I was recently reading this artcle [lockergnome.org] and this article really annoyed me as I am a rather large supporter or open source, free software, and of course Linux. Linux is still of course behind Windows and OS X, but over the past couple years, it has truly become a viable operating system for the desktop and even the laptop.

My main complaint about this is that it's filled with all these half-truths.

It first starts off complaining about application compatibility with Linux. The truth of the matter is that many applications have a very good open-source alternative. And if you ABSOLUTELY need to run a Windows-only piece of software, wine does a decent job of running most pieces of software. Yes, there are some truths in compatibility problems, but the author of this article over-exaggerates the problems to the point where he makes it sound like EVERY piece of software can't be run under wine. I would've really chewed him a new hole if he complained about Microsoft Office not working on wine with OpenOffice gaining stock value in my eyes.

The second thing he complains about is the command line. Yes, Linux is still heavily based on the command line, but at the same time, more and more tasks can be easily done without even opening a terminal. GUIs and point and click functionality has been increasing in Linux distros to make configuration tasks simpler for the novice user to understand and use, and for the more advanced user, the terminal actions aren't removed, just hidden underneath the surface.

He talks about hardware support and lack of official vendor Linux drivers. Hello? Linux has such a great community that many produce great drivers for multitudes of old and new hardware that may very well end up being better than anything the companies could produce themselves. I myself have had very few hardware problems on any of my computers running Linux, most of the time, all hardware was found and installed just fine under Linux.

DRM. One word that pisses off many upon many a tech user. Yes, sometimes Linux has problems reading DRM'ed content, but so do Windows and even OS X. Problems with DRM are the root of an inherent flaw associated with DRM, and one of several reasons why I hate DRM. Saying Linux doesn't work with DRM is like saying Windows Vista doesn't work with my Pentium 2 processor, its absurd because DRM may not work period, with ANY operating system.

He complains about the saying "Ubuntu just works". I can partially agree with him on this one as Ubuntu may or may not work out of the box. But I will say that he again overexaggerated his point. With the exception of my latest desktop, EVERY computer I've tried to install Ubuntu on has worked right out of the box, with the only thing needing to be done is to install the official nVidia drivers which just took a couple mouse clicks. In fact, Ubuntu recognized all my hardware, whereas Windows XP and Vista needed at least a half-dozen drivers to be installed separately. I was even able to get Ubuntu running on my old Dell Inspiron 4000, wireless and all. My latest desktop does show that sometimes there are hiccups, but at the same time, all problems I had with it were solved with Ubuntu 8.04.

Making the switch to Linux is not something that one can expect to do in an hour, but it does not take months to set up either. In maybe a couple of days, I think even a new user could learn his way around. I would reccommend it to anyone, but at the same time, pushing it on someone is not the best way to spread Linux. If you do want to help someone switch to Linux, make sure you help them as best you can, but also let them do things on their own, that's how people learn, from hands on learning and experimenting.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to bash Microsoft or any other operating system for that matter, I just think that articles that spread these half-truths aren't helping anyone or anything.

Tags: opensource, linux, ubuntu

So many people can get caught up in the operating system war that they may forget that multiple operating systems can coexist side by side. Many times people are so pro-Windows, or so pro-Linux, or even pro-Mac that they believe that their operating system has to be the end-all winner in the computer world.

Ubuntu just 2 weeks ago released their first version of 2008, Ubuntu 8.04 keyed Hardy Heron. I now have it installed as the primary and only operating system on my file server and have it set up for dual booting on my desktop along with Windows Vista. So far I have nothing but kind words to say about it as it has run very smoothly for me. In fact, it's the first version of Ubuntu that installed properly and just worked on my new Desktop hardware that I got back in December for Christmas.

My server since switching over to Linux from Windows has only ever really used Ubuntu starting out with 6.06 and then 7.10 and now 8.04. For me, it is stable, efficient, fast, and properly integrates with my entire home network pretty much flawlessly. It is the only operating system to date that I've worked with that can reach 30 days of uptime without a restart and still work without hiccups. I've even got it up to 100 days before and it probably would've lasted longer had my hard drive not died and my need to get into the box. And now that whatever issue my desktop was having with Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10, has been fixed in 8.04 so it now "just works" on my desktop too. In fact, as I've said earlier, if it wasn't for games, I'd be booted into Linux a lot more than I am now.

