Added Feb 2004

IBM's help in switching to linux
Actually this is more of a salespitch for webmin. It is a good tool and is free. But it is more oriented towards administering a linux system than quickly jumping in and using linux. It is well worth your time.

Linux Gazette is getting back to its old self with each article covering beginner to advanced material instead of concentrating on arcane minutia. If you gave it a miss it is now worth a second look.

Do you have this problem? For a longer than you want to remember people have been annoying you saying linux is better because of reason you do not understand. And you get the feeling they probably don't understand the reasons either as they can never explain what those reasons mean to you. I do not mean to downplay linux supporters but they often sound like poorly trained sales reps for Microsoft not quite knowing how to reach the customer.

Linux is an operating system like Windows. It is for many types of computers including all that run Windows and recently Macintosh. It is indesputably better than Windows for many technical reasons. But technically better does not mean it is better for everyone.

But what is an operating system. Microsoft has done fair job of convincing people it is a collection of basic applications such as a web browser, a media player and so forth. It is not. An operating system is only what permits applications like browsers and media players to work. The major linux distributions come with many times more applications than Windows.

I write this to help you decide if linux is for you without the hype and jargon rather and in my best effort at plain English. I have made the assumption you know enough about computers to be curious about or considering linux.

I am an advocate of linux so I will not invent fake pro and con comparisons. I started this for friends who would be unhappy if I mislead them. I am trying to generalize this to everyone. You have nothing to lose by reading this nor by trying linux as you will see.

For technical readers
I know anything and everything said about linux can and will elicit at least three corrections and alternatives. Please use judgement in contacting the author.

Let me start with something that should get the attention of everyone even those uninterested in technical reasons.

In everything mentioned, the operative word is free. Essentially everything for the home user is free. And for what little is not there is something just as good or better.

And there is one cost right up front. If you do not have both a high speed internet connection like cable or DSL (the usual linux distribution is 650 MB) and a way to create your own CD-ROMs you may have to pay a typical $30 for linux. If you can download it and burn your own CD-ROM you can get it free. If you have to pay the price you get one or more CD-ROMs (Redhat provides three with the current 7.0) and one or more thick printed manuals. I am certain there is a profit in the price but it looks very small to me when compared to the ten dollar CD-ROM only in grocery stores for near worthless games and no manuals.

Compare that to $100 for a Windows upgrade from Microsoft and Microsoft saying it can be used on only one machine. And if you bought your computer with Windows installed at most you got a very thin printed manual that is useless to you unless you have never before used a computer. And if you buy an upgrade you get something with even fewer pages and equally useless.

Linux upgrades are the same free or modest cost as the original and with an upgrade all of the additional free programs will also be upgraded. Everything comes as one package. If there is a new Netscape it will come with the new distribution. All the effort of upgrading programs is gone along with any separate costs of each of them.

If you have a friend with a linux CD-ROM borrow it or ask him to install it for you instead of paying for it. Unlike Windows, Linux distributions have no limitation on how many machines it can be installed. One or one hundred makes no difference. Or you can resell the disks if you like. The computer will never tell you to insert the original disk. You will never need it again. (Not quite true but you will understand why long before you need to reinsert the disk.)

If you do not know someone with the CD-ROMs, look for a linux users' group in your area and ask if they sell linux disks at their meetings. The price to you will be roughly their cost of reproducing the disks, a dollar or two a disk. Maybe they use the sales as a fund raiser and charge five dollars for the set.

What about the manuals, you ask? The manuals are only printed versions of what is on the distribution CD-ROM. And that material will be installed on your computer. Once you get used to finding and using the documentation on the computer the printed manuals will just collect dust. If you prefer computers over paper now you will never use the printed manuals.

And where do you get help if you need it? You go on the internet. And there your problem will not be finding help. There your problem will be sorting through more help than you ever imagined.

There are also dozens of linux newsgroups and several for each of the major distributions. There are newsgroups for every aspect of linux that are the same in all distributions. There are newsgroups for newbies.

Don't worry about being a newbie everyone was once and some parts of linux can be very confusing at first. Some things are even confusing to experts. Just try to pick the correct newsgroup. Read what is posted first to get a feel for what is covered.

When I was a newbie, and I still am in many ways even after a year, I could often get an answer to a question in a newsgroup in a shorter time than some people have said they were on hold calling Microsoft. I think they were exaggerating.

If you are happy with no more than came with your computer with Windows loaded and you only use it a couple hours a day, linux is probably not worth the extra effort of learning something new. But even then, today's linux distributions can be set up so that a first time computer user will be able to do every which can be done with Windows and maybe never notice he is not running Windows.

