 If you've watched the channel for any amount of time, you know that I think Linux is amazing. I'm pretty sure that the channel name probably gave it away. But there are certain things that I think that Linux excels at even beyond the things that I normally talk about. And one of those things is saving people money. Now, I know what you're thinking. Matt, how does Linux save me money? It's free. I mean, obviously, that's one way it saves me money. But outside of that, it's not actually actively saving me money. Is it? Well, kind of. So today, what I thought I'd do is talk about a few ways that Linux actually saves you cold, hard cash. So let's go ahead and jump in. So the first one is probably the most obvious. And that is that, as I said briefly in the intro there, Linux is free. You never have to pay for it. If you are fairly new to the computer using experience and you just say upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11, you're probably thinking, well, Windows is kind of free, too. Well, see, the problem is, is that it's not actually true. Somewhere along the line, you paid for Windows, even if you don't remember doing it. Now, I'm not saying you got drunk off your ass somehow and forgot that you went and bought a license for Windows. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that somewhere along the line, the cost of that Windows license was either baked into a computer that you purchased or you just happened to have a Windows license that happened to have been purchased a long time ago. So you bought Windows 7 or you bought Windows Vista or something like that now. I know I'm going to age myself a little bit, but there used to be a time when you went into a store, like an actual brick and mortar physical store where you could, you know, see grass along the way and there was trees in the parking lot and stores. You'd go into a store and you'd buy a disk that had Windows on it. They come with like a 16 or 18 or whatever digit code that you'd have to type in in order to actually use Windows. And you had to buy that thing and usually it was around $130 to $200. It was pretty expensive. This was long before the idea of buying a manufacturer's license even came into existence. So somewhere along the line, the point is you paid for Windows, whether you paid for it with a key, you know, that you bought or it came included in the price of your computer. With Linux, you never have to pay. Okay, it is 100% free as in beer. It's also free as in freedom, which is awesome, but it's also free as in beer. Now this is really important because it just means that you can download Linux and put it on anything that you own in terms of hardware. You can do that. You don't have to pay and you don't have to ever pay for an upgrade. So if sometime in the future, Microsoft decides to update to Windows 12 or Windows 13 and they decide to start charging in, which probably won't happen, but they could. That could be something that you had to pay for. And if you ever buy a brand new computer again, you're likely paying for a license of Windows, even if it's just baked into the price with Linux from update to update, everything is free. So that's the first one. The second one is actually the one that I think is the most important. And that is that Linux enables you to use your hardware longer. And this one is actually too full. The first one is that it's allowing you to use your hardware longer, meaning stuff that you've already owned. So let's just say in 2012 or so, you bought a laptop. That computer very likely is not going to ever see an update to Windows 11. It just does not have the hardware to run Windows. Windows is not only fairly intensive when it comes to resources, but it's also fairly restrictive on the hardware that it will run on because of security and all this nonsense that Windows and Microsoft have enabled. With Linux, you don't have that problem. I guarantee you, if that computer still turns on and runs decently well, you can put some version of Linux on there, whether it's a 32 bit operating system from 10 years ago or something like MX Linux or even Linux Mint or something like that. Something that runs with low resources and is meant for slower or older hardware. You can definitely find any number of distros that will run really, really well on it. And basically what that means is that you can use that computer for far longer than what you would if you were lying on Microsoft for updates. Because eventually, if it hasn't happened already, Microsoft will stop updating that version of Windows. That means no more security updates ever. So by using Linux, you can use a piece of hardware for much, much longer and stay secure while doing so. As I said, this point here is to fold. And the second part of it is that it enables you to use hardware that is older from someone else. So let's just say you need a laptop and you don't have a lot of cash. You can go on eBay, find yourself a $200 or $150 Lenovo ThinkPad or something like that. Have it sent to you, put Linux on it and that thing will last you a year, two years, maybe even longer. And specifically with those Lenovo ThinkPads, those things are very repairable. So if you were to get one and say the keyboard was bad or it needed a new screen or needed a new trackpad, those things are so popular that it is very easy to get parts for. Turns out that older hardware usually is more repairable. So not only can you put Linux on that thing and have it extend in terms of actual software support and performance because Linux runs with less resources, but it also allows you to buy parts for that thing and upgrade it and prolong its life in terms of hardware as well. So that's the second point. And I think, again, as I said that that one there is the most important one. So the third one is that Linux requires less electricity. Now this one here is very subjective. It's really going to depend on how you use your computer. If you have your computer on all the time and it's running high intensive graphical processes all the time, it doesn't really matter what operating system you're running. That thing is going to suck in juice like it is the most delicious drink ever. But on the other side of that, if you just use your computer like a normal person, like you just know how you have it on during the day and you just do normal things with it and you're never really taxing your hardware whatsoever or even if you are just for a little while, Linux tends to use less resources over time and less resources means that the CPU is running less or a lower frequency more often your GPU is running less or to lower frequency more often the fans are running less you get the idea the less those things ramp up to their highest capacity. The more you're going to save in terms of electricity and like I said, Linux tends to use less resources overall than Windows does. For example, you can even find the most high intensive Linux distribution out there. It's