This gets me to my point, Ubuntu, whether you like it or not has catapaulted Linux into somewhat of a mainstream operating system. Yes, it will probably never get ahead of Windows, and with how Mac OS X is growing, it will probably stay behind Apple as well, but does it really matter what percentage of the market share Linux gets?

Open source advocates and the Linux fanboys would say that it does, they tend to want Linux to win completely. They want to see Microsoft pretty much rot in hell. They end up so caught up in things that they fail to see that both Windows and Linux can coexist. And what would these fanboys say to those who want to play the latest and greatest computer games? Yes there is Cedega and Wine, both of which can do pretty decent jobs at running a lot of Windows games, but not all. And to get some of them to work can require a significant amount of tweaking and careful configuration that some users may not have time to do, or simply may not be saavy enough to do.

While I would love to see Linux gain market share, I realize at the same time, that at this point in the game, Linux can be very tricky for many to use. Yes, Ubuntu makes the setup and installation quite simple that a lot of people could have success in doing it, but what about trickier issues that may arise? For the most part, I have had a good deal of success with driver support out of the box for my hardware, but what about those that may have some hardware that doesn't have proper driver support? The "easy" to set up, just got a lot trickier, even on Ubuntu. Sure, the Linux gurus and even those with only moderate experience would probably be able to solve those issues, but what about the "even you mother could use it" crowd? And this is where Linux still has its pitfalls, on the surface, Ubuntu is very easy and very smooth, and a lot of people may never have to get into the nitty gritty of the operating system. Even most configuration will work fine using the GUIs that now exist. But not everything goes that smoothly which is what can make Linux tricky.

Ubuntu and Linux in general need to be able to improve upon its base and allow for those trickier situations to be handled in a more "ease-of-use" manner so that more of the general users can figure it out. Linux has a good group of followers and many I've found when going to message boards and forums for support to be very friendly and helpful to help me solve the problem, but not everyone wants to have to go there because a lot of solutions can require some heavy terminal useage that may scare the non-geek crowd.

In the end, as much as I hate to say it, Linux is not for everyone, at least not yet. It is becoming a better alternative to Windows than it was say 5 years ago, but it is still not completely ready for mainstream useage yet. Us Linux fans can only hope that it steadily improves, where maybe one day, it will truly become a viable alternative to the ever-prominent Windows operating system.

Tags: thoughts, linux, opensource, windows, ubuntu

Of late, Linux and open source applications have started to rise in popularity. The most noteworthy have been Ubuntu and of course Mozilla Firefox. Both are superb products that many people, even those not entirely familiar with open source have taken up using. Firefox even more since those glued to Windows can still use it in lieu of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. There are many advantages to using open source software and here are a few examples of individual apps and/or OS' that add to that.

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox has started to really cut into Internet Explorer's market share over the past year or two, particularly in Europe. While IE still is the highest used browser, Firefox's market share has been steadily increasing. According to marketshare.hitslink.com, Firefox accounted for 16.98% of the market share, with IE accounting for approximately 75.47% of hits in January 2008. While this does show that Firefox is still WELL behind IE, going back to January 2007, Firefox only accounted for less than 14% of browser market share.

Firefox brings a lot to the table. Despite some memory issues, Firefox has on average a lower memory footprint than IE. Right now, for me, with 6 tabs open, Firefox is using ~35MB of memory compared to ~65MB with one tab open in IE. Firefox also tends to be more secure than IE as well. Yes, Firefox still has its vulnerabilities, but Mozilla tends to be much better and faster at getting fixes out than does Microsoft. Firefox also has what seems like an endless supply of add-ons as well. Themes and extensions allow users to customize their browser as they want including appearance, improved RSS readers, UI additions, performance improvements, even a nice plugin to block those annoying ads that are seen on so many pages.

Ubuntu (and Linux in general)

Ubuntu is a popular distribution of Linux today that offers ease of installation and use that was relatively unheard of say 5-10 years ago for Linux. I have to credit Ubuntu for helping make open source more of a possibility for more people than before. It's installation program as well as what it offers and the general use of it make it relatively easy to use after using Windows for so long. But as I've said before, Linux is not Ubuntu, there are many other distributions out there that are great alternatives to Windows as well (Slackware, SUSE, Gentoo, Debian, Fedora, to name a few).

Despite what Microsoft wants to say, I still believe that Ubuntu works more "out of the box" than Windows. Take my desktop for example. When I installed Windows, almost every component needed drivers to be installed. With Ubuntu, all that needed to be done was to install nVidia's official drivers, but in all reality, the VESA drivers that are enabled by default would work just fine for the general user. While Linux does have some disadvantages with GUIs to configure settings compared to Windows, saying that it doesn't just work out of the box is an outright lie.

Linux in my opinion is more poweful than Windows for an experienced user, and even for someone with basic skills. The terminal, while very basic and not as pretty as say some user interfaces is the heart of a Linux system. You can do so much with the terminal that you wouldn't even need a user interface to begin with. In fact, a lot of Linux servers don't even have a graphical system installed, they're run purely from the terminal.

Linux is also much more customizeable than is Windows. You can make the user interface look however you want. You want to emulate the OS X desktop look, go ahead, Windows XP look? Yup, its got that too. For an experienced user, you can even customize the kernel to best run on your hardware setup, so it goes much deeper than just the user interface.

Another bonus is that of course, Linux is free. That's right, it doesn't cost a penny to download. Compared to the outrageous prices Microsoft is asking for Vista, this has got to be an added bonus. Oh yeah, and all features are available on one version of Linux, not the 10,000 different versions Microsoft has with Windows Vista.

With the exception of gaming, I have not found anything I can do in Windows that I can't do in Linux.

OpenOffice

OpenOffice is a full fledged office suite very similar to Microsoft Office. It can read and write in .doc files and in the upcoming OpenOffice 3.0 release, should be able to open and save .docx (Office 2007) files too. Instead of paying who knows how much for Microsoft Office, you can download OpenOffice for free. It has most of the features Office 2003 has and is available on Linux, Windows, and OS X (although with the current version, it runs through X11 and not natively).

Pidgin (GAIM)

Pidgin is an open source alternative to AIM, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo IM, and many more, all from one client, meaning fewer system resources being needed, as well as fewer programs needing to be open. Pidgin allows you to set up multiple accounts easily under one program, so you can talk to buddies on AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, whichever they and you use. The only limitation seems to be that if you need/want to use video or audio, you're pretty much out of luck, as of now anyway. Pidgin is available on Linux and Windows. On OS X, you can use Adium which utilizes the same library that Pidgin uses.

GIMP

GIMP is an open source image manipulation program similar to Adobe Photoshop. While arguably not quite as powerful, GIMP does provide many of the same functionality that Photoshop provides and at oh, I don't know, 100% off the price of Photoshop (aka Free). Despite it not being quite as powerful as Photoshop, it is quite powerful in its own right allowing you to do most of the same work you'd do in photoshop. It is available for Linux, Windows, and OS X.

While these only touch on a very small fraction of the advantages Linux and Open Source provide, it goes to show that in all reality, using Linux and open source applications can give you many alternatives, and advantages that Windows and other software just can't provide. Anyone have any other big examples of advantages of using open source and Linux?

Additional Thoughts: Someone on digg pointed out to me that while open-source software might be free, free software can be the proper term to use as it refers to much more than the price, but also the freedom to use, run, modify, and distribute the software as you so choose, and he made a very good point. Proprietary software can't give you that freedom by any stretch of the imagination, and definitely not legally as free software can.

Tags: linux, opensource, thoughts, ubuntu, firefox, gimp, openoffice, pidgin

I first started using Linux about 2 years ago, and if it weren't for games, Windows would be off my desktop entirely. But anyway, Linux has gone a long way especially with the help of Ubuntu and its ease of install and use. It's package manager (Synaptic) makes installing most software, quick and easy. So why don't more people make the switch? Well to be truthful, Linux is a great operating system, and while I would recommend it to almost anyone, I at the same time realize that it's not for everyone.

Many people say that Linux doesn't work "out of the box". This is the case sometimes, but does Windows work out of the box? This meaning that you install the operating system onto your computer. I know in Windows, it seldomly does so. Think about it, you install Windows...are all the drivers there? Does Windows recognize your network, sound, and video cards? Most of the time for me and Windows it's 50/50, some hardware is recognized, some is not.

Linux can be better, but not always as I found out a week ago when I was trying to install Ubuntu and Fedora on my new desktop.  However, with my old motherboard configuration, Ubuntu installed fine, identified all hardware and installed the proper drivers for it. So looking at my old configuration, one could say that Linux can work out of the box better than Windows, but in reality this is not always the case, especially with laptops as wireless drivers can sometimes cause problems.

Getting people to make the switch over to Linux is not always easy, and I would definitely never try to push the issue with someone who seems to have their heart set on Windows as pushing will probably turn them off to the idea entirely. But if someone seems interested in making the switch, help them out. Show them how to boot from a live CD, offer to install Ubuntu on their machine and set it up for dual boot. I only say Ubuntu because I feel its one of the easier distros to start out with. If you feel that there's a better choice for ease for a Linux newbie, feel free to go that route.

Set them up and give them the basic tour.

Once they're set up, show them how to do the basic tasks like get to a web browser, listen to music, and since I know Ubuntu doesn't support MP3 playback out of the box, it should be a good lesson to show them how to use Synaptic and you can walk them through what you're doing as you install the MP3 codecs. It may seem "DUH" to you, but as a newbie, it probably would be helpful, you can even let them drive (a.k.a. operate the computer with you behind their back). You can even show them these two websites http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html or http://www.linuxalt.com/ both providing lists of open source programs which are basically the equivalent (give or take) of the normal Windows apps. These lists might help them if they want to do something and are unsure how or what program to use. You can even show them how to search for the app in Synaptic if it's not already installed. This help will help them be able to hopefully work more independently later.

Show them support sites for other places they can go for help.

Most distributions have their own forums where people can go to for support. Show them these sites and bookmark them so they can come back to them for reference should they need to. If you went with the Ubuntu route, http://www.ubuntuforums.org is a good site for support forums. http://www.linuxquestions.org is a good place too which supports multiple distributions. Also be sure to let them know that Google is their friend.

Be ready to help them out and let them know they can ask you questions if needed.

If they've never used Linux before, they're probably going to have a lot of questions that they may not realize right away. Be prepared to answer them, and even provide support when needed. If you really want to get tricky, with their permission, set up an SSH server on their desktop so if you really need to, you can secure shell into their machine and help them out remotely, VNC could also be used to this end and may even be helpful as your friend should be able to see what you are doing from their screen to follow along.

Let them know to try things on their own.

Let them know that if they have a problem, that they should see if they can figure it out on their own first, but that you are still available to help them if they get stuck somewhere. Hands on experience can be a lot better than simply watching how to solve certain problems. But make sure they realize its not you shirking away from helping them rather trying to give them some more experience to grow on. Realizing that they solved something all on their own without any help from you will probably give them some confidence for future problems.

Wrap-up.

Like I said earlier, as much as us Linux and open-source fans love it, Linux is not for everyone. But if someone is interested, show them what it can do. But also be honest, don't tell them Linux can do something if in reality, it can't. We all like to think that Linux can do it all, and for the most part it can do a lot that Windows can and more in some places. But in other situations, Linux just can't truly match it, most notably with games, Wine can only do so much. Microsoft and Windows are going to keep the lead in market share, but that doesn't mean anyone should shy away from or give up on Linux.

I wrote this with respect to Ubuntu but many realize and have pointed out that Linux does not equal Ubuntu, rather Ubuntu is just a flavor of Linux. As stated earlier, from my experience, Ubuntu seems to be a good choice for starting out. If you feel another distribution would be better for them, feel free to use that one instead, and let me know, I'd love to have some other distros to try and see what they bring to the table.

Tags: linux, thoughts, ubuntu, opensource, freesoftware

So with the help of my friend John last night, I was finally able to get Linux up and running on my desktop, and what made it even better is that it is my first choice of distro, Ubuntu. Apparently my desktop wanted to be a laptop and the power settings and configuration it was loading wasn't reacting well with my motherboard causing the crashes. But with some help we were able to disable the power daemon and get Ubuntu to load normally. Only real side effect is that I don't have access to the higher power saving modes which really doesn't affect anything as its my desktop, not a laptop.

This is one of the things that drives me to Linux. Had this been Windows, I don't know how much John and I were able to do. The terminal is a powerful application which allows for far more configuring than does the GUI or the Windows GUI. What makes it even better is SSH. SSH is a secure shell that gives remote access to the terminal. I use it for my server all the time and was able to give John access to my desktop and the Linux terminal through SSH.

Linux still has a little ways to go to be a truly viable replacement to Windows for the non-technical user, but for those willing to try something new, troubleshoot odd little problems, and see the power of open-source, Linux is ready for the spotlight. It also helps to have great friends.

Tags: linux, ubuntu, thoughts, opensource, freesoftware