Linux saves money by allowing reuse of an old computer.
Let’s say you have an old (PC-style) machine lying around, and you enjoy “tinkering” with computers. You’d like to learn more about things such as partitioning, dual-booting, bash shell scripting, or hosting a local PHP-based websites with database connections. Having and old computer available lets you to do this without messing with your “main” computer. Remember, if it’s PC-style, (Gateway, IBM, HP, or Dell) Mac OS-X cannot be used. Why throw away a working machine just because the latest Microsoft Operating System won’t run on it? So what are some options?
- Purchase a licensed copy of Microsoft Windows (remember, old machines probably cannot run Vista or Windows 7). If the machine is really old, it may not even be able to run Windows XP. Even if it could run XP, do you really want to use an outdated or no-longer-supported OS?
- Obtain a pirated copy of Microsoft Windows. I don’t condone this approach, but it happens. Even though your experimental machine is old, it deserves a stable architecture. Think about it. Your OS should be fully-functional so you can perform updates & backups without worrying about crashes or losing your work.
- Download & burn a few Linux LIVE CDs. Use that “main” computer for something awesome without erasing anything on the HD. Go to distrowatch, read some info, check out some screenshots. If a distro appeals to you—then download and burn the .iso—the cost (monetarily) per Live-CD is one blank CD. Let the LIVE CD attempt to detect all of the hardware (this is important if it’s a laptop, as you’d want to ensure that the wifi is working). It might be best to stick with the more “popular” distros at first. Most distros are “based on” or “derivatives of” major Linux distributions such as Red Hat, Debian, and (more recently) Debian-Ubuntu. “Debian-Ubuntu” means that Ubuntu is the base, and Ubuntu is based on the Debian distribution.