When something strange happens on my (Linux-running) laptop, I’ve been know to comment, “Yes, I love Linux”. And I do, it is better and more secure than Microsoft, but An Amazing Mind has the real reason I use Linux:

We tell people we use Linux because it’s secure. Or because it’s free, because it’s customizable, because it’s free (the other meaning), because it has excellent community support…

But all of that is just marketing bullshit. We tell that to non-Linuxers because they wouldn’t understand the real reason. And when we say those false reasons enough, we might even start to believe them ourselves.

But deep underneath, the real reason remains.

We use Linux because it’s fun!

It’s fun to tinker with your system. It’s fun to change all the settings, break the system, then have to go to recovery mode to repair it. It’s fun to have over a hundred distros to choose from. It’s fun to use the command line.

Let me say that again. It’s fun to use the command line.

No wonder non-Linuxers wouldn’t understand.

The point with us Linux fans is - we use Linux for its own sake. Sure, we like to get work done. Sure, we like to be secure from viruses. Sure, we like to save money. But those are only the side-effects. What we really like is playing with the system, poking around, and discovering completely pointless yet fascinating facts about the OS.

… also, Microsoft and facist bully boys.

I’ve been teaching myself php (and hope to launch my first site in the next few months), but I increasingly have a desire to learn a bit of C++ to help contribute to the Linux project.

And, as Vlad Dolezal, “Linux is free (as-in-speech)” and that leaves me with warm fuzzy feelings.