Reflections on Open Source in Today's World

After reading the article by Jason Evangelho, I have come to the realization that many people share the same experiences and frustrations when it comes to the Windows operating system. The author of this article details his complicated relationship with windows, and explains his eventual switch to the open source world of Linux. One specific anecdote that resonated with was how Evangelho would lose important work progress and file transfers due to the inopportune timing of Windows updates. I have personally been affected by these badly timed updates many times, and eventually switched to Linux just as the author did. He went on to explain how he was astounded by the responsiveness of Linux on older machines and how it almost ran better than his new Windows machine. Evangelho's interest in Linux was originally sparked by the release of Steam machines from Valve, and the access they provided in terms of gaming. Gaming on PC's was almost exclusive to Window's closed environment until the release of these machines and Valve's drive for open source gaming access. I have been a strong supporter of Linux, specifically Ubuntu, for over 10 years now. I agree with the author in that the freedom and stability these distributions give you are unparalleled, and are what make Linux far superior to Windows. The updates are not forceful, and they do not seem to break some feature every iteration as Windows updates do. The second article I read had to do with the Linux terminal, and the many tricks and shortcuts one can employ to maximize their efficiency. For example, Ctrl + L will clear the screen without having to type out "clear", and sudo !! will run the previous command but with administrative sudo privileges. Another useful shortcut I learned was grep -Ev '^#|^$' <file> which will display the file's content without comments or empty lines. The bash shell that Linux operating systems use can prove quite useful when coding or doing data-science work. Part of the reason I recently installed Ubuntu back on to my computer was because the native inclusion of git in the terminal. The bash shell and its commands are far more standard, and are more widely used in the industry than that of a windows command line. Although the two articles are not similar in content, they are both examples as to why I support Linux, and its many open source endeavors. From the responsive quickness to the desktop and its guis, to the freedom of customization, and the useful nature of the terminal, one can never go wrong with replacing Windows with Linux as their main operating system. Gone are the days where Windows was the only OS that supported various commercial applications; I will always be the one to recommend Linux and its many diverse distributions. There is a "flavor" for everyone, one that will suit their needs and personal aesthetic tastes.