Linux is free in terms of code but not cost, often the side effect of free code usually equals free of cost. Windows and most Linux distributions are similar in the sense they are there to provide a operating system which can be used by someone.
Some distributions like Ubuntu or Linux Mint are there to be easy to use and would have no higher of a learning curve then if you started to use OS X for the first time.
Is Linux faster? Usually when preforming a task Linux will be much faster however this is also very based on the application then the platform it is running on. In terms of desktop we could not really compare as Linux has several desktop options some designed to be very lite like xfce, lxde or lxqt. Other are just as heavy of a desktop as windows such as Unity, gnome or KDE.
Software support is a hard topic to answer, Windows has more familiar software but Linux has just as many good application but 98% are only open source and requires a google search to find.
Hardware support is really a user opinion, over the last six years of using Linux I rarely have hardware issue anymore and I often find installing easier as the driver is usually in the kernel which means working out of the box. Other proprietary drivers can be found and installed with the hardware driver utility found on most distributions, these methods make it easier as you usually do not have to go to vendor's for driver support.
Under the hood Linux and Windows are completely different. Windows can be more complex and depending on the breakage will require a repair disc or fresh install to fix. Linux can often be fixed with a text editor. There are often more guides walking you through a process on Linux then Windows as well.
So am I saying Windows sucks? Normally the answer is always yes however I have been playing on Windows 10 TP lately and see that MS must be watching what we do in open source as many things have been implemented to include Intel (possibly more vendors in future) driver support out of the box. I have been very impressed with the stability of Windows and applications running in Windows since 7 through 10 TP which means MS has learned from their mistakes of Vista, ME and 98 (prior 2nd edition).
What it boils down to is user preference, whether that is what interface you want to interact with, your need for a license that actually allows you to own the software (GPL or BSD license), Community interaction or just being a plain old fashion fan boy.
To make a note of the difference in shells, cmd is not a fair comparison to any shell in linux other then sh. cmd is to powershell as sh is to bash. Powershell will keep most Linux users happy and instead of building 6 to 8 different shells MS will probably continue to build on powershell.
As for me I have been a pretty solid linux user for about six years now and it will always be my preference, however I find myself jumping on the Windows 10 TP machine more often and I just got a job with an IT department for a company which is 100% a Microsoft shop and often find it easier to just use the Windows machine for work then my Linux box.
, I'm curious about the differences between those two operating systems. I know some things about the Linux operating system, but I've never tested it. Is it really free , open-source , faster than Windows ...?