going to run you at about a gigabyte of memory out of the box. That's an average right that's and that's very rare these days that you get close to that gigabyte threshold. And remember that memory is really only only one metric. But there is that that's about the highest you're ever going to see on a Linux box out of the box at idle with Windows. Now again, this is average. You're going to look at between two and three gigabytes of memory out of the box at idle. And that's really going to depend on any number of factors really. If you're using a version of Windows that came installed on your computer, you're probably having a whole bunch of stuff running in the background. You have pirate software and, you know, synaptic drivers and God knows what else. All of that stuff plays a role in how much resources Windows uses out of the box. So again, it's something that is very kind of subjective on how you use your computer, what's running in the background, how your CPU handles certain processes and all this stuff. So it's not a 100% sure thing that when Linux is going to save you money when it comes to electricity, but I would be surprised if it's not the case for the vast majority of people. Now, again, whether or not that's appreciable is really going to depend on how you use your computer. Now the next one on the list is something that I may be wrong about mainly because of my bias against Windows. But for the most part, I don't think Windows has a very good community. Like if you want support for something that goes wrong on Windows, yeah, you probably can search for it online and maybe you'll find an answer. But getting actual help is a more corporate experience. You're supposed to go to Microsoft for support. And whether that's free support or it's paid support really is going to depend on what you're trying to do with Linux. While there is paid support out there, most of that is enterprise for the vast majority of people who just use desktop Linux. When it comes to support, all of that is community based. And what that means is that for again, unless you're like a corporation, you're never going to be paying for support probably ever. So anything that you need help with, you go to the community for support, you're not going to have to pay for it. And that's another way that you'll be saving money. This one is a little bit iffy because you probably aren't going to pay for it on Microsoft either, but you have a higher chance of paying for something when you use Windows in terms of support than you do on Linux. Simply because, you know, it's pretty likely that you paid for Windows somewhere along the line as I explained earlier. And that included some measure of support. So that is paying for support in some ways. But also if you're paying to extend the life of like Windows 7 or something like that, you know, that's paying for support. And there are obviously other ways that Microsoft charges money for support along the way. Now, obviously the vast majority of people who use Windows never have to experience those things. But I've also found that when something goes wrong on Windows, the vast majority of people don't solve the problem at all. They just nuke and pave or they do a hard reset on their computer and whatever and they just carry on. They don't actually look for support at all. Whereas on Linux, you're much more likely to solve problems and try to actually fix the thing that's going wrong. So support is another area where it's very unlikely that you'll ever have to pay on Linux or when using Linux. And finally, the last one is that you're less likely to pay for software on Linux. Now, this is a double edged sword because it means that you're not going to have the highest quality of software always. Like there's a reason why people will pay very good money to Adobe for the creative cloud stuff. That stuff is pretty well received when it comes to whoever uses it. It's really good stuff. And if you make money creating stuff, it's worth the price, right? On Linux, for the most part, you don't pay for open source software. Now, obviously those projects still need to make money in other ways. So they ask for donations or maybe they have a pro tier or something like that. But for the most part, if a project is open source, you can get that software for free. And that's another way you can save money. You can use things like GIMP. You can use things like Audacity. You can use things like OBS. These things are all free and open source. And that means that you don't have to pay for them. And like I said, if you have the means to do so, supporting those projects is a good thing to do, as I've talked about on the channel before. But when it comes to actually saving money using something free like GIMP or Audacity or OBS or Firefox or VIM or Kate or whatever, you can use all of these things. They're free. You don't have to pay for them. And that can save you some money when you might have to pay for alternative solutions if you use Windows. Now, that one, again, is a little bit iffy. I know I've said this quite a few of them, but a lot of these free software options that I mentioned are also available on Windows. So if you can't switch to Linux, maybe you have to have Windows for some reason for work or maybe there's a game that you just can't play on Linux or whatever, I'm not going to judge you because you use Windows. Some people just have to use Windows. That's fine. If you still want to have some of the benefits of not having to pay for software, a lot of this free and open source stuff that we have and enjoy on Linux is also available on Windows. You can get GIMP, you can get Audacity, you can get OBS, Firefox, VIM, all these things. They can get begun on Windows and you can experience some of the awesomeness that is free and open source software right there within proprietary land and be as happy as you can be there in Windows. So that is something that you can kind of keep in mind. If you can't switch Windows or you can't switch to Linux, you can still use free and open source software and that can save you some money. So those are the things that I thought of when it comes to how Linux and open source software can save you some money. If I've missed something, which I probably have, you can leave those thoughts in the comment section below. I'd love to hear from you. You can follow me on Mast on our Odyssey. Those links will be in the video description. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash Linux cast, just like all these fine people. Thanks to everybody who does support me on Patreon and YouTube. You guys are all absolutely amazing. Without you, the challenges would not be anywhere near where it is right now. So thank you so very, very much for your support. The way the economy is right now that it is even more important that I'd be grateful for everybody who does support me. So thank you for that. Thanks to everybody for watching. I'll see you next time.