Introduction

Everyone with a computer has used or at least heard of Windows: It is by far the most widely used desktop OS (73% by market share) and its main competitor, Mac OS, is far behind at 16% market share. However, people who are interested in computers or technology often know about another OS: Linux. Linux is a free and open source software (FOSS) and you can install it for free, in contrast to Windows. In this article, I will compare Linux and Windows in various areas and explain if you should choose Windows or Linux as your daily driver. (Sorry, Apple fans)

1. Ease of Use

In recent years, Linux has gotten a lot easier to install, especially beginner-friendly distributions like Ubuntu and Linux Mint. All you need to do is flash an ISO to a USB drive, plug it in the computer, and go to your BIOS to make the computer boot from the USB stick. However, Windows still comes installed by default on almost every prebuilt PC or laptop that isn't a Mac. When setting up Linux, one may also experience technical issues due to drivers. For example, my WiFi card has a non-free driver that was not installed by default, so I had to connect my laptop to the Internet using a wired connection, then install the WiFi driver. These problems are extremely rare on Linux. Some Linux distributions have desktop environments that are as easy to use as Windows, or sometimes even better. However, the package management system and filesystem in Linux can be confusing to new users. Thus, I believe the overall winner is Windows.

2. Software Selection

Unfortunately, there is a large amount of proprietary software that does not have native support for Linux. Some examples are most Adobe products, most Microsoft Office products (except Microsoft Teams), and a large amount of games. While it is sometimes possible to run some of this software using compatibility layers such as Wine and PlayOnLinux, this often comes at the cost of certain features and stability. Fortunately, alternative software exists. Kdenlive is a free video editor that offers similar features to Adobe Premiere Pro, and the LibreOffice suite offers similar functionality to Microsoft Office. However, it may take time to get used to new software, and the new software may not offer as many features as proprietary software. Thus, Windows is still the winner here.

3. Speed / Performance

This is where Linux takes it first decisive victory. Linux often uses less storage, RAM and processing power to do the same tasks that Windows does. There are even Linux desktop environments that are designed specifically for low-end computers such as XFCE and LXDE. Even heavier desktop environments like GNOME still outperform Windows regularly. By default, Windows comes with lots of junk software that takes up valuable storage space, but Linux often allows you to choose how much software you want to install during the installation process. Linux is also designed to perform better than Windows. One example of Linux vs Windows performance is here. 

4. Privacy and Security

Windows has garnered a pretty bad reputation for protecting users' privacy. Often, a Windows user has to opt-out of all telemetry services, which is inconvenient, and not all forms of telemetry can be disabled. On the other hand, every well-known Linux distribution has telemetry turned off by default, so no data is collected by default. In terms of security, Linux is less susceptible to malware and viruses as malware written for Windows will not always work on Linux due to fundamental differences in the operating systems. Additionally, due to its open-source nature, anyone technically inclined can inspect the source code of any software they install to ensure there is no malware. Since Windows is closed-source, a Windows user has to trust that Microsoft has thoroughly inspected their code.

Conclusion

Overall, I believe that there is no reason to use Linux if you are not technically inclined and have no interest in computers. Windows can do basically anything and use almost any software that a normal user requires. However, I would recommend Linux to those who have computers too slow to run Windows, those who care about their privacy and security, or those who are interested in learning more about computers. 

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