The “Linux is only free if your time has no value” myth

Or if “Linux is only free if your time has no value” then Windows is more expensive than it seems.


My first contact with Linux was around 5 years ago, using a Brazilian distro named Kurumin meant to be used as a LiveCD and based on Knoppix/Debian. One year later, I decided to install Slackware on my computer, and as I had a small HD by the time, it became my only operational system.

Tired of having to keep track of dependencies and the like, I replaced it with Arch Linux, my distro of choice for the last years (and for the next years, too). While I am relatively new to Linux (I have never used a kernel from the 2.4 series), I'm used to “hard to use” distros, and I fear no text command.

During this time, I did “waste” my time configuring X, trying different filesystems, partition schemes, window managers... but I don't see it as a waste of time. It was time spent learning something. One may ask “what's the use of learning a OS that almost nobody uses?”, but that wasn't the only thing I've learnt. Throughout these years I've used Linux, I also improved my English and my programming skills, I know more about how computers work (and how they don't), I've started worrying about my privacy online, I've learnt how to be a minority sucks, I've learnt to RTFM... Some of this might not be useful from a professional point of view, but they helped to develop the person that I am today.

When the time to go to college came, I chose to take the Electrical Engineering course. As some of you may know, the Engineering field uses some proprietary software, as AutoCAD, Matlab and others. I had no choice but to learn how to use them. I thought “I'll get educational licenses from the college and install it in a virtual machine. How bad can it be?”. It turned out to be a lot worse than I thought at first.

First step: Install Windows XP
I didn't measure how long it took to install Windows XP, but assume it's about the same time it takes to install a Linux distro, so installing both Linux and Windows “costs” the same, right? Yes, except by the fact that after installing Linux, you have a office suite installed, an image editor, music and video players, an editor with syntax highlighting, a C compiler, a Python interpreter. Some less ideological distros already come with Mono and Java preinstalled.

When you first install Windows, there's almost nothing there. Now you have some options:

• Install the software you need from a CD, and possibly type a key code.
• Search and download a freeware version from the internet.
• Search and download illegal software and search for cracks in the internet.

Install from CDs is bad, as you have to insert it, click “next” some times, type the key code, exchange CDs... Searching for freeware and downloading takes some time, and then you have to click next some times, too. Install cracked software is even worse, as it involves some risk. How good would it be if you could just select some software from a list and then leave to drink some coffee and let the computer doing it's own job -- download and install software? That's how installing software on Linux works.

I think it's clear by now that installing Windows is more time-expensive than installing Linux, but this comparison isn't complete. If the Windows installation we're talking about is OEM, some software may have been installed for us. Sometimes even software we don't want already come installed and removing them is usually cumbersome. On the other hand, if this installation is a “normal” one, now you probably have to install some drivers, but what's your hardware? On Linux, a simple “lspci” describes your computer; if you need more information, use the “-v” flags. On Windows, though, there's no such tool, you have to search for one and install. Now, with some program as Everest or similar, we can start searching for drivers.

I'm in your computer, stealing your CPU time
Of course, no sane person would ever download and install something on Windows without running an anti-virus software and probably a firewall, too. What this means is that there's a software scanning all your connection while you search the web and another one scanning your files while you install something, so the time it takes to search for the software you need and to install is bigger than it would be if there were no need for that.

A problem arises...
Things worked fine for about two weeks, then suddenly AutoCAD stopped working. It could have been any other software, it just happens that it was AutoCAD. I tried it again, and it crashed again. I rebooted the machine, and it happened again. I'm not saying this kind of thing doesn't happen with Linux, but I still can try to run the app from a terminal, see if it's segfaulting, or if it's searching for a file that can't be found.

Unaware of what else could I do, I did what any other Windows user would do: reinstall the program. Now, ask me if it worked. No, it didn't. I decided to try it again, manually deleting some files from the “Documents and Settings” folder, and manually deleting any entry in the registry that could have been left behind. I gave up the idea of trying to understand what happens in the registry and decided to install a registry cleaner, but now, whenever I try to access a shared folder, explorer will simply crash.

From that, what I've learnt is that Windows is expensive, even you're using a free educational license.

Notes

• Because of laziness, throughout this article I wrote Linux when I meant the GNU/Linux OS. Don't get mad at me, RMS.
• I compared Linux with Windows because Macs are rare here. From what I've seen, some of what's written here may be applied to Mac OS X, too.