The great Linux?

Dear Reader,

Have you heard of or tried Linux, its the open-source rival that will topple MAC and Windows and end your software bills… or so some claim. If you have a website and you got a good price on hosting you’ll almost certainly know what Linux is.

The project itself is credited to be the brainchild of Linus Torvalds, the Finnish student who authored the initial kernel (its like the brain of the operating system for those that do not know). Since its dramatic inception by the Free Software Foundation Linux has grown immensely in popularity and ability, there are now over 20,000 packages in the “distribution” named Debian and if your brain works anything like mine that seems a lot.

My main problem with Linux as a Linux user is that it constantly compares itself to Windows, it’s programs and compares user lifestyles and thought processes, but when a single problem arises Linux users are told “it’s not like windows” and “it’s not meant to be windows” or the worse still “noob”. It’s no surprise to anyone that has used Linux that it looks and feels for the most part like windows, most Linux “distributions” have a nice logo displayed just after the machine starts up, followed by a login screen or desktop. The average user can log-in find a web-browser, type a document or spreadsheet and will seem very much at home. The problem usually comes when the user wants the system to do something they are used to in windows like copy or paste text from say Wikipedia into a document. Now comes the first sign that “the free windows” is not all it’s cracked up to be, in some environments there is no clipboard so you cannot copy and paste and in others the keys have changed, Ctrl+C in Linux was originally used to end text-mode (correctly refered to as “terminal mode”) programs and for those of you that know windows well enough it’s a keyboard shortcut to the copy command in Linux it simply does not work this way unless the user “configures the system” to do so.

Other problems with Linux can be with running popular software such as games, in-house software or even software alternatives (even some free ones will not work). Often cited by Linux users are the arguments that “Windows doesn’t run Linux programs” or “Programs should be compiled natively” which are complete null arguments as Windows mostly refuses to acknowledge the existence of other operating systems. Microsoft as a whole simply does not care about Linux and certainly does not view its presence as a threat. It is not without mention that a few developers made a program called WINE for running some Windows programs which can now run some Games and programs and there are commercial alternatives to this product such as crossover office and Cedega but even these programs cannot run every windows program.

One thing I believe Linux deserves a special notation for is the claim of being Virus free or less vulnerable to attack than Windows which is true for the most part there are very few Linux virii and Windows virii tend not to run under Linux. When put under further scrutiny however in 2005 the amount of Linux virii doubled from circa 400 to circa 800 and without a trusty systems administrator these virii could quickly cripple any system hit or compromise security. Not to fear Linux is usually updated against security threats constantly which helps close down problem areas quickly.

Linux also has a variety of unique opportunities such as a concept of mounting which I can assure you cannot be avoided through neutering ones system and is a revolutionary approach to handling the “drives” of a system. One particularly great thing about Linux’s mounting system is it has no hard and fast limit on the number of disks that can be “mounted” (which is like being accessed like a library record). In fact Linux systems are so good at mounting they can also mount files like optical disc images for playing music,games,accessing photo’s and any other tasks that do not involve changing files. there are even plugins called scripts to allow the changing of files and this is one of my particular favourites of a Linux system.

Linux also has support from manufacturers such as Nvidia, Intel, AMD and ATI with their hardware. Most Linux users like to complain that they are not given the source for these drivers which is amazing considering Windows users do not have access to driver source code either. Most Linux hardware support is quite satisfactory considering the majority of people do not buy “bleeding edge” systems with all the latest rings and bells on them and that there are so many popular hardware manufacturers supporting Linux. Problems can however be encountered with printers, USB devices, wi-fi and mobile internet devices, MIDI devices and imaging devices such as webcams.

Overall I think this has been quite balanced, there are some gaping holes in areas I have missed but I hope you have enjoyed this blog, personally I believe Linux is an example of great Marketing, a reasonable operating system that competes with other non-free operating systems, but has delusions of grandeur. It is a little like a child’s toy to be played with when we want to play and when we want a nice interface with support and a familiar face we often turn back to out windows/mac PC’s

This is definitely an inflammatory issue so i’ll ask that if you want to flame me you first try it on yourself with real fire, great fun for me, send me a picture im not interested in how much you love Linux or how evil M$ is, this is a balanced argument and as a Linux user I feel you do more damage flaming me than I do with any views against Linux.

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