If you run your computer for more than a few hours a day you likely experienced the Blue Screen Of Death. Your computer stops working, the screen turns blue, gives an obscure error message and has to be rebooted. People who use linux tend to brag about how many days, weeks, months and in some cases years their computer has run continuously without rebooting. If the Blue Screen Of Death is a problem for you then linux is for you.

Why might you want to leave your computer running all the time? The Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence is one reason. You can help the SETI project find ET. The more time your computer runs the more searches can be made. There are other projects offering prizes and such for participation.

Even if you know nothing of computers you can install linux and in answering a few questions and saying yes to the graphics mode on start have it boot up looking very much like Windows. As a non-newbie you will notice differences from Windows but you will have the convenience of Windows. And today's distributions come with all the standard things which come with Windows and let you do all the things done in Windows.

An additional benefit is today's distributions come with two, three or more methods of handling graphics windows. If you do not like the feel of one you can try another. If you do not like the feel of Microsoft Windows there is no place to go but to a MacIntosh.

For example, all of your web surfing, email and reading newsgroups can be handled with Netscape that comes from with major distributions such as Redhat. If your main interest is the Internet you have all you need the first time you boot up your computer with linux.

But before you jump into it there is a problem. You need to do more than just installing linux to use your existing Windows bookmarks and mailing lists. And how to do that is beyond the scope of this article but will be in another article when I find the time to write it. So if you are not willing to start over you will have to manually copy the information.

All is not lost.
When you install linux it will be put on what is called a separate partition on your hard disk. Personally I recommend a second hard disk but you do not have to do that. The requirement for installing on a partition is usually 1 GB of free space minimum plus the space you will need for storing mail and such. 3 or 4 GB should do most people nicely. As 27 GB drives dropped under $200 in 2000 a new drive is the obvious best solution. And you can make part of it a DOS partition for Windows if it looks like to you like too much space for just linux.

You can make things hugely smaller than the above sizes. But for you first installation, particularly with one like Redhat, you are advised to use the graphical install routine and pick the workstation option and let it happen. After you have learned linux and decided what you want to do with it is when you want a proper custom installation. By that time of course you can simply delete what you don't want.

After you have done this when you turn on your machine you will be given a choice between Windows and linux. That means by choosing Windows you can continue to use Windows just as you always did and learn linux at your leisure. You are not committed to starting over with linux instantly. You could load linux and never use it and never know it was there except for the lost disk space.

Some distributions support installing linux under Windows as a Windows program. That will simplify things even more and allow you to switch from one to the other without rebooting. Eventually you will want to change that but when starting it is a fine way to go.

If everything is the same, why change?
If the Blue Screen Of Death is not a problem for you and if all you want to do are the common things there is no reason whatsoever. But if you want to learn something about the internals of a computer, want to do uncommon things, or just want to brag or need to do something unusual then linux is for you.

Internals
Unlike Microsoft which will charge upwards of $10,000 for the documentation on how Windows works, all linux documentation is freely available on the web. Enough of the information for the casual user comes with the distribution in one way or another.

To do something with what you have learned about Windows you have to spend hundreds of US dollars more for a minimum compiler and hundreds more on libraries to save you from having to reinvent the wheel. Every direction you turn you will find costs in the hundreds and in some cases over a thousand dollars just to be able to do more than the basics. And even compilers for the most minimal things cost in the tens of dollars. From the beginning Microsoft has had a business model of helping other people make money off of the users of its operating systems.

With linux everything you need to get started and several times more comes with the distribution. What does not come with it can be found on the web and what is on the web is free. If your goal is programming computers you can get started for zero dollars with linux.

For most people obscure programming languages like C and Perl are not for them. There are simpler languages available like Free Pascal, Python and others. There are some languages so simple they are considered dangerous in the hands of the inexperienced. And there are even simpler shell scripts.

Shell scripts are what Microsoft copied poorly in batch files. Shell scripting is a touch obscure at first but they allow the use of dozens of powerful programs that come with linux. When I say simpler I mean the power of the programs you can call are much easier to master than a language and a call to a library function which would do exactly the same thing. They are slower but for small jobs the difference between ten seconds and one second is not worth the huge added effort.

These programs run from simple (sort) to medium (grep) to difficult (awk) to absurd (sed) to use but the effort is well worth it. With just sort and awk an entire database program can be created that is good enough for personal use. But of course you would not create a database because there are several free ones for linux.

