Let’s face it, after three decades of Mac vs. PC you already have a preference and are solidly in one camp or the other. Nothing is going to convince a diehard Mac user to switch to PC and vice versa.  Actually, both Apple and Microsoft benefit from the duel, because like Democrats and Republicans, the battle keeps both names in the ring and others out. Neither top contender wants to complicate matters and muddle the playing field with pesky newcomers. But like Libertarians and Greens, Linux and BSD are making strides and taking single digits of market share. For the undecided, those are the new names to know.

Like sports teams, computer platforms and operating systems have mascots. Linux (GNU/Linux for the purist) has a penguin and BSD a cute little devil. Mac, of course, has an apple—if you can call a fruit a mascot—and Windows goes even more still-life with a multicolored wavy square as its ambassador to the world. We can all agree that penguins and little devils are cute, so score one for Linux and BSD.

If mascots aren’t enough to get you to switch allegiances, consider this: Linux and BSD are free as are most of the programs than run on it. Most OS/X and Windows applications have similar free equivalents in Linux and BSD. There's also commercial software available that sells for tens of dollars, not hundreds or thousands.

Sure you can get pirated copies of most Mac or Windows software, but you’ll sleep better at night knowing you have legal copies. Every time you download key generators, cracks or serial numbers to make your illegal copies work you also run the risk of downloading viruses, trojans (sexy name, deadly game), malware and other malicious programs.

In deciding which to try, Linux or BSD, think of BSD as a car with a manual gearbox, precise and stable but it takes a bit more work to master. Linux, on the other hand, is more like an automatic, easier to get started, just press the pedal and go. Until recently, the monopoly power of Microsoft and Mac made getting a computer with another operating system nearly impossible. That’s no longer the case. Dell, for instance, now sells desktops and laptops with Ubuntu—one of the more popular Linux distributions—preinstalled and ready to rumble.