>>54318523
Freedom

The design philosophy is that you are in charge so you can treat the system however you want to. With Windows and OS X you use it according to how corporate wants you to use it - if you don't like Cortana, you have to just suck it up or work behind your system's back because it will actively prevent you from trying to disable it. With Linux, you just remove it and install something else, because it is your computer and you're allowed to use it how you want to use it.

>>54318523
Linux is not an operating system. Linux is a kernel. The kernel on Windows is NT. Tech illiterates get this wrong every day.

>>54318565
If the kernel on Windows was linux, would you use it?

>>54318560
I haven't used Windows 10 yet, but on Windows 7 you can remove just about every program except like explorer.exe, so how's that different?

>>54318565
Linux to my knowledge is common shorthand to refer to GNU/Linux, I thought most people would know what I meant if I just said Linux

>>54318574
>If the kernel on Windows was linux, would you use it?
If the kernel on Windows was Linux, it wouldn`t be Windows anymore. It`d be something about Lindows or Windows/kLinux things extremely distinct and different.

>>54318576
There is a lot more that you cannot remove on Windows 7, most of the programs that come with 7 cannot be removed. 99% of people's computer usage sees no benefit from this, they could use something as locked down as iOS and not be any worse off, but if I want to replace the calculator on my OS, I can't be running Windows or OS X because neither of those will let me.

So having choice is what makes it worth using.

>>54318705
Doesn't Linux come with a lot of utilities like that too?
I mean I always hear about the GNU Utils, aren't those core to the system?

>>54318716
It doesn't have to. Typically when you install a version of Linux the distributors will include the Utils because they assist with ease of running the system, or are a dependency for a package they wish to ship (like a desktop environment). However, like I said, if you don't want it, you can remove it. If for some reason you don't like 'ping', say it killed your mother or something, you can delete it from /usr/bin and it will be gone from your computer.

Other people being able to verify that the software only does what it is supposed to is useful for you, even if you don't have the skill to do so yourself.

>>54318747
>say ping killed your mother or something
no but my uncle was killed by a mailer daemon

I like that, but couldn't you break something that way?

>>54318774
Yep, you totally could.

>>54318565
Shut up autist you know what be means.