5 Reasons Old Computers Love Linux Jun 12, 2009, 06 :02 UTC (2 Talkback[s]) (5880 reads)
"Specialization. Since there's only supposed to be one main version of Windows in use at a time, by necessity it has to be a Swiss Army knife of an operating system. Linux, on the other hand, has a whole bunch of options. A lot of people are happy with a terminal-only system. Some must have package management, other don't need it. Some want a themeable desktop with pretty colors, wallpapers and icons. Others would rather have a sparse desktop and use the hardware savings elsewhere. And then you get nutcases power users who make a torrent slave, file/print server or media streamer. Have fun making that without Linux.
"Hardware Support and Variety. As I pointed out a few weeks ago, sometimes hardware just doesnit work. This problem is also present in Windows: OEMs have no reason to be polite and leave vintage drivers up on their website. Even if they do, making things work in Windows 95 is a nightmare: you have to burn a CD (or sometimes a floppy(!))with the USB drive driver, install that, use the USB drive to transfer hardware for the network card, the sound card, the USB mouse (if it works at all), and any other peripheral. It's very hit-or-miss, and if you miss, you're done."
