Why you might want to use Linux

In a nutshell: It's legally free (both the operating system and a plethora of software, providing you can get your hands on a copy without spending money—though even if you can't get it free, you can get it damn cheaply). It's safer, and more reliable than Windows. And instead of unexplained crashes, like Windows does, you get proper error reports that allow you to properly debug a system. Not to mention that it's a proper multi-user system—where each user is prevented from mucking up other users files and settings, and prevented from mucking up system files and settings.

But I won't deny that Linux is best suited for being used as a real computer by people who're interested in computing. i.e. If you want to play games, buy something that's designed for that role: A games console, not a Windows PC (unless you like wasting a lot of your time and money maintaining it). Windows is best suited to young teenage boys who break things, like pulling things to bits to try and guess at how they work (though frequently not accomplishing that), and don't mind putting up with broken toys. If you want a computer, as a computer, and don't want to know how it works, then get a Macintosh—they're designed to be used and not fiddled with.

For someone who wants to type, e-mail, browse the world wide web, and do all the things that involve communication using a computer, Linux is well suited to the task. It's more than capable of it, and most of those services are actually run on some Unix-derivitive anyway (Linux is based on the concepts of Unix—a professional computer operating system with forty-odd years of history). And it's going to do what you want it to, not what some malcontent kid on the internet wants to do to your PC. So you're not having to fork out protection money to anti-virus, anti-trojan, anti-spyware, and firewall vendors. Most of the dross on the internet is aimed at knobbling Windows, Linux works in an entirely different fashion. It's not immune, nothing is; but it's less of a target, and one that's much harder to hit.

So what do you get with it? As well as the operating system, you usually get at least three different programs that do the following kinds of tasks:

• E-mail client programs
• Instant messaging programs
• Music players
• News (usenet) client programs
• Web browsers
• Word processors
• File managers and file utilities

And many other things…

• CD and DVD burning software
• Firewall
• More screensavers than you can shake a stick at
• A variety of simple games (e.g. card and puzzles, etc.)
• Programming languages and compilers
• Various servers (web servers, file servers, domain name servers, etc.)

There's 658 packages installed on one of my systems, and I've only installed just some of what's available. Granted that some of them are multiple parts to one thing that works as a system, but it goes to show that it comes with quite a lot of things to start with (three CD-ROMs worth).

What do you get with Windows? An expensive operating system with annoying and unfathomable license encumberances, wimp-out disclaimers, and you still need to buy separate expensive software that's just as burdensome. Not to mention having to pay for licenses for other computers to interact with your server. And you have to spend more of your money trying to fix it up. Microsoft is the shonky car dealer of the computing industry.

What do I get from Linux? A system that runs non-stop for at least a month without crashing. It doesn't wipe out files and blame me for it (like Windows and the usual stern “you didn't shut down properly warning” you get when it tries to boot up after it crashed while you were properly closing down the system, or were in the middle of actually using it). And if a Linux application does crash, it's rare that it stuffs up other things at the same time—the crashed program just dies off. You, also, get a complete system that keeps itself up-to-date in a simple manner (both the operating system and application software), and it comes with drivers for all the hardware that it supports.

If you can learn all the wierd things that Windows expects you to do, to be able to use it, then you can certainly manage to learn how a proper computer system works. Give it a go, even if you're only slightly curious.

By Tim Seifert

The Paradox of Speed

Simply stated, the Paradox of Speed is: The faster the hardware, the slower it runs. I first noticed this paradox emerging in computer technology years ago, with the introduction of the Pentium processor. Our office at that time was full of Intel 486 PC's. We got one of the new Pentiums, and I had the idea of staging a race. I was on one of the 486 66MHz, which had 4Mb RAM and a 9.6k Modem. Another guy was on the Pentium 100MHz, with 16Mb RAM and a 36.6k Modem. Here is how the race was set up. We started with both machines turned off. At the signal, we each booted up, established a remote connection over the Modem, located a particular document, downloaded it, and printed it out. On paper, it should have been no contest. The Pentium, with a much faster processor, more RAM, and faster Modem, should have won easