Linux VS Windows? Pls help a confused person.

[Serp86]

I heard a lot of good things about linux lately, and have been considering upgrading to it.

1) is it free or not?
2) which is the better developer
3) as a student and casual gamer (Warcraft3, medieval, UT2003) which OS will be the best for me?
4) having an 80gig hd - will it be worthwile to create a second partition for linux - and if yes, how much gig shall i put in it?

Thanks in advance
Jonathan

 

[TheOmegaCode]

1) is it free or not?

It's free.

2) which is the better developer

Matter of taste, I'd say Linux.

3) as a student and casual gamer (Warcraft3, medieval, UT2003) which OS will be the best for me?

Windows really is better for games.

4) having an 80gig hd - will it be worthwile to create a second partition for linux - and if yes, how much gig shall i put in it?

It never hurts to learn something new, why not... You wouldn't need anything more than 5gigs.
There are even disto's that allow you to get a feel for linux w/out having to mess with your hard drive, they run off of a CD. SuSE live eval and Knoppix, to name a few.

 

[JonnyBalls]

Originally posted by: Serp86
I heard a lot of good things about linux lately, and have been considering upgrading to it.

1) is it free or not?
2) which is the better developer
3) as a student and casual gamer (Warcraft3, medieval, UT2003) which OS will be the best for me?
4) having an 80gig hd - will it be worthwile to create a second partition for linux - and if yes, how much gig shall i put in it?

Thanks in advance
Jonathan

Yes, it really depends on what you're going to do with it
i run red hat and mandrake linux at my house
1) you CAN pay for most distributions, however they are open source, and free
2) linux is harder to use for a person that is new to it than windows,
especially the command line interface, but installation isn't difficult
3) if you are just surfing the internet or talking to friends over an instant messaging client, both are equally capable
gaming would be easier to do on a windows machine, but can be done on linux
Linux is just harder to get used to
4)i have an 80gig HD set up with red hat, and i'm pretty happy with it

 

[Serp86]

so - in other words - i may just as well stick with windows coz it is better for gaming and easier to ue - rite?

is there an alternate os?

 

[TheOmegaCode]

Originally posted by: Serp86
so - in other words - i may just as well stick with windows coz it is better for gaming and easier to ue - rite?

is there an alternate os?

w3rd y0....

There's always MacOS. The only problem is that, even though it has a lot more games than Linux and it's relatively easy to use, it typically requires buying a new computer.

Other than that, you're screwed...

 

[skyking]

If you never want to learn anything about webservers, mailservers, big-time databases, then sticking to windows is good advice.
However: If you think you might want to venture into any of those fields, or learn about the true "nuts and bolts" of computing, then setting up a dual boot, and messing around with a 'nix distro on the side is a grand idea.
I use both, each has it's place. Windows is a workstation OS only. Freebsd, openbsd, and the other distros can be configured to do some serious server work, even on a x86 desktop.