The Best Gift This Christmas! Linux!

It's so true. The Christmas gifts we remember the most and look upon fondly (and use the most) throughout the years are the gifts that someone either made or invested a good deal of thought into creating.  All too often we run off to the mall or big box store, grab something off the shelf, wrap it up, and give it to someone on our list.  And the gift usually gets tossed to the side.

This year, may I suggest a gift that will pay big dividends for you and the recipient in the years to come?  Give Linux for Christmas!  When you give Linux, you accomplish two things.  First, you learn how to download and burn an ISO file to a CD/DVD.

Secondly, you're giving a gift that will free the recipient of all Windows headaches and problems FOREVER! And lastly, anyone receiving Linux will now be engaged with the Operating System and its community.  In other words, when you run Linux, you get on a learning curve that will actually hep you understand and run your computer BETTER!  Linux will run and be quite easy to use from the get go.  And as you continue to use Linux, you'll actually get under the hood to tweak the system and learn some of the ins and outs.  And this is a good thing.

The Linux distro I'm recommending right now is Linux Mint. Linux Mint is an incredibly complete and stable OS!   Once you install it to your system, you'll be sufing the internet, playing DVDs and MP3 files, editing photis in Gimp,  writing documents in Office, etc.  Linux Mint does everyting Winodws does but at a better price. FREE! and Linux Mint has a wonderfully helpful community.

So, grab a stack of blank CDs (or DVDs), download the Linux Mint ISO, burn it to disk, wrap, and give a gift this Christmas that will keep giving in the years to come!

A Kiowa Chistmas.

(Click image for larger view)

The wonderful thing about Linux is choice. There are a lot of Linux distributions to pick from. And over the past few years, I've used quite a few. I've either installed them on my hard drive or run them via a Live CD.

With so many Linux distributions to choose, it's like being a kid in a candy store! After trying several Linux distributions, pretty soon, you narrow it down to one and settle in with it.

For me, my absolute favorite Linux distribution, more and more, is Kiowa Linux.

Why? Without getting too technical, Kiowa combines the best of an RPM Linux distribution and a .deb Linux distribution. It's the best of both worlds! If you thought Linux was highly customizable, wait until you see how much more control you'll have over all your hardware and software when you run Kiowa.

Kiowa also comes with the most recent software releases of OpenOffice, Gimp, Amarok, K3b, and other open source software. This means the most cutting edge developments are right there at your fingertips in Kiowa.

Kiowa also allows you to run BOTH KDE and Gnome desktops! No need to install a second or third Linux distribution to see these desktops in action. The latest 3D desktop is also available in Kiowa.

Kiowa also sports a much friendlier version of Wine. In the past, Wine has been a bit confusing to new users. This is why CrossOver Linux (based on Wine) has increased in popularity. Now you can easily run Wine and install supported Windows applications without having to purchase CrossOver. Although, both will run on Kiowa.

The best way to get Kiowa is to buy a computer system preconfigured with Kiowa. Now that the holiday shopping season has kicked off, sales abound! And there are terrific deals on Kiowa Linux computers and laptops at the Kiowa Linux web site! You'll get a great computer system with a great Operating System at a great price. Plus, you'll get terrific support from the Kiowa folks.

If you'd rather ease into Linux, the Kiowa folks can build you a dual-boot system. They'll install Kiowa Linux on half the hard drive and Windows on the other half. This way, you can run both and decide which OS is better. I guarantee you, once you run Kiowa Linux, you'll very rarely boot into Windows. (BTW, I'm writing this blog in Kiowa Linux.)

Get Kiowa Linux. Give a Kiowa system or laptop to a family member and assure them a safe, secure computing experience this Christmas!

Got a question about cartooning with Linux, or Linux in general? Email me at: georgetoon@gmail.com. If I use your question on my blog, I'll send you an original, signed George comic strip!

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