Given that I've been yapping about Windows and Apple for a few weeks now, I think that this should be the best time to do a few conversions. No, I don't mean to convert anyone from PC to Mac or vise versa. I'm talking about taking the free route. Yes ladies and gentlemen, it's time that you all know what Linux is all about. Some of you might have already heard about the Linux operating system but then again this might be your first time, so I'll just lay it straight and simple. Linux is an operating system, much like Windows or Mac, but it is entirely free.

The most appropriate phrase to define this "free" state is open source. What this means is that the code that makes up the operating system is free to be copied and reconfigured to suit the programmers wishes. You don't need to be a programmer to run the OS, but other people have the liberty to change it and make it their own. Now, that's cleared up, let's not get into it further. Now some of you who know the difference between windows and Mac probably know that there are features that feel the same and some that are completely different.

You will get the same feel from any Linux OS. The games that you run on Windows may almost certainly never run on any OS that it's not supposed to, so don't expect it to run. This goes for any other application that's exclusive to a single operating system. Hardware that you buy can pretty much run on any OS, but there are other pieces that work with specific software. What's the upside to all this? Other than using something that's free, which is probably the best thing the about the OS, you also get to use free software. Linux has a community for it's users where they can share their software and it's all free.

You can do whatever you want with it, provided that you know what you're doing, but then that's another thing that's great about it. You're not stuck with something that other people built for you, you can rebuild your system the way you want it to feel like, and there are great learning opportunities ahead of you. There's also Linux for beginners that targets people who want to get in to the community. There are distributions that cater to different kinds of users that range from beginners to moderately techie to the extremely techie user. Distributions are the different variations that were built by different people in the community to suit to their own needs and they share it with everyone so that they can improve upon the design, show it off or just to allow people to experience the same thing they're experiencing.

So yeah, Linux might not be for everyone, but if you want to learn how to use it, it's basically available on their main site. If you want to start, you can search for the Mint distribution. It's one of the easier variations to get into and it primarily focuses on making your desktop look amazing.