As to learning shell scripting, many years ago I wrote a program which ran to thousands of lines and took a couple hundred hours to write in a language I had used for years. I duplicated it and added another feature in a dozen lines of shell script using the internal programs in ten hours while at the same time learning to write shell scripts. I have been programming since 1967 but mostly as a hobby. I have never done it professionally. Your experience should not be too different from mine.

But when it comes to learning to use them first look on the web to see if someone else has already done it or something so close it is good enough or easily modified. No one using linux should ever have to start from scratch.

As of this writing the best search engine for finding things is Google. You can try it right now with the search term "shell script" and see if you think there is enough help in learning available. Try the same with anything else I mention here and see if you think it is enough for you.

In learning how to use these programs in shell scripts there are two important commands, apropos and man, to find what is already on your computer. Typing

apropos word

man program

Uncommon things
Of the uncommon things I can only give a trivial sample as there are hundreds of them which will come with the distribution. Another reason is that after a year of intensive use of linux and interest in all it contains I find new things every week and that is not an exaggeration. Occasionaly I find new programs when I mistype of a command.

wget This is a program which will allow you to copy everything on a website onto your computer. Why you might want to is up to you but it certainly is uncommon, perhaps there is a website with pictures you would like to have for your collection. If you have a slow connection you could download the website while asleep. Then you can then read the website with your browser in the morning as though you were on line. I have seen similar programs for sale to Windows users but never a free one.

There are other things to do with wget. One of the more creative was to use it to change the desktop background image every hour to the current sattelite weather image of the person's area.

lynx Lynx is a browser without graphics and runs in what linux calls a console which is about the same as a DOS window. Do you visit websites which appear to be exercises in including the greatest number of the most annoying animated graphics? Do you visit websites which should be selling magnifying glasses to permit you to read their text? Lynx is for you. Lynx is also available for Windows if you want to try it and see what I mean.

OK you like graphics. Try this once you learn the least bit about shell scripts.

# usage: def [word] goes to Mirriam Webster page of its definition
lynx "http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=$*"

From a console you type

def arachnid

Or would you rather pay for a CD-ROM dictionary? If you had to pay for linux this little trick recovered your costs.

joe Joe is what is called a stateless word processor. It comes with several state definitions such as jstar which makes it work like the old Wordstar and Qedit. Joe comes without cost. If you don't want to fire up a world class word processor you use some version of joe. This article was created with jstar. I also used lynx for the quick and dirty test of my html coding before testing with Netscape.

If you don't like joe or the options which come with it there are several other editors that come with the distributions. Everything from the obscure vi and emacs to the full featured word processor in Star Office that feels like Microsoft Word. Corel has released Word Perfect for linux. There is also Tex, harder to learn and use but putting Word and Word Perfect to shame and good enough to typeset anything from a romance novel to a textbook on advanced calculus.

wc and ispell While on the subject of writing these are two indepensable programs. The first provides a count of the lines, words and characters in a text file. The latter is a spellchecker. Unlike the ones people charge for in DOS and Windows this can go through dozens of files with ispell *. Also different is most developers use ispell for their specialized applications such that you need have only one personal dictionary for most applications. As the linux philosophy is software should be free there is no need for each person to make their application slightly different and incompatible with everyone else.

Why ispell when you have a spell checker? Because every rational programmer for linux uses it. That means every text program will use or can be set to use it. One personal spelling dictionary for everything. And there are utilities and libraries working with your personal dictionaries. Yes, you can have as many personal dictionaries are you wish. (At present the linux Netscape violates this rule for some unknown reason.)

napis a console program which does everything done by Napster but with an important difference. It is so fast and works so well it makes the product from Napster look like the poor copy.

Something Unusual
If what you want to do does not come with your distribution do not think you have to write it. In fact even if you are the hottest programmer around, first look to see if it is free on the web. Even if what you find is only close it will come with the source code which can save you hours of work.

There are websites like freshmeat, appwatch and tucows which run daily listings of newly released and updated programs.

There are websites such as linuxstart which archive literally thousands of links to specialized and obscure programs in addition to commonly used ones. If you just want a simple quick referenced period table or to visualize nucleic acid sequences linuxstart is the place for you.

If you are interested in all of the above and standard applications too you are still in the right place with linux. Some of the biggest names in the business are getting their feet wet in linux. Sun has made a free release of their Star Office and Corel has released Photopaint.

One thing to try to avoid with all the free applications is not to go wild and download dozens you will never use. That is a very strong temptation and one that took me months to overcome. On the other hand, if you are into something specific like graphics it is prudent to collect as many related programs as you can right away.

