn’t doing anything that Facebook, Google, Amazon, and others haven’t been doing for years.

For instance, the voice control system Cortana learns the way you talk and gets better as it goes along by sending usage data to Microsoft. Microsoft uses this data to improve the way Cortana works. Cortana sends targeted advertisements, but Google already does this, and it is a part of modern life.

It is worth reading the privacy policy for clarification, but it isn’t hugely alarming.

Most Linux distributions don’t collect your data. You can remain hidden away from Big Brother (as long as you never use the internet).

Reliability

Windows is not as reliable as Linux. How many times have you, as a Windows user, had a program hang, and when you try to close it from the Task Manager (assuming you can get it to open), it remains open, and it takes several attempts to close the offending program?

With Linux, each application is self-contained, and you can kill any application with the XKill command.

Aside from all that, Linux applications tend to lock up less frequently. Because Linux and many of its applications are open-source, anyone can look at, review, and improve the underlying code. This leads to a stable system with quick fixes for bugs and security issues.

Updates

It can be frustrating when you want to print theater tickets, cinema tickets, or directions to a venue and you turn on your computer to see the following message:

«Installing Update 1 of 356»

Even more annoying is that Windows chooses when to install updates, and it displays a message saying that your computer is going to be rebooted. As a user, it should be up to you when to install updates, and updates shouldn’t be forced on you or you should, at least, get a notice.

Another downside is that Windows often needs to be rebooted to install updates.

Linux operating systems need to be updated. There is no getting around that because security holes are patched all the time. You get to choose when those updates are applied, and in most cases, the updates can be applied without rebooting the operating system.

Variety

Linux distributions are highly customizable. You can completely change the look and feel and adjust nearly every part of it so that it works the way you want.

Windows has a limited set of tweaks available, but Linux lets you alter absolutely everything.

Support

Microsoft has a lot of documentation, but when you get stuck, you may need to search their forums, and other people may have asked a question that has no good answers.

It isn’t that Microsoft’s support is bad; on the contrary, it is in-depth and good. The truth is, however, that they employ people to offer support, and there is only so much money that is budgeted for this support, and the wealth of knowledge is spread thinly.

Linux support is easier to find, and there are dozens of forums, hundreds of chat rooms, and even more websites dedicated to helping people learn and understand Linux.

Unlike Microsoft support, which is likely coming from an employee, Linux support generally comes from enthusiasts. These people genuinely enjoy working with their operating system and probably do so professionally. In some cases, you can talk with the developer that wrote the piece of software that you need assistance with.

6 Reasons Why Linux is Better than Windows For Servers

A server is a computer software or a machine that offers services to other programs or devices, referred to as “clients“. There are different types of servers: web servers, database servers, application servers, cloud computing servers, file servers, mail servers, DNS servers and much more.

The usage share for Unix-like operating systems has over the years greatly improved, predominantly on servers, with Linux distributions at the forefront. Today a bigger percentage of servers on the Internet and data centers around the world are running a Linux-based operating system.

Just to make you further understand the power of Linux in driving the Internet, companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and many others, all have their servers running on Linux-based server software. Even the world’s most powerful supercomputer runs on a Linux-based operating system.

There are a number of factors that have contributed to this. Below, we have explained some of the major reasons why Linux server software is better than Windows or other platforms, for running server computers.

1. Free and Open Source

Linux or GNU/Linux (if you like) is free and open source; you can see the source code used to create Linux (kernel). You can check the code to locate bugs, explore security vulnerabilities, or simply study what that code is doing on your machine(s).

Additionally, you may easily develop and install your own programs into a Linux operating system because of numerous available programming interfaces you need. With all the above features, you can tailor a Linux operating system at its most basic levels, to suit your server needs unlike Windows.

2. Stability and Reliability

Linux is Unix-based and Unix was originally designed to provide an environment that’s powerful, stable and reliable yet easy to use. Linux systems are widely known for their stability and reliability, many Linux servers on the Internet have been running for years without failure or even being restarted.

The question is what actually makes Linux systems stable. There are many determinants which include management of system and programs’ configurations, process management, security implementation among others.

In Linux, you can modify a system or program configuration file and effect the changes without necessarily rebooting the server, which is not the case with Windows. It also offers efficient and reliable mechanisms of process management. In case a process is behaving abnormally, you can send it an appropriate signal using commands such as kill, pkill and killall, thus dealing away with any implications on the overall system performance.

Linux is also secure, it highly restricts influence from external sources (users, programs or systems) that can possibly destabilize a server, as explained further in the next point.

