Computers, Yes actually types of modern inventions to make people's life better and more easier but how do we define these purposes? Or what are the realities about our digital life nowadays?
Let's start with parts of our society all around the world who uses different digital technologies from programs to devices depends on their needs, Yes needs and this word can be anything such as office suites, engineering applications & etc. but except security or privacy and other important categories, for understanding this topic clearly we just have to look for every smart tools in our environment like open source software communities then after all there will be many questions such:
How do(did) I trust closed source products? when I don't know what is happening(happened) behind those closed doors, in case of collecting random data by the company via system updates or reports so they can be considered as information business for the future decisions in examples like political parties, intelligence services or any illegal activities so definitely being an smart is pretty more effective compare to a complainer.
Why do I need an antivirus software? when I can be very safe with variety of free or commercial open source operating systems in the market for example Linux and FreeBSD firewalls, antivirus softwares are mostly closed source product so they can be considered as data collectors for any unknown purposes, this is one of the reason most governments, big enterprises and organizations prefer open source projects (NASA for example), here we need to mention the permissions issue in windows file systems which they easily allow any type of viruses get executed with no permission but Unix-likes platforms are extremely restrictive and secure.
Have I ever tried Linux or BSD distributions? to feel the power and performance compare to a closed commercial source OS like windows or mac by benchmarking on the same hardware specs although macOS is based on Unix but it's a mashed up version, also their customers are familiar with experiencing malwares (malicious software) on these platforms therefore open source platforms have awesome cloning tools to backup and restore in case of failure but everyone knows about windows system restore weakness, perfect log system in Unix-like variants is very helpful to diagnose the system for solving problems.
When did I research about data protection? encryption but not every methods guaranteed, for this reason full encryption in open source environments like Linux and BSD is recommended although closed source platforms have this option too but it's useless due the security and privacy issues, also there is another full encryption technology that system boot is encrypted with double authentication method and currently available only with Pars Enterprise Platforms (refer to second part of this article).
How about portability? Unix-like kernels are impressively portable, mainly because of C/C++ programming languages and one of the best example is NetBSD project, extremely tiny because of its clean code and being powerful, it's also used in NASA's SAMS-II project, there are many cases out there shows that currently most mobile devices are bundled with open source operating systems and components, portability in Unix-like platforms let you to be your system technician so you will be able to learn and fix at the same time by huge number of standard commands or tools so definitely where there's a shell there's a way.
What's important about education? It's very simple to understand, you tell us about possibilities to learn computer softwares and their relationship with hardware from closed source codes, that's why we recommend software developers to choose free and open source licenses so users can trust or even study about the codes, Perl/Python programming languages are very helpful to learn about operating system concepts or scripting for servers, another topic is about journaling file systems such as ufs2, ext4 and btrfs or smart data managements like zfs and lvm which they are ultimately secure, also let you increase your knowledge about file systems data allocation, repair and recovery.
How much do I care about compatibility? why do I have to install drivers every time I change my operating system or hardware pieces when I can just plug my device and using it directly without any detection issue, nowadays among large open source communities you can find any independent hardware drivers for your Linux or BSD distribution, also many international companies are getting more interested into development of open source products.
Really, what's the reason? to suffer freezing or hanging when you are doing your daily tasks (in windows and its .NET) although million of users suffered this issue since primitive desktop platforms were produced, some people say this happens on the low resources or legacy computers but that's not true, operating systems like windows usually perform slowly compare to Unix-likes because only limited number of people fix and develop them but open source operating systems are getting improved every second by huge number of programmers around the globe so buggy systems often leak information outside of local areas.
Do I really know about graphical environment? I love KDE, why? It's look like an airplane control panel bundled with awesome widgets, also there are plenty of options in its system settings and another reason is because of being free and open source, just give it a try and you will see that windows and macOS desktops have no options compare to KDE, Gnome or Xfce (Thanks Qt and Gtk+ for being so friendly to their users and developers).
What are the advantages about application managements? everyone knows time and costs are very important in our life so that would be nice when we are not forced to answer many questions in case of installing an application, this job was done successfully from port repositories with a click by Unix-likes platforms (Debian, FreeBSD and Android are the good examples), also there are huge number of available free softwares made for any type of tasks for download via package managements like:
Eclipse, OpenOffice, Gimp, LibreOffice, Blender, Gparted, OpenShot, Inkscape, GnuCash, Electrum, FileZilla, Xine & etc.
Now you still have chances to refresh your digital life and upgrade it to new intelligent levels, never forget that your decisions can change the world, We also encourage people to donate free and open source projects whenever find them useful, this culture will block the way for those retarded companies became rich by selling fake technologies to us for many years.
Most Popular Distributions
Debian is an operating system and a distribution of Free Software. It is maintained and updated through the work of many users who volunteer their time and effort.
FreeBSD is an operating system used to power modern servers, desktops, and embedded platforms. A large community has continually developed it for more than thirty years. Its advanced networking, security, and storage features have made FreeBSD the platform of choice for many of the busiest web sites and most pervasive embedded networking and storage devices.
Mageia is a GNU/Linux-based, Free Software operating system. It is a community project, supported by a nonprofit organization of elected contributors.
NetBSD is a free, fast, secure, and highly portable Unix-like Open Source operating system. It is available for a wide range of platforms, from large-scale servers and powerful desktop systems to handheld and embedded devices.