[SLUG] (FWD) An operating system alternative

From: Paul M Foster (paulf@quillandmouse.com)
Date: Mon Aug 06 2001 - 18:19:30 EDT


Here's the St Pete Times story I told you about earlier. After carefully
recording all my comments, he finally wrote the story. Mixed piece.

Paul

----- Forwarded message from gussow@sptimes.com -----

From: gussow@sptimes.com
Message-Id: <200108061315.JAA04233@zealous.cnchost.com>
Subject: An operating system alternative
To: paulf@quillandmouse.com
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 09:12 -0400

This St. Petersburg Times (http://www.sptimes.com) story has been sent to you from gussow@sptimes.com

Hi Paul:

Here's the Linux story. Thanks for your help.

Dave

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http://www.sptimes.com/News/080601/Technology/An_operating_system_a.shtml

An operating system alternative
By DAVE GUSSOW
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 6, 2001

        Paul Foster is a believer. Microsoft may have billions of
dollars backing Windows, but Foster is convinced that one day the Linux
operating system will challenge it.

        

        "We're not that far from being fully ready for the desktop,"
said Foster, president of the Suncoast Linux Users Group (<a
href="http://www.suncoastlug.org">www.suncoastlug.org</a>).

        

        Thousands of programmers around the world are working on Linux,
a system they say is more reliable and stable than Windows, which
controls more than 90 percent of the world's PCs.

        

        But in this David and Goliath battle, the Linux devotees need to
overcome the image that the operating system is only for geeks and
persuade average users that it's worth a try. To do that, it's mimicking
the hated Microsoft in some ways.

        

        The look of the PC desktop, or graphical user interface, offered
on versions of Linux "is very similar to Windows for a good reason,"
Foster said: The appearance will make it easier for Windows users to
adapt to the alternative operating system.

        

        As Microsoft gets ready to pump its PR muscle for the Oct. 25
rollout of the new consumer version of Windows, called XP, some
adventurous computer owners may ponder whether to upgrade, which will
require a new PC in many instances, or look at alternatives.

        

        Linux's grass-roots effort captured the fancy of many people in
recent years, although most of them so far have been techies who know
the fine points of computer systems and software code. It is an open
source product, meaning that anyone can contribute to the effort or
change it to fit his needs. It is available free, though companies such
as Red Hat (www.redhat.com), SuSE
(www.suse.com) and Mandrake (<a
href="http://www.linux-mandrake.com">www.linux-mandrake.com</a>) offer
versions (called distributions in Linux lingo) with additional software
and support starting at about $30.

        

        So with an idle, low-power, outdated and aged PC in the house, I
gave Linux a tryout. It shares some characteristics of Windows, not all
of them for the better: It balked at installation, wouldn't let me load
other software and used a language only geeks could love ("You must
begin a root partition to Linux native partition (ext2) for the install
to proceed").

        

        That experiment proved only that an underpowered PC will
struggle with Linux just as it does with Windows, and either machine can
frustrate the dickens out of you when it doesn't work. When I tried
again on a more powerful PC, Linux ran smoothly from the installation
forward.

        

        The first try was on a 5-year-old Hewlett-Packard with a Pentium
133 processor and a paltry 16 megabytes of random access memory. It's
not much, but it had been good enough to handle a teen's e-mail, chat
and occasional schoolwork on Windows 95.

        

        I reformatted the hard drive and tried to install the current
Red Hat version of Linux. It was supposed to offer a graphical
interface, meaning I would just have to click on choices during the
installation. Instead, I got only the technically dense text
installation and immediately ran up against the partition problem.
Whatever I tried failed, and the user's manual was little help.

        

        That meant calling in reinforcements in the form of Tech Times
columnist Jules Allen, who loves operating systems such as Linux the way
chocoholics love sweets. He couldn't get the graphical installation to
work either, but he easily maneuvered through the problem.

        

        The installation started, but didn't go fast. It took almost two
hours to complete, with Jules complaining all the way that I needed more
RAM.

        

        I pointed out, however, that one of the early selling points for
Linux was that it would work on older, underpowered computers. Checking
the Linux specs showed that to be a myth now: Red Hat requires at least
a Pentium processor and 32 to 64 megabytes of RAM.

        

        Once installed, Linux could barely move. Attempts to load other
software failed, with messages such as "CD-ROM could not mount . . . No
medium found" popping up on the screen.

        

        Jules couldn't figure out that one, and he persuaded me to give
it a try on an IBM ThinkPad with a Pentium III processor and 128
megabytes of RAM. For this attempt, I used SuSE's version.

