How has Linux helped you save time/money?

[steveneddy]

Has Ubuntu or another form of Linux caused you to save money or time at work or personal tasks while using you PC(s)?

I'm happy that I don't have to spend money on anti-virus software or restart twice a day, like it or not.

[handy]

Obviously it's free, & most everything I run on it is also free.

No time saving here.:lolflag:

Spending time with Linux associated things is my hobby.

[sethvath]

Coming from mac osx, I have saved close to $6,000 in software licenses and fees by using open source alternatives. If adobe ever releases a native linux photoshop and lightroom I would have to buy another license for ubuntu and that might hurt.

[brunovecchi]

It has saved me so much time that I can't really count it.
Last example. I had to add a .pdb extension to 1000 files (yes, one thousand). I did it in under a minute:


for F in *; do mv $F $F.pdb; done

That saved me two hours right there, give or take. And it's just a tiny, non-representative example out of a myriad of everyday situations.

[cardinals_fan]

I have saved time with dwm, gThumb, and the CLI (Zsh). Of course, you can run Zsh with Cygwin, but it just works better natively.

[Grant A.]

Saved a lot of money on tech support, and a lot of time troubleshooting when the program's installers fail.

[TwiceOver]

I had a whole tirade about how Ubuntu and Linux in general saved my time but I decided to just say "Yes". Time is money and I have saved way more Time with some of my Linux hijinks than I would have expended using IIS, Windows, FTP, etc.

EDIT:

As an example, earlier today I install Ubuntu Server, LAMP, ProFTPD, Update, Upgrade, Webmin, Configure all within 1.5hrs. Imagine doing that with Server 200X and IIS/FTP/SQL + Updates, + Configure. Guarantee the Windows side would have been the better portion of my day.

The Ubuntu/Linux side was just a "What If..." and done within 2 hrs.

[chucky chuckaluck]

i've actually wasted a lot more time just in redecorating, alone.

[kk0sse54]

I agree with chucky chuckaluck, I've probably wasted more time distro hopping, configuring all the different Os's, and decorating my desktop

[dhughes]

I don't play games on my system, so with the money I didn't spend on Windows I bought an Xbox360, MS still got money from me :p

Maybe this is a good selling point of Linux, spend that money on a game console!

[wolfen69]

why is microsoft a thought?

[wolfen69]

why is microsoft a thought?

i have a psp for my games

[iKonaK]

I can't say it helped me save money since i didn't bought xp or other software, however I can say it helped me save time: a short example would be that in xp i was put in the situation of reinstalling every week while in ubuntu i'm thinking if i have to reboot the system every week; so it's obvious not to mention the speed....price rally don't matter since you can find almost anything on warez friendly sites.

EDIT: i feel the need of mentioning i'm a home user and my activities were not commercial in any way, the warez software just helped me properly test the software and implicit to learn :)

[Saint Angeles]

i type 4 letters to upgrade every piece of software on my computer and remove un-needed packages (check out the link in my signature). no other OS has ever given me that capability.

synaptic is a lot more efficient than searching the internet for random .exe files and praying their not full of viruses... which reminds me...

the lack of viruses has saved me plenty of time because i don't need to install AV software and I don't have to deal with a computer that's slowing down a little bit each day. this has also saved me money.

when i buy a computer, i don't have to worry about finding a good deal on software. i can buy the computer one piece at a time and install Ubuntu on it for free. i don't need to pay for Adobe Photoshop when i have GIMP. i can also play DVDs for free with Linux. (the only way i can do this on windows is with VLC, an open source player)

[JC Cheloven]

Hmmm... I have to partially agree with that said of "linux is free if your time is free".

I was used to MS 15 months ago, and I was quite productive. I spent a lot of time in system maintenance, but far less than I have spent in the linux learning curve.

It's not a matter of money either, as I was quite a filthy pirate before seeing the light :-)

Thus, no time saved, no money saved.

But I'm incredibly glad with free software. Perhaps because it sets me free. Perhaps because I like to learn new things. Perhaps because I contribute to give that unfair monopolistic company that it deserves. Perhaps because I have the nice feeling of belonging to an unselfish community. Perhaps because I believe in that Mandela says when talking about "ubuntu" (as a concept). Perhaps because I'm a dreamer.

[brunovecchi]

I agree with chucky chuckaluck, I've probably wasted more time distro hopping, configuring all the different Os's, and decorating my desktop

That's a much better use of your time than cleaning viruses, looking for cracks and serial keys, defragging your disk or *shudder* dealing with clippo.

[SuperSonic4]

Mostly time from not restarting, updating or rebooting.

I've also saved money because I don't need to buy Audio/Video transcoders.

[I-75]

Linux saved me money on several computers. I had bought some computers in a lot sale, they had Windows 98 on them. I wanted something modern on them, I could not afford $149 each for Windows XP. I added some inexpensive ram and installed Xubuntu and Ubuntu on them. That deal alone saved me $600 in operating system costs. Since then, Linux and other open source software saved me at least $1000.

[armageddon08]

While Linux has helped save my money(by giving me free alternatives to costly applications), it has definitely played a huge part in helping me waste my time. During all those "tweaking" days of "Linuxing", I've become so much of a Linux-addict that I spend the larger part of everyday "teasing" my stable Ubuntu system. Cool...huh!! Not very much for my univ and studies!

[GCG199]

If it wasn't for Linux, I wouldn't even have a computer right now. So that is at least $400 right there. I have tried several distributions and came back to Ubuntu.

