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Linux - a brief introduction |
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This may be the biggest site for Linux and is filled with Linux downloads. For people who are in the know that’s probably where to be. However, if you know less than nothing about Linux here’s a very simple introduction to what it’s all about.
Linux is sometimes free and sometimes not. In its basic form it is. Then, to the open-source guts of this free operating system all kinds of people add various applications and their own personalised flavours. The results are still sometimes free but you have to check because some aren’t.
Why Linux? Well, choice is one reason. Not having to go out and spend a lot on the only game in town and an intrusive operating system with DRM that spends much of its time policing what you run. Do you have a copied program? Come on – most people have something or other! Well, under Vista all kinds of time and effort have gone into making sure it won’t run. Measures have been put in to reduce the quality of HD unless the user is in compliance with everything the big studios say they should be. Good principle but not nice to real users.
So Linux can be free. There are lots of ‘distros’ or ‘distributions’ and the most efficient one that worked for me is Ubuntu Linux.
Puppy Linux was smaller and cuter. It's quite possible to simply download free 'distros' and try them to see how you get on. Usually - and I accept no responsibility for loss or damage caused by your interpretations of my suggestions on this site - the worst that happens is some versions don't like your machine and won't play. If they're free this isn't very bad. When one does work you've got a free and working OS. Free is good.
Ubuntu got my vote simply because it did one or two things I couldn’t get other versions to do on my PC and laptop. It worked very well, ran the sound, looked nice, and – on my PC – I was impressed that it went online and found my router without any configuring whatsoever. If you have X-fi your sound won't work. That's Creative's fault for providing no driver for Linux. My laptop made noise in Puppy and Ubuntu.
Puppy barks when it loads up.
It’s interesting isn’t it? A free OS that doesn’t make you Bill’s bitch, that runs sound, finds the Internet… Surely there must be some catch?
Well, most applications available are written for MS products, though Vista may not run anything over twenty minutes old. That means if you have a lot of old software and some important ones like Office they may not work. Games could be a problem as MS holds on to its rights for Direct X which is integral to many PC games.
So what use is it? Well, if you were running an office, say, and had twenty thousand PCs stretching out across an office floor for as far as the eye could see, the licences for that lot would cost you an absolute fortune from MS. Ubuntu – or any Linux you prefer that’s free will obviously work out 100% cheaper. I’m not good at Maths but that seems better to me.
There are word-processors and spread-sheet programs, etc, built in anyway so – if you can stand to use something a bit new and different – a small office type of person who wants Internet access, sound, printing, and the odd game of cards or minesweeper is going to be fine, and richer than someone with the flasher Vista-based power machine.
It would be crazy to try it though, you might think and you’d be completely wrong about that! It might be if you had to format your disk and put Linux on then it didn’t work and you were in a mess. That, I agree, would be bad.
This is the thing: if you get Ubuntu Linux you can burn the ISO file to a CD using, say, Nero, and being careful to use the ‘Burn Image’ setting and not just doing a data copy…that doesn’t work.
If you make your PC boot from this CD as you might when installing any OS these days it will do a remarkable thing. It will boot from the CD and run Ubuntu, show you exactly what it’s like, find the Internet, make your sound come on, etc… and ignore your hard drive in the process! That’s amazing! |
You can keep your existing Windows XP or whatever intact and just boot the CD to see if you fancy what it does or not! Then if you reboot and don’t put the CD in, you’ll be running the old and unchanged OS as if nothing had happened. On my PC I think I had to also select 1280x1024 for my screen res but otherwise there was nothing to do. On my laptop I didn’t even have to do that.
Also, when you run the CD of the ISO you’ve burnt as AN IMAGE, you could take an option to install it in its own partition on your drive, presumably giving you a dual boot option. Or, of course, it must be installable as the only OS on your machine.
The arguments for using Linux instead of MS software got much, much stronger with the release of Vista. Linux, for example, will like an older machine with less RAM much better than Vista will. The arguments against Linux include old existing software not being able to run on it.
However, this might be worth reading. It's all about a program called 'Wine' that may offer some compatibility between Linux and PC software.
Also, Dell is including it in machines.
Personally, I have reservations about getting some of my expensive studio software to run properly on Linux. I don’t know it wouldn’t but it mightn’t and that’s making me pause. However, as an old gamer and someone who runs a home studio on his PC, I’d say my requirements for compatibility and efficiency may make me very fussy and picky. For someone, or some business, requiring efficient Internet, and some good, solid office-like programs, this might be a no-brainer being free.
If I was running Ubuntu Linux on my laptop I might well find myself quite happy. I don’t play games on it or record. Anyway, to say that Linux can’t play games would be going too far. There are versions of many popular games that can run on it and some great open source (free) programs that I’d recommend.
One is a great little drum machine that carries its own samples of drums and makes them into patterns that can then be sequenced to match a song.
Another is a chess set that can always beat me. Either of these programs are quite happy in Windows or Linux.
Linux comes with Firefox which is a great alternative to Internet Explorer. Again, you can try it in Windows if you want.
They also do a word processor called Abiword which my daughter, Abigail, quite likes.
To sum up this article: there are free alternatives to the mainstream products and whilst they are less straightforward in some respects, they're capable of performing many tasks and a number of games, going online, running sound, and many of the things we buy PCs to do. Whether it's worth venturing into new and unknown territory and trying Linux for yourself is a personal decision. Remember, though, that if you use the bootable CD method described above, you can sneak a look at Linux on your machine today, free, and leave it completely unaltered and able to run Windows as before when you've finished.
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