        

        Installation was easy, with SuSE giving user-friendly directions
throughout. Once loaded, the desktop could pass for a Windows PC or a
Mac, with small icons to click on. The most noticeable difference from
Windows: Instead of a Start button in the Task Bar at the bottom of the
screen, Linux has a K button, which stands for KDE, the name of this
graphical version, and performs the same function. (Unlike Windows or
the Mac operating system, Linux allows you to change the user interface
while the underlying operating system stays the same.)

        

        I fiddled a bit with a word processor and a spreadsheet in
StarOffice, a free office suite of programs that works with Linux from
Sun Microsystems, a Microsoft rival. It worked okay, though I thought it
was a bit sluggish. I played a game or two -- no Solitaire was to be
found -- and just poked around.

        

        My reaction to Linux: It's interesting, but better for office
use than for the home. Eventually, home users would catch on to the
jargon, though many Windows users still can't decipher Microsoft's error
messages and directions.

        

        More important is that almost no mainstream software works with
Linux. Personal finance software is available, but it's not Quicken or,
not surprisingly, Microsoft Money. There are StarOffice and KOffice for
office suites, and there's Netscape for Web browsing. Linux users can
get Internet access, but they can't use America Online. Other than Linux
and StarOffice, most computer stores don't carry Linux software, which
can be downloaded from the Web.

        

        Last week, Dell Computer Corp. said it will stop selling
computers with Linux preinstalled because of low demand. It still will
offer Linux to corporate customers.

        

        Coming along are developments such as Wine, which will allow
Windows programs to run on Linux machines, but it's still not enough,
some experts say.

        

        "If we look at what drives people to select an operating system,
it's not the operating system," International Data Corp. analyst Dan
Kusnetzky said. "Almost always, the things that drive them to select
something is the availability of their chosen applications."

        

        According to International Data, Linux captured only 1.5 percent
of the desktop market in 2000. But it's in the business world,
particularly for the computer servers that work behind the scenes, where
Linux is gaining. It has a 27 percent share of the server market, up
from 17 percent in 1998. Microsoft held 41 percent of that market last
year.

        

        "Its best use at this point is on servers, but the application
category is filling out," Foster said. "The open source community is
working hard on office-type applications to make it more desktop
friendly."

        

        And consumer interest seems to be increasing. The Suncoast Linux
Users Group has grown from a handful of people in 1997 to almost 500
members now, Foster says. "There's a sizable portion of geeks, but I
wouldn't necessarily call them the majority," Foster said. "There are a
lot of retired people, and there are lot of newbies."

        

        For the adventurous, Foster recommends backing up a PC before
installing Linux. "Your safest bet is to take a computer that's not your
primary system and load it on and experiment with it," he said.

        

        Foster got into Linux after working as a programmer and getting
frustrated with Microsoft's products, which he called "too big and too
complex. They have 50-million lines of code and no one there knows what
it is.

        

        "I don't know that anyone at Microsoft has been overly concerned
about quality," Foster said. "You have to reboot your computer five
times a day. It's kind of insane. People have gotten used to it over
time. It really shouldn't be that way."

        

        At a basic level, operating systems seem to be mundane: They're
the brains of a computer, telling personal computers how to perform
basic functions and run programs such as games, Internet browsers and
word processors.

        

        But the operating system also can become a cause, a passionate
issue for many people, particularly those who want one that isn't from
Microsoft. The company has been judged a monopoly, using Windows to
squash competitors; alternatives such as Linux have become rallying
points for those opposed to prospect of a Microsoft-only world.

        

        Of course, those who aren't wedded to a PC have long had another
option. The Apple Computer faithful pledge allegiance to its proprietary
computers and its Macintosh operating system and sneer at Windows'
crashes and complexities. This year, Apple released Mac OS X (pronounced
10), a complete overhaul of its operating system that gives Macintosh
users a new look, more stability and additional features.

        

        Investors initially sent stock in Linux companies soaring, but
prices have retreated, along with some of the companies, as the economy
slowed. Eazel Inc. closed shop in May after failing to attract investors
to its effort. VA Linux Systems decided to stop selling computers to
focus on software and consulting.

        

        "We were probably trying to do too much too fast. Frankly, we
still have a couple years to go before Linux catches up with Windows,"
said Bart Decrem, an Eazel co-founder. "The reality is that Windows is
good enough for most people."

        

----- End forwarded message -----



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