Oct 1999
Soft Serve Direct
Box 389, Magrath,
Alberta, Canada T0K 1JO |
Phone (403) 388-4332
Fax (403) 758-3505
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 inux
.. friend or foe?
For the past several months I have noticed a proliferation of articles hitting my
desk(top) re: the Linux operating system. The main theme in many of these articles is that
it is a better, cheaper (free), more robust operating system than Windows 98 or NT. So, I
tried it out on a DemoPC Pentium II 266 system I had sitting around. I partitioned half
the 2.5G hard drive for Windows 98 and left the other half for my Linux test.
Hurdle # 1: Linux is freeware distributed under and open source concept called the
OpenGNU license (each user is free to use and modify or enhance source code as needed and
then release it back into the Linux world .. just not to resell it to others. Most of the
development work is done by volunteers across the world. The program is free for the
taking from various FTP sites .. but is is rather large 100M+ and whoa, there is not just
one current version distributor. There are about a dozen flavors to choose from .. Red
Hat, Mandrake, Debian, Suse and various other distributions (see www.linux.com/getlinux for a taste). They all
are based on the Linux kernel but add in various utilities and enhancements. Since I had
no idea which one is "the best" I decided to select the most popular (at the
moment) - Red Hat 6.0 .. Each company will provide you with a CD-ROM version of this
release ('distribution' in Linuz lingo) at a modest cost ($20-$75, depending on the number
of CD's and extras) but you can also grab it for free via the internet. I had some
50 hours of internet time to kill before the end of the month, so I downloaded 12 hours at
56K onto my Win98 hard drive.
Hurdle #2: I don't speak UNIX or Linux. I found the documentation to be less than
useful at first because of all the assumptions made. When an error message popped
up, the online documentation invariably instructed me to get my system administrator to
fix it. So they were just telling me to go talk to myself. On the other hand, there
is tons of webpages with HowTo's and Beginner pages (sometimes too many to start reading).
It just made me feel less than intelligent as I had no idea how to set up a userid or
change passwords or assign security levels. Linux didn't help by using arcane commands to
chmod this or grep that. Luckily, once installed, the user is shielded from much of that
stuff by the pretty X-Window applications.
Hurdle #3: I never could get my S3 video card to work with the X-Window applications
that were included with Linux (Gnome and KDE - more new names, fun). Driver support from
manufacturers is minimal. Somebody somewhere may have the right driver, but I found it
much easier to swap in an ATI AGP video card. Once that was done, I was able to actually
see something other than a DOS-like prompt (except in the foreign Linux language).
Hurdle #4: Applications are free. OK. But once you download them you have to perform
silly rituals to compile and use them. I still have little clue on how to tar or gunzip. Netscape
for Linux was installed with the Red Hat distribution. When I first tried to use it, the
program started up and said that it couldn't find anything on the internet. So .. how doth
one dial up his or her ISP? After another search, ponder, and pray episode, I found a
particular HowTo document that had me sign on as the root user, create various
initialization files and set permissions so that eventually it actually picked up the
phone and dialed out.. Cool. Later I found a much more sophisticated (Windows like -
easier to use) Dial Up Application that ran under the KDE desktop. But I still had to
re-install the appropriate KDE programs first. They were not part of the default Red Hat
installation. Corel permits a free download of the WordPerfect 8 program for
Linux and Sun has a MS Office
clone suite also just being given away for individual use. I have downloaded them
both, but have not yet been blessed enough to figure out how to install them. I think I
will sleep on it.
In conclusion. I have enjoyed my Linux foray so far. I probably need to acquire a
manual and / or a CD distribution to make much headway (in my spare time). I would only
recommend it to a more experienced usesr who can forgive the still rough edges in
learning, installing and operating it. Once installed (a plug for a packaged PC with it
preinstalled and tested), it allows you to run many standard business (and free)
applications (e.g. Word Processing, Internet Browsing). Unfortunately you will be limiting
your hardware and software options somewhat (at least in the short term). That game you
want to play or accounting program probably won't be designed to work under Linux. On the
other hand, there are a surprising number of Linux alternative programs that can do much
the same work. I think it will come. It has potential. It probably is not for everyone,
yet.
For more information, check out the links below:
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