3. Security

Linux is without doubt the most secure kernel out there, making Linux based operating systems secure and suitable for servers. To be useful, a server needs to be able to accept requests for services from remote clients, and a server is always vulnerable by permitting some access to its ports.

However, Linux implements a variety of security mechanisms to secure files and services from attacks and abuses. You can secure services using programs such as a firewall (for example iptables), TCP wrappers (to allow and deny service access), and Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) which helps to limit the resources a service can access on a server.

SELinux ensures for instance that a HTTP server, FTP server, Samba server, or DNS server can access only a restricted set of files on the system as defined by file contexts and allow only a restricted set of features as defined by Booleans.

A number of Linux distributions such as Fedora, RHEL/CentOS, and a few others ship in with SELinux feature included and enabled by default. However, you can disable SELinux temporarily or permanently, if need be.

All in all, in Linux, before any system user/group or program accesses a resource or executes a file/program it must have the appropriate permissions, otherwise any unauthorized action is always blocked.

4. Flexibility

Linux is so powerful and flexible. You can tune it to meet you server needs: it allows you to do whatever you want (if possible). You can install a GUI (graphical user interface) or simply operate your operate your server via a terminal only.

It offers thousands of utilities/tools which you can choose from to do such things as perform system start up and manage services, add users, manage networking and disks, install software, monitor performance and generally secure and manage your server. It also enables you to choose either to install binary files or build programs from source code.

One of the most powerful standard programs present in Linux is the shell, is a program that provides you with a consistent environment for running other programs in Linux; it helps you interact with the kernel itself.

Importantly, the Linux shell provides practical programming constructs that let you make decisions, execute commands repeatedly, create new functions/utilities/tools, and automated daily server administration tasks.

Basically, Linux gives you absolute control over a machine, helping you to build and customize a server just the way you want (where possible).

5. Hardware Support

Linux has a rock-solid support for a mix of computer architectures, on both modern and moderately old hardware. This is one of the most significant factors that make Linux better than Windows for servers, that is if you have a small budget for hardware acquisition.

Linux remarkably supports relatively old hardware, for example the Slackware Linux site is hosted on Pentium III, 600 MHz, with 512 megabytes of RAM. You can find the list of supported hardware and related requirements for a specific distribution from their official websites.

6. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Maintenance

Finally, the total cost of owning and maintaining a Linux server is lower compared to a Windows server, in terms of licensing fees, software/hardware purchase and maintenance costs, system support services and administrative costs.

Unless you are running a proprietary Linux distribution such as RHEL or SUSE server Linux which require subscription, for you to receive premium support and services, you will encounter affordable costs while running a Linux server.

Studies by Robert Frances Group (RFG) and similar companies, have in the recent past found Linux to be less expensive in a typical server environment comparable to Windows or Solaris, notably for web deployments.

In Conclusion

Linux has today become a strategic, efficient and reliable platform for business systems at many small, medium to big companies. A larger percentage of servers powering the Internet run on a Linux-based operating system, and this has been attributed to the above key reasons.

Are you using Linux on your servers? If yes, tell us why you think Linux beats Windows or other platforms for servers, via the comment form below.

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29 thoughts on “6 Reasons Why Linux is Better than Windows For Servers”

1. 

I want to install anydesk on SUSE Linux server 12.

Please give me the steps for this.

All of that points are defining why WINDOWS is better for server. Except for first point but in real life- nobody who makes money give a shit about if software is open source or not.

I’ll use Linux ONLY because it’s popular as server solution in smaller companies. I hope that I will be able to switch to working in Windows ASAP. In that system things just work. Work how they should, how you expect them to and you are not scared with every update that something will go wrong.

• 

Many thanks for the feedback.

I think you need to update yourself on the state of affairs.

If what you say is true, then why are two thirds of world’s servers run on Linux? Google and Facebook, as well as many European city governments, are running Linux on their servers.

Who said servers? Number 7: Virtual Machines. VPS really popular today. Hypervisors totally free. You can use Xen, KVM and ESXI. But without a Windows Server paid license isn’t real to work with Hyper-V.

The question is can your virtual machines be less virtual? The answer is clearly yes and this is the main available thing who Hyper-V missed: PCI pass-through. Please don’t think I hate Windows, I like it in some cases. Desktop is a place where Redmond is the number one. However, speaking of another areas, phone market is GNU/Linux, supercomputers is GNU/Linux, your car, TV, a router, pretty much everything is GNU/Linux.

Google, Facebook or Twitter is GNU/Linux, too. Intel a Microsoft friend by troubles (who slow down and broken Moore’s law) now faces Spectre and Meltdown. AMD speed up and we have Ryzen and Threadripper. ARM? Well I think you have a chance to see it.

Why not? Mixed Reality need power and Intel lost mobile market for a reason. ARM amazingly good using your power. Servers using GNU/Linux mainly because is cheaper, has greater stability and OpenSource provide them better security and flexibility. x86/x64 is an interesting beast.

AMD and Intel have some tech and accidentally one using what another using. X86 is Intel and X64 is AMD. However, they kick out any who trying to go into their market very badly. This is why ARM exist and why is so different. Not Intel nor AMD allow using their instructions. They remind me Windows somehow. The whole reason why ARM is so unpopular is not only less aware of but Virtualization as is.

Only ARMv7 in 2011 add it, 5 years later than competitors. Another reason is uncomfortability with X86 applications, I think. Plus the server market is very slow to changing, even new AMD CPU who have good price isn’t so widely popular like Intel Xeon ones…

Okay, speaking of VMs, I see for example nVidia clearly wanted to eat your wallet and take all your money via useless Quadro series. I don’t like it, and if I have a server, I most likely buy more RAM than waste my money for no reason, this Quadro so overpriced! Why? “GeForce is just fine,” you think and wanted set up the beast but you have no luck to work with it because famous “Error 43” caused by a driver. The developer team of nVidia detected a hypervisor environment and write a program code to block you from any kind of pass through.

Sadly this is a proprietary driver and you have no money for AMD who don’t create that problem for you, AMD new drivers is great and OpenSource, not like nVidia who every time create problems both for VMs and GNU/Linux’s Kernel. Microsoft? No luck with Hyper-V, sorry, that isn’t real here. All this things starting as 1 to 6 just way us to a Great Result of success even with that worsiest case. GNU/Linux community so helpful in solving problems created by wastemoneyful corporations. The people wrote a trick who made think the driver like a machine isn’t virtual and the error “magically” gone.

I have 64 GB of RAM and 24 cores so if no VMs, that is a kind of strange to don’t have. This is an ex-server machine and I can even make fully functional systems with it. I mean if you don’t know what it realty is, you can’t say something like “Looks like VirtualBox box here”. Perhaps I know not VirtualBox nor VMware provide any kind of acceptable 3D for.

Sorry but IMO they both—no matter Oracle VirtualBox or VMware Workstation—sucks even a 10 year old cheap crappy VGA because virtualization is not emulation, forget about them if you a gamer. Also Oracle using Wine so if you on GNU/Linux is making no sense why just using Wine natively in the first place if you need. In fact the problem is an emulated videocard is a nightmare, a Wine style emulated videocard is double trouble. Only IOMMU (VT-d/AMD-Vi) is a way for you, however, not every motherboard capable for that and I recommend using UEFI, too. Don’t even try Windows 7, the UEFI support sucks, the default videodriver need CSM but OpenSource UEFI firmware not capable to provide it.

I have successfully passthrough my two VGA to two virtual Windows so 3D does work (only 1-2% of performance lost) and a separate GNU/Linux server with AppArmor (an alternative to NSA’s SElinux) for things like streaming and some internal services via NGINX, PHP, Samba, OpenSSH, DNSCrypt, DLNA, Tor, Shadowsocks, OpenVPN, Nextcloud, P2P, Syncthing, etc. Good luck with Windows! I can guarantee no one can did the same with Hyper-V and nVidia. And this is a proof of the Linux Power. With GNU/Linux you owm a system and can do what you want, with Microsoft Windows a system own you and you just a customer who can nothing more than pay money.

Do you see the difference? That why Windows fails. That why servers, supercomputers and your phone isn’t Windows. You can’t find a thing where they wins because even if speaking of consoles you have Sony who is the Winner. Cortana fails, too. Google and Amazon wining. Microsoft is a little huge desktop only company who is like IBM for now. Nothing new, nothing surprising, a frozen state. So sad… In some cases is very risky for customers because imagine Intel without AMD. What? For more than 5 years Intel did nothing before AMD made Ryzen, now you have prices down and more cores than ever for non-server users. That’s it. Sony need a powerful Microsoft to be better, we need it, but a hope is nothing, Microsoft continuing to fail infinitely. Eh… So sad again.

P. S. Dear Aaron Kili. You have the rights to edit, add or rewrite my message. I even allow shorter it. Sorry if something wrong but English isn’t my native language. I like your article and think it great. My name, email and IP is an illusion, I like more anonymity so don’t rely on them in your decisions. Bye!