Believe me, Linux is as easy as any other OS

I recently read an article in computer world “You don't need to 'know' Linux to use Linux”.It addresses the notion people have that you need to master some commands or need some expertise to use linux easily. I can see people still have those notions even after linux as OS matured a lot and came a longway to compete with others. Let me adress some of them and i will be relying mainly the most popular desktop linux distro Ubuntu to prove my points.

1. Installing linux may corrupt my windows OS

This might be mostly due to the fact that linux is following a different file system(ext3 or ext4) and the experience they might had in trying linx years before. In reality it is very strightforward and there is nothing to fear if you follow the proper instructions. The good thing is Ubuntu have very good documentation to help you in everything. Please refer the section Dual-Booting Windows and Ubuntu in the Ubuntu userguide.

2. You need to know shell commands to use linux

This is very well addressed in the article I refered earlier(“You don't need to 'know' Linux to use Linux”.)

3. Linux don't have good support for audio and video and you need to be hacker to make it work

This is a thing of the past and now all the popular disto's have support for all the popular audio and video file formats. But not all the drivers might not be bundled with the os as you might have for windows . If you take Ubuntu for example mp3 driver won't come bundled with Ubuntu as it is not complaint with Ubuntu license terms.You have to understand Ubuntu and open source philisophy to understand its reason fully ,but as normal user you just need to install gstreamer plugins separately from Ubuntu software center .I will be expalining installing applications in Ubuntu separately.

4. I will be landed in strange world with none of favourite apps in windows not available.

You are right in one way as you might be using some windows software for years and is quiet confortable with them. But the point is that you have an alternate software of almost every kind in linux and there are many far better and lightweight than in windows. If you are determined it won't take much time learn any of them and you can see a lot more variety in linux world then you see in windows. For a list of applications refer the following links.

Ubuntu user guide

19 cool things to do after installing Ubuntu

http://blog.thesilentnumber.me/2009/09/top-things-to-do-after-installing.html

5. It has a lot of security restrictions and is difficult to deal with

This is because linux is following unix architecture and is designed as a multiuser system at its core. This is basically different from the windows which was deveolped for desktop PC's. But linux architecture has a lot of advantages and is the reason why linux is considered the most secured os and have very less chance for the viruses to be affected. It may be annoying initially as there may be restrictions for normal users and once you understand it you will see the benefit.

6. Installing applications is a painfull task and you need to be a techie to do that.
   

This is really wrong and ideally there is hardly any difference with windows now.Infact it is much easy as Ubuntu has a Ubuntu software center from you can find the applications and do a click and install. Fundamentally there is a difference in the way applications are installed and managed linux as linux is following a different file system architecture. But now everything is possible through GUI and if you are techie of course command line will give you more power.

7. No one knows linux to support me if there is a problem.

This is another wrong notion. It may be right as you won't be having many people around you who know linux as linux is less popular than windows. But if you look at online you get answers for all your problems. Infact as linux is a community driven os it is very easy to get help from community than from official documentation as in case of windows.

8. Anything comes free of cost is not good or with less quality.

Some people have a general feeling that as free software with less quality. This may be because the think that as linux is developed by volunteers who are not resposible for bugs and software doesn't offer any official support .This is infact wrong and eventhough free software is developed by volunteers they also go through the same rigorous development and testing cycles that commercal softwares do. Infact as there are more involement from community it is possible that more people test it at early stages and more bugs are fixed before the release.Even you can get commercial support from any linux vendors like Redhat or Novell if you are ready to pay for that.

9. Linux is less user-friendly compared to windows.

This might be true few years back as linux GUI's were not that developed and there were no GUI for some taks. But now if you look at most Linux distros the GUI is in par with windows and you may even feel more confortable working with linux as its interface much more simple and lightweight. You will ofcourse have an affinity towards a platform you are working for years and may take some time to get confortable with a new once. But as a person recently moved completely to Ubuntu i felt linux is muck easy to work with and intellectually satisfying for me being a programmer.