It is great not to have to spend more money for all of the software programs too, especially for office software. I have had to write a lot of essays for various projects lately.

Some things I couldn't figure out on Windows, such as how to take a screen shot. It is normally included on most Linux distributions. I don't mind the lack of virus, spyware and adware either!

I never liked using Adobe Acrobat Reader for opening/reading .pdf files on Windows either. It took too long to open up and always had some annoying message getting in the way Plus it is nice that a .pdf reader is included on most Linux distributions and they work a lot better than Adobe Acrobat Reader to me.

[david_lynch]

Hmmm... I have to partially agree with that said of "linux is free if your time is free".
I disagree, and I dislike that piece of FUD.

I've watched other people on other platforms doing various tasks, and I have to say it takes me far less time on linux than these other folks take to do similar things on other platforms. Sometimes ridiculously so. In many cases (e.g. antivirus updates) I don't have to do anything on linux.

BTW no fair comparing how long it takes a new, struggling linux noob to do things on linux, to how long it takes an experienced ms ******* power user to do similar things in ms windows. That's not apples to apples.

[RumorsOfWar]

I bought this computer a few years ago to make graphics and animations. I knew the AMD 64 processor would be faster than a 32 bit, but after buying it, I discovered WinXP was only 32 bit! ( this was before Vista, or even XP-64.) So I got into Linux just to get the most out of my hardware.
For one contract, I rendered over 125 000 frames. Render time was about 85% faster in 64 bit. Even given the time it took to learn Linux, it probably saved me days of computer time. Its also stable enough that I can run multiple instances of the graphics program, so I can keep modeling/animating on one while the other is rendering a seq.
Linux Rocks.

[ardchoille42]

I've been using various Linux distros since 2001 (that was when I threw Windows OS in the trash) and have found that apps load much faster, I don't need to reboot as often, almost all software if free of charge, and I can't remember when the last time a Linux app crashed on me.

Linux has saved me loads of time and money. Thank you Linus Torvalds!

[aeiah]

our new servers at work would have cost 3 times what they did if we went with microsoft only. another department in our group has a windows small business blade server that they paid £25,000 for and the license is too restrictive to support all their staff. we use windows server in a vm for a small part of it. all clustering, vm management and web serving is linux, so we really just paid for the hardware and man hours. the cost in man hours will total far less than windows would have once its set up due to the linux servers' resiliency and windows being rubbish at handling mysql.

on the home front it hasn't really saved me any time and money on the whole, because id still be using the same version of xp home ive had since 2001. it makes day to day usage a lot less stressful though.

[aeiah]

It has saved me so much time that I can't really count it.
Last example. I had to add a .pdb extension to 1000 files (yes, one thousand). I did it in under a minute:


for F in *; do mv $F $F.pdb; done

That saved me two hours right there, give or take. And it's just a tiny, non-representative example out of a myriad of everyday situations.

ok, ill bite.

from the windows command prompt:


rename *.* *.pdb

[scragar]

I know this is going to sound weird, but ubuntu hasn't saved me any time, it's just made more time for me to use it for playing games. I spend far more time now playing about with things on my computer for fun than I did with windows, so even though linux has saved me about 3 hours every day(boot/reboot time, programs loading quicker, programs available are just better and faster, I can now test PHP with all sorts of libraries without needing an external server for it(because of course XAMPP for windows doesn't support so many libraries available to ubuntu)), but I spent 4 hours yesterday when I got home playing about with a shell script I wrote.

[oldsoundguy]

What I really do not miss is the 4-6 hours a week per machine updating the protection programs and running clean up programs and scans. (I run 6 computers!)(two of them XP computers .. but stripped and not taken on line, so the clean up takes a lot less time!)

And the fact that the only software I have had to pay for was Opera for my Windows based PDA/GPS units.

[xuCGC002]

It saves me a lot of money because I don't have to pay $200 whenever I get a used or OS-less PC.

[steveneddy]

I used to spend a lot of time redecorating my desktop looking for that cool factor or something that would suit my needs and I settled on an almost stock desktop that looks good even without running Compiz, but with Compiz on it rocks.

I was never a warez guy, but I never paid for any Microsoft products from 2000 Pro and on. Just through professional connections I would either get a free copy from going to school or could get enterprise copies that wouldn't need authentication and didn't call home all the time.

When I first came to use Linux and Ubuntu in general I found that it was very stable, as long as you aren't tweaking it all the time. But I found the limitations really fast and what you could and couldn't do successfully with any given system.

Now I don't have to scan for virii, I don't have to totally reinstall on a regular basis and I don't have to restart after an update.

I am happy with the look and feel of my laptop and get more work done simply through not having to do so much maintenance.

[sethvath]

Virii?


Hackers like to use “virii” as the plural form of “virus,” but Latin scholars object that this invented term does not follow standard patterns in that language, and that there is already a perfectly good plural in English: “viruses.”

[loell]

i've actually wasted a lot more time just in redecorating, alone.

couldn't agree more. though that was then.. now i just stick to the defaults.

[Jim!]

I saved money in that it was free and I didn't have to pay for things like Antivirus,etc (Although when I used Windows the free programs available were fine). As for time, no. I've spent a lot of time on Linux just for the sake of learning and understanding it. It was well worth it though. I guess It could have saved me time though since I don't game anywhere near as much as I used to - now most of that time is put into computer/geek related things. It also provided me with new career opportunities.

[Motomo]

Saves me boatloads of time not having to install patches for spyware and antivirus software.