Most of the computer users know what an operating system is because their work is limited to using programs. These programs are usually made by the company or the organization people work for. Any upgrade or alternative software also managed by the company. It is mostly the people who work at home or use home desktop computer for personal reasons that become victim of the expenses related to new version of operating system, viruses and insecurity problems.

Moreover, any additions to the existing software may also be provided by third-parties and are very sought after such as Audacity – an audio recording software, one of supported files are Lamp which enables you to create audio project files to be easily converted to wav, mp3 format. Though Lamp can work on previous versions, but in another situations, it is being the desirable feature that is associated with the main software. If it is not supported by current operating system, then one may require upgrading. Most of the times, it is almost impossible to do so for a single feature/need. To neglect such small requirements also make you miss the deadlines when you have to move pillar to just get an audio of one type be converted to another type. The cost associated with buying new version of operating system cannot be overlooked. However, considering on long-term, one may realize that the cost of other expenses are equal to the purchase of operating system and even more.

Though, one may avail a better option to opt for free open source operating system to check the cost problems. The cost issue can easily be solved with easy programming skills to learn and utilize with command-line interface of Linux. Online websites, forums and manuals are available to provide the extensive information about Linux operating system.

Linux is a free open source operating system that is used on a variety of platforms that include desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones, televisions, tablets, video game consoles, mainframes, printers, scanners and supercomputers. The distribution is available under General public license (GNU) under which the software is passed from one distributor to the benefactor with same privileged rights. The distribution includes graphical user interfaces such as GNOME, KDE, X Window System, and Apache HTTP Server and a SSH server if it is intended to be used as web server.

You must know about Linux operating system that being an open source operating system, the developers can easily modify, recreate and distribute this operating system, either with the same name or under different names.

Some of popular Linux distributions are Linux Mint, which is available for both 32 and 64-bit machines, Ubuntu can be installed to the hard disk from the Live CD environment by using Ubiquity installer, Kbuntu uses KDE graphical environment instead of GNOME or Unity interfaces, Xubuntu supports GTK+ applications and provides higher efficiency and performance for simple less-powerful computers and Fedora distributed by Red Hat.

The convenience and general use of many commonly useable applications such as Mozilla Firefox web browser, OpenOffice is provided. These applications basically let the users work with document of any kind. The documents can be converted easily or exchanged over the medium. Latest formats are available for saving files because new up gradations to office suites are supported.

It must be noted about Linux operating system that once installed, Linux does not provide difficulties that one may require to reboot or reinstall. An easy grip on commands let the user complete more of the general managerial tasks such as backup, recovery, disk management, disk cleanup, etc.

Third parties utilizes are generally supported and provide greater control on the features that can be provided by Linux. It is imperative to know about Linux operating system. Some of the programs are:

1. Unison, which is the GUI based and can backup your files and folder to hard disks or remote locations. You can schedule the way you want to backup your files.

2. CloneZilla’s imaging software can deploy softwares in server environment too. A variety of images can be stored, restored.

3. Firefox as a web browser can be upgraded to any levels. It is fast, safe and reliable to browse Internet from the Linux operating system. Addons are also supported, some of which are Adblock plus, dowloadHelper, CLEO and Noscript.

4. Terminator desktop utility allows you manage your work while working with several windows.

5. Revive your previous games that you used to play with DOS version of Windows. DOSBox can be installed on x86 machines with support for graphics, sound, modem and mouse drivers. It can also run your old games.