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Savings on licence costs

Opting for a Linux solution can help you make substantial savings. Be it for a server, a desktop or a laptop computer, the operating systems we are installing are free of any license costs. The same goes with the majority of the software that will accompany your system. This can add up to substantial amounts when you consider it could also apply to each computer in your IT department.

Savings on hardware and energy costs

Whatsmore, because Linux is fast, in an office environment you may choose to have lower-end, low power-consumption end-user machines, and still be able to work comfortably. Did you know some computers, that may very well be suited for your end-users, run on less than 30 Wh, or less than one third of what an average computer needs? You save one time on the price of each machine, then each month on your energy bill.

How can it be free?

Not everything has to be paid for in the computer industry. Take Google for example, and the applications it provides everybody for free : Google Earth, Google Chrome, Google Sketchup, Google Apps, etc. These are quality items that do not cost users a penny to install and run on their computers.

The same goes with operating systems, such as most Linux distributions. Not all Linux distributions are free of charge, however : some choose to go by the yearly-subscription model, for instance (Red Hat, SUSE). Others will provide the OS for free, and hope you will pay them for support - which you may or may not choose to do.

Different organizations (companies, universities, research labs, IT students, etc.) pool their mind-power together to create parts of operating systems that specifically target their needs - and then share their findings with everyone else. For example, Intel, the famous chip maker, may want to have at hand the best OS that will boast the performances of its latest processor. As Intel does not own Windows, it cannot tweak the code for that very purpose; but it is allowed to refine the coding of Linux to show how great its latest product is.

If Linux is free, is it lower grade?

No, not at all!

Some distributions may seem to you more polished than others, according to your own preferences. We recommend Ubuntu over the others, because we find it generally easier to use. But, for some specific purposes, other distributions may be a better choice. In the end, it all comes down to this : all distributions at a given time will share the same kernel (or the heart, if you will). And the kernel is constantly refined for better performance, better security, better stability. To this date, kernel development is still under the supervision of its creator, Linus Torvalds.