Star Office is designed to be 100% compatible with Microsoft Office. I have heard no reports of incompatibility. There is also a version of it for Windows so you can load both and continue work no matter which you have booted.

If you are familiar with Corel's Photopaint you can have it for free for linux. While Adobe has followed releasing the free non-professional version of Photoshop for Windows under another name, linux distributions come with the Gimp. The 1.x releases of The Gimp equal Photoshop in capability save for the professional printing capabilities. Adobe's free version also omits the professional printing capabilities. But if you do not need to create color separations for a print shop you have all you need to make home quality prints.

If all of that is not enough here is a technical reason to use linux. The same program compiled to run on both Windows and linux runs approximately twice as fast on linux. Windows itself running no programs at all uses 15-20% of your computer's processing power. Linux uses about 1%. In linux you can have programs running but unused and they will use less than 1% of your computer. In Windows unused programs use 2% and up. The reasons for this have to do with the way the two are designed.

If you are just using the common programs today's computers are so fast you likely will not notice the difference between the two. But if you do things that take several minutes to run under Windows you will notice the difference instantly. That is particularly true if like most people you have your browser and email open while you are working.

But if you would like to participate the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence then the Blue Screen of Death will prohibit the rational computer user from doing so. In fact you might blame the SETI project when the real problem is leaving your computer running over night. Linux will run for weeks for the average user.

There is a downside
The software that comes with hardware such as digital cameras and printers rarely include software drivers that will work with linux. That is changing rapidly as more people use linux. It is more likely your ISP uses linux than a Microsoft product right now. By the time you decide on linux, linux drivers may be standard.

The workaround to that is to search for free linux drivers before you buy so that you can be certain to run it. And of course simply keep a Windows partition where you can load the drivers and boot from there.

When it comes to printers you will get most of the functionality with existing linux drivers. Unless you are doing professional quality printing you are likely never to notice the difference. All scanners use a common interface so no problem is expected there as long as it connects to a standard serial, parallel or SCSI port instead of having a separate interface card.

Which leaves the only serious problem as digital cameras. As of this writing most will likely require you boot Windows to use your current camera.

Which distribution?
That is easiest answered by which not to use. Those are the ones that give technical reasons for using them. Reasons such as emphasizing server usage or the quality of their firewall. If you don't know what it emphasizes means you need you don't need the distribution. For example, if you do not know what a firewall is, you do not want the Bastille distribution.

Of the rest they all have something slightly different to recommend them but you almost have to be an expert to see the difference. I can say in nearly a year the only one I have read negative reports on is the first Corel distribution. I have not come across one "mine is better than yours" flaming discussion.

To me that leaves one recommendation for a newbie, the one with the greatest usage as that is where the greatest number of people to help will be. As of this writing in January 2001 that is Redhat. This is the one I started with and still use without regret. The worst comment I have read about it is the X.0 such as 6.0 and 7.0 have some bugs showing a rush to get it distributed. Everyone agrees their X.1 and X.2 distributions are as solid as any. And even the X.0 distributions are fixed in a few weeks.

As to help, people using linux appear to live to help others. If you have ever sought help with Windows you will immediately notice the difference. As Redhat appears to have about 70% of the distributions in my opinion that is the best choice.

By the time you read this and when you stop procrastinating to try linux that is likely to change dramatically. The difference between 70% and all the rest now and a future say, 40%, 30% and all the rest makes little difference between the first two. And after the few distribution specific issues which will make the most difference when getting started the majority is common to all distributions.

Of course what you are looking for is ease of installation. With Redhat in February 2000, I answered one question wrong as I was confused by the way it was asked. The solution was to reinstall it with the correct answer.

The distributions looking for the home user market are trying to surpass each other to make it simple. But even with Redhat 6.0 a year ago it required less interaction from me and installed faster than Windows 98. Were it not for that one question the installation was less effort than Windows. I presume all the new ones are at least as good by now and likely even better.

The other thing you look for is Netscape included so you can do all the basic things immediately. If it comes with SUN's Star Office so much the better if you are familiar with high end integrated word processor, spread sheet, database and more all rolled into one you will find Star Office indispensible.

• Distributions
  • Redhat
  • slackware
  • debian
  • SuSE
  • Mandrake
  • Caldera
• Software Resources in no particular order
  • freshmeat
  • appwatch
  • tucows
  • linuxstart
• Techinical help
  • linuxnewbie.org
  • Linux Gazette
• Something
• Something
• Something