Free as in Free Speech not free Beer explains that you are free to modify, change, express yourself in code, however you want, with the operating system regardless of how you obtained it, and freely distribute. You can "buy" linux, and in commercial cases, you HAVE to for a bulk license (which is part of how the largely non-profits who code Linux make their money), but you also can download it free from the internet either in the form of a distribution or even piece by piece yourself to compile and run on your machine(s). A lot of times when I explain "Free" to business people, they don't quite understand the somewhat floating nature of Linux because to them, you make an operating system, you want compensated for your work, and therefore you should make money from it. One of the largest misconceptions about FOSS (Free OpenSource Software) is that these people are either hippies who don't value money (some are, I'll admit). A lot of it you can donate a few bucks to the programmers or evangelize it's usage for commercial purposes because what you pay for with a enterprise linux situation is the freedom to alter the entire ecosystem to your environment - not the other way around as it is with say, the Microsoft ecosystem.

That said, it's not essential that you understand that above, but so many people I talk to when I bring up that I use Linux have a hard time understanding how I could be running a "complex piece of software" for "Free". Truth is, Linux is not relatively complex in and of itself. It's a KERNEL - the center nucleus of the operating system - and a distribution is a collection of programs and software (usually also Free OpenSource Software or "FOSS" for short). The distributions built around it (Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat, and derivatives) are the operating system proper, and each one handles a little differently.

Linux Distributions are beautiful because if you don't like one, you can find another you do like. Some are modeled to resemble commercial OSes a little bit, while others are just their own thing. You're not committed to just ONE way of doing something. Even distributions themselves can offer multipkel variants of that distribution depending on the preferred user interface, such as Linux Mint having Cinnamon, MaTE, and XFCE interfaces depending on what suits your use-case the best. You can even get Ubuntu commend-line driven like DOS from the get go (what Windows calls a "core" installation in the Server world).

But it's 2026, LInux has come a long, long, long way. But for sake of breivity, we are going to take one of the most popular distributions, and the one I use personally - Linux Mint - and show how it works.

One of the reasons Linux Mint was so successful as a Linux Distribution, specifically the "Cinnamon" interface version, is because it follows the GUI design of Microsoft Windows to a degree. You have a start button on the lower left, a taskbar-like area where programs that are active show up, and their icons can be pinned to it. You have a system try type area further towards the right with clock/calendar/printers/bluetooth/other things, and a date/time clock/calendar on the far right. Then you have the desktop with shortcuts and links on it.

BUT, this differs from Microsoft Windows greatly. First off, the amount of user modification allowed by the GUI is incredible. You're not limited by pre-determined rules set by Microsoft. However, this is advanced level. It also differs in that it's non-intrusive. Updates come to a shield icon in the taskbar - that's it. Now "Please wait while we update your computer..." all of a sudden, no prompting "restart now or later". No advertising.

Also, just like Windows, you find your programs inside the menu on the lower left corner. Those programs can be found by typing the name, function, or purpose of them.

Some programs also still exist with Linux Versions. REAPER (Digital Audio Workstation), STEAM, DosBOX, SCUMMVM, FCEUX, ZSNES, STELLA, OBS, VLC Media Player, and many others, are easily obtainable in Linux versions. Heck, even my old DOS Pixel editor program Graf-X II has a Linux port!