The Hidden Costs of Linux Ownership

“Linux might be free to download and install, and it might offer
you freedoms that aren’t available from commercial software, but
don’t let that fool you into thinking that everything about Linux
is free. You might save money, but there are still hidden costs
that need to be taken into account.

“The first cost is uncertainty. It’s hard to measure uncertainty
in any definitive way but that doesn’t mean that it should be
ignored. When you take a copy of Windows XP, Vista or Mac OS X and
you install it onto a system with the appropriate system
requirements, chances are that unless you have a particularly
bizarre configuration or a defective component, you can be pretty
certain that the OS will install and things that you have installed
(WiFi adaptors, network cards, graphics cards and so on) will work
just fine…”

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