"Control over my system I have the freedom to do what I want
with Linux. Crucially, there's no "right way" or "wrong way" of
doing things (although there are sensible and efficient ways of
doing things, of course). In the Linux community, you'll never hear
somebody say, "Hey! You're not supposed to do that!" or, "Serves
you right for doing it the wrong way!" Instead, what you're more
likely to hear is, "Hey! I didn't know you could do that! That's
cool!" Innovative solutions are encouraged. Feel free to
explore.
"This freedom extends to my choice of software too. If I don't
like a particular piece of software, I can use an alternative. This
is true even of desktop or system components, which in Windows and
Mac OS X are considered set in stone. I can even run Linux without
the Linux kernel if I want to!
"Here's an example of why this kind of freedom is good. When
using Ubuntu on my netbook, I bypass the built-in Network Manager
program that configures wifi, and configure the network manually.
Put simply, this lets me get online straight away after waking the
netbook from suspend. But if I did this kind of tweak under
Windows, people would point out that it's somehow "wrong". You
should do things the way Microsoft tell you to! Get back into line,
soldier! Under Linux, I can do what the hell I want, and nobody
will ever tell me otherwise. That's not just how I roll. That's how
it is with Linux."
