I recently made a change in the “flavor” of the “distro” I have use on my Linux computer. Distro is the short form for distribution, or a version of Linux. I have just installed an old favorite called Fedora.

It was originally called “Red Hat”. But Red Hat became a commercial distro and the free version changed the name to Fedora. It’s still a hat but not red.

I have long been using Ubuntu Linux with no problems but I thought it was just time to make a change. I used to “play” with many versions (distros) of Linux, just because I could.

People are beginning to take a look at Linux because of the fiasco Microsoft has created with Windows11 and certainly versions beyond. I despise the AI “copilot” features and also the remote cloud storage that is mostly beyond user control. Both are great features, but I want to have absolute control of how and when I use them.

Bill Gates and Microsoft seem to have a different agenda. I feel certain there is a lot of security in the process they deploy, but it also takes security totally out of my absolute control.

The lesson of keeping one’s fortunes in a “safe” commercial bank that could and did get robbed, then “failed” (ceased to exist) necessitated the creation of the FDIC Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Some people felt “safer” with their hard earned cash stashed under the mattress. The FDIC was created so people could have faith their cash in the bank was secure.

Federal deposit insurance protects your money in the unlikely event of a bank failure. Provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), it automatically insures your deposits up to at least $250,000 per person, per bank, and per account ownership category.

There is no such protection for data stored in the “cloud”. With data hackers a known and sometimes foreign and possibly domestic sponsored profession, there is no absolute internet security.

I can’t swear that Linux OS or any other internet connected device is absolutely “secure”. But it seems to me that Linux, because of its huge diversity of differing source code and no automatic common cloud data storing, is the safer OS for truly “personal” computing data safety.

Yeah, I still use WIN11 (for now) and also Apple MAC and iphone. But I feel the need to be super aware of all the risks. I always “weigh” those risks with what I am doing with the computer. It’s nothing subversive or criminal, but I am always aware it may not be totally private.

Bottom line: I am happy I have alternatives and the freedom to choose how my electronic data is managed and stored.