Web2Go ventures into Linux land.
As far as operating systems go, Windows dominates the market, at least according to the statistics. In December 2009 Market Share reported that 92.21 percent of users had a Windows operating system while 5.11 percent of users preferred Mac OS X. Only 1.02 percent of users were working with the third most popular operating system, Linux.
Linux was originally developed by Finnish university student Linus Torvalds as a hobby. He started work on the new operating system kernel in 1991 which was eventually released as Linux 1.0 under GNU General Public License in 1994.
Because it was released under GNU, the Linux kernel is open source. The source code is freely available for developers and teams of users collaborate to adapt the code for their own purposes and many have done so, releasing many free Linux-based operating system distributions such as Puppy and Ubuntu.
Apart from being free, Linux also has the advantage of not taking up as much space on your computer as other operating systems. While in 2008 Linus Torvalds told the computing world he now thought Linux was now “bloated”, having 11, 637, 173 lines of code compared with 176, 250 lines of code when it was first created, it’s still slender when compared to Windows for example.
Windows Vista Home Premium apparently contains around 50 million lines of source code, takes up about 20GB hard disk space and needs at least 1GB of RAM (temporary memory), according to Microsoft, to run. (A quick check around online computing forums tells a different story with most users finding they need at least 2GB of temporary memory to make Vista run smoothly.)
Puppy Linux on the other hand is comparatively so small that it only takes up about 300 MB of hard disk space when installed. (By the way, 2GB is about a two large trucks filled with books worth of information, while 300 MB is equivalent to about three metres of shelved books or a bit less than half of a CD.) That means it will run easily on older computers and is super-fast on newer ones.
Installing a Linux-based operating system distribution like Puppy or Ubuntu on your computer takes a bit of boffin know-how and trying out Puppy first would be my recommendation for Linux newbies.
Both Ubuntu and Puppy have good installation instructions and there are plenty of sites out there like Linux Australia and Linux.org’s guide to being a successful Linux user that will help you on your way.
Once you have the operating system installed there is plenty of Linux compatible application software out there that will get things moving like GNOME desktop, Banshee Music Player, VLC Media Player and OpenOffice for Linux.
The Free Software Directory also has a huge list of Linux software to choose from.
How many Linux users does it take to read the Web2Go blog? If you currently use a Linux-based operating system or have experimented with Linux applications in the past, leave us a message below.
Jenny Kapp
Hi Jenny,
As always, a great article
I thought I’d share my recent experience with Linux with you and your geekly readers… cause I’m a Linux convert (and I’m feeling in an evangelical mood!)
As a very happy little nerd a few years ago, I wheeled out of Officworks with the very first ASUS Eee ultra portable Notebook (which was about $500 at a time that this was what you paid for a 1 Terrabyte external harddrive). I had read the specs, ignored the sales guy (who had told me it was a “Toy”) and happily started playing with my very first Linux operating system. It was a pretty basic machine (with about 520mb or Ram and only a 4 gig fixed state harddrive) however it ran Unbutu (and the custom “easy” version of Unbutu) beautifully (booting up in about 12 seconds, reading any document, and automatically working with every printer I tried it on!)
I took it everywhere (think a rich New York Socialite with her snow white poodle… who doesn’t need to leave it for 4 months in quarantine when taking it overseas!) I even used it as an emergency laptop at a conference when the conference computer had an old version of Office which wouldn’t recognise a powerpoint presentation created on a newer computer. Linux handled it beatifully.
It was brilliant, useful and most of all, infinitely upgradeable (for free) once I got the hang of downloading new programs from the internet (instead of installing them from a disk!)
I honestly think that if you are a serious computer user (for work, or at home) a dedicated Linux machine is an awesome idea. Although it’s fiddlier than Windows or Mac… it’s free, the programs do what they say and do it well, and it can often come through in a pinch if your regular machine(s) let you down.
Like Jenny says… Give Puppy Linux a go (but recognise that this is only the tip of the opensource iceburg!) Once you get the hang of it, it’ll be hard to stop.
Hi all,
I have been using Linux since about 1994 and now work as Engineer specialising in Linux based infrastructure and security for large financial corporations and governments. Although Linux has a bit of a learning curve for a novice coming from the Windows world, there are now some good polished distributions designed for the desktop, such as the aforementioned Ubuntu. Even as a Linux expert, I use Ubuntu as my OS at work. Ubuntu provides a stable distribution and adheres to the Debian Linux conventions but provides flexibility that are not found in OS’s such as Windows plus the Linux/Ubuntu community’s are very supportive of beginners, in fact the driving force behind Ubuntu was Mark Shuttleworth’s desire to show that there is a free viable alternative to Windows.
Paul.