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Adventures in Linux.July 22, 2008 1:08PM
By Joe
Over the years and various jobs in and out of the IT industry I have gotten to use various operating systems for servers and clients. The two most common being Microsoft Windows and some version of Linux. Most places I have been too or worked for used Linux for their servers or had some at least, while Windows was generally the client software. Those that did use Windows as a server platform used them mainly because they where old legacy systems or they where just afraid to change.
Most people think that Windows is a better system to use for Client side because it is so easy to use, many times with out even trying the alternatives. I too fell into that hole of thinking windows was a better client system for everyone not just the basic user but for advanced as well. My perspective on this has changed over the past week. I feel Linux is the perfect solution for the basic user. Especially if they do no more than browse the web, email and chat. Those gamers out there will be heart broken because of the the lack of support Linux offers for gaming.
Most versions of Linux come with a software package called wine which will allow you to emulate windows to run many windows only programs, however this software is sometimes tricky to setup and get running properly especially if you have certain types of hardware.
In the past two years I have used three major versions of Linux, mostly for server applications but partially for my client system as well. Those releases are Red Hat 9, Red Hat Enterprise 3, Fedora (1,3 and 8) and Slackware 12.1.
Red Hat 9, well it is a really dated version of Linux. I only used it cause I needed a free operating system in a hurry and it was the only discs I had. It was really easy to setup and was able to get what I needed done that day. I later on used some third party tools to upgrade it to Fedora Core 1. The standard Red Hat releases stopped years ago after Red Hat went public. Apparently share holders did not think giving away free software and relying on getting money from support contracts was good enough and they would be right.
Red Hat Enterprise is a continuation of the Red Hat line from years ago that was spinned off mainly for corporate users who wanted more support and was willing to pay extra for it. Before you think that is what your company needs stop for a moment. 90% of the support you may need can be found by a simple Google search or by calling a local geek. You can also find groups on places like Facebook, Okurt, and MySpace that may be able to help you through. I have found, in general, that places that use enterprise are places that heard about Linux and decided to try it because it was the new thing to do in the IT world (when in fact it is the old thing).
Fedora Core 1,3 and 8 are really nice and cute systems spun off from the Red Hat line. They are basically the same as Red Hat Enterprise except free. They use different tools for updating software and is in general not as easy to use. Once you find the tools though it is pretty straight forward. It tells you which updates are available and asks you if you want to install them. However you are pretty much stuck to using the updates Fedora supplies because if you don't future updates might not work as expected (there are work arounds for this). This is a good system for clients because of how simple it is to install, and for small business users because of the ease of security updates even though they can be slow.
Slackware is one of the longest running lines of Linux around. It is one of the few that survived through the years basically unchanged, other than software updates. This is the first version I ever used in '96 and recently came back to it. The install, initially was not as easy as Fedora or Red Hat and some how I manged to mess it up the first time. however the second time through the limited menus made more sense and was able to get installed in less than 30 minutes. When it first boots you will not get anything other than a black screen asking you to log in. This is was the Linux that I remember. After logging in I quickly realized that Slackware did not follow the path that Red Hat did with pretty menus asking you to configure every little thing you have to do most of it manually. You can always use XWindows/KDE to get your self a nice and efficient GUI interface but you will find out quickly that you still need to do a lot of things in that little box called a terminal. Nearly all updates are done by hand configuring and compiling, but there is a tool called pkgtool (package tool) you can find many "packages" out there to install using this utility. It is much like a striped down version of the RPM (RedHat Package management). There are also a few utilities like Slapt-Get and Slackupdate you can install that work similar to yum and apt-get. I think you start to get the idea that Slackware is not for the inexperienced user. If you are not comfortable with the command line you should not use this unless you want to dive in and learn to do things with out the use of pretty menus.
All in all I have found that I can get most of what I need done by using free alternatives to most Windows Software. GIMP for Photoshop, Open Office and Koffice for Microsoft Office, Kate and Eclipse for development, FireFox, Pidgin and of course GMail for my Internet needs. At my current place of work there is a program we run to do most of the sales and building of products. The server it self runs off of linux and so does the client. Our windows machines run an application called No Machine (nice little app) to connect and run the program, since i'm running linux I can run it directly from an SSH terminal. Less over head and no emulation make the software less “buggy” and snappier. And of course Linux comes with OpenSSH. If you install the complete SSH packages you can do a lot with it other than just connect to other computers. On windows you need to download another application for it such as Putty (or its cousin, PuttyTray).
Lets not forget about the multitude of server applications as well. The most popular being Apache Web Server, Sendmail and Samba. Apache Web Server (httpd) is greatly responsible for the rise of the Internet, on of (if not the first) major web server applications out there. Sendmail does what it says, it sends (and receives) email. Finally Samba is the Linux equivalent to Windows File and Print Sharing.
If you are a developer, you will love the options available to you. C/C++, PHP, Perl and even Ruby are included with a normal install. Obviously windows only IDE's like Visual Basic and .NET will not be included. Between Kate and Eclipse and a little time getting used to them, you will be able to swing out some nice apps fairly quickly.
The only bad things I have found, for me anyway, is hardware support and software. Some hardware, especially laptop hardware is not supported out of the box. Meaning you will need to do some work to get full use of its features or even to use it at all. But with a little work getting it running shouldn't take too long once you find the right information. Lastly software support for windows programs is a pain. I have spent a couple hours searching for information on how to get World of Warcraft running correctly in wine with little luck. But so far that has been the only program I have had trouble with and it appears it is my hardware holding me up. There is a list on the Internet that has software tested to work or not work with the wine system.
UPDATE: Finally got World of Warcraft running in wine.
In conclusion, if you feel like experimenting and you are sick of giving Microsoft your money, you should try Linux, Fedora if you just want to give it a go or Slackware if you want to get down and dirty. There are also many other version available as well and feel free too take a look.