Computer Software: Linux serves up a system for peanuts

Microsoft be warned.

It makes geeks smile and NT admins dread their jobs. Engineers want it, but their IT managers don’t always get it. An operating system whose time-tested, track-proven existence has just this year taken the world by — a refreshing breeze?

Its success lies not in high-level corporate scheming nor elaborate, multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns, but instead, in its grass-roots origins and subsequent weed-like spread to global recognition and unprecedented acceptance.

In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a student of the University of Helsinki in Finland, began a project to explore the 386 chip on his computer. Through a university class, he became interested in UNIX and worked in Minix, a small UNIX operating system. Unsatisfied with Minix, Linus began development of the kernel (the heart of the operating system) that eventually became the Linux operating system.

The history of Linux is closely connected with the history of the Internet. From the beginning, Linus posted his ideas and the progress of his project to newsgroups on the Internet. Other students and software engineers quickly became interested in what he was doing and were excited by the chance to work on the source code of an operating system themselves.

Linux grew with the contributions of fellow programmers around the world into a full multi-user, multitasking operating system. Developed under the GNU — meaning GNU is not Unix — general public license, its source code is freely available to everyone, and Linus and thousands of other programmers around the world continue to work on the Linux kernel daily. Linux is as much a philosophy as an operating system.

Secure, robust, stable

Companies such as Linuxcare (www.linuxcare.com) offer toll-free telephone, e-mail, and Web support for Linux. And Linux can run on nearly every computer on the planet. Among Linux distributions, Red Hat (www.redhat.com) runs on Intel, Sparc, Alpha; SuSE (www.suse.com) runs on Intel and Alpha; Caldera Systems (www.caldera.com) runs on Intel and Sparc; and Terra Soft Solutions (www.yellowdoglinux.com) runs on Apple PowerPCs and IBM RS/6000s. A version of Linux even exists for the Amiga.

While Windows NT retails a few hundred dollars per license, the basic Linux operating system is most commonly sold for $35 and may be installed on an unlimited number of machines. Best of all, it can be downloaded for free. IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Computer, Compaq, and SGI all offer or support Linux in one fashion or another, some publicly ousting Windows in sheer frustration and others providing Linux as an alternative pre-installed operating system.

Linux as a server

Linux will turn your doorstop Intel 486 or Apple 7600 into a robust proxy or e-mail server. With a Linux server commonly running for 12, 18 or 24 months without failure, you might actually have to add a new drive before you have to reboot. I consider it to be the best of UNIX and the open source movement.

All of the code is available to everyone. Any 14-year-old genius can plug away at the kernel, add support for a new mouse or Ethernet card, and submit it back to the development community for likely inclusion in the next version release. Viruses? Security holes? These have seldom been a problem. And when they pop up, the developer’s community is so active, so quick to respond, that patches are typically made in a matter of hours and shortly thereafter available to everyone in the world — for free.

At the office

Linux has gained international recognition as the ultimate operating system for Internet service providers, intranet/networking servers and software development. Linux is also being used by companies such as Digital Domain for the rendering of the special effects in “Titanic,” and BellSouth; the U.S. Postal Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, numerous government and private research facilities, and NASA have all turned to Linux.

Linux can read and write to Windows and Mac OS-formatted drives. It can simulate Windows and Mac OS file-sharing protocol and has been demonstrated to be the fastest Windows printer server in the world ( Ziff Davis, “The Best Windows File Server: Linux!” www.zdnet.com/sr/stories/issue/0,4537,2196106,00.html).

In your home

With hundreds of free applications on board, any user can access Linux distribution CDs, programs such as Gimp (a free near equivalent to Photoshop), Netscape, the KDE Office Suite, and an MP3 player. Products such as Applixware and StarOffice provide the amenities of Microsoft Office with similar word processors and spreadsheets, import and export cross-platform functionality.

Games abound with recent porting efforts by companies such as Loki Entertainment Software (www.lokigames.com). The home user market is definitely the last to be approached by Linux companies, but several major home user-software-development firms are now preparing to port their products to Linux.

It’s not just for geeks anymore

There was a time when you had to know hundreds of abbreviations, directories, permissions and commands, all entered through a command-line (text) interface in order to administer the system. While this is still the case, and will continue to be the most effective and rapid means of working on a Linux box, the graphical environments are gaining performance, intuitive presentation, and functionality.

The Linux installer has plagued new users for several years, offering a DOS-like text or graphical interface that is typically frustrating and requires a solid understanding of drive specifications, monitor type and partition requirements. However, in just the last month, Caldera has created a new graphical installer that bares a strong resemblance to the established “Install Wizard.”

Corel is working on a graphical installer for their new Linux distribution, “Corel Linux” (linux.corel.com). And we at Terra Soft are building a graphical installer for our Yellow Dog Linux “Gone Home” distribution. Even Red Hat has announced redevelopment of their now-standard, although somewhat antiquated, installer that is the basis for many other Linux distributions.

With the introduction of simpler installation, it is becoming easier for folks who have never worked with Linux to install, configure and use it on a daily basis. The graphical user interfaces (GUI) differ from Windows and Mac OS in that they don’t lock the user into a defined set of styles. Not only are the colors, highlights and backgrounds defined by the user, but also the shape of the windows, the contextual “look-n-feel” and even the transparency of the windows themselves, allowing the background to pass through the foreground for a softer, more personal interface.

Whether you need a rock-solid, lightening-fast server, a stable office desktop, or a place to play some games or hack at kernels, Linux may be the next operating system for you.

Kai Staats is CEO of Terra Soft Solutions Inc. of Loveland.

on Facebook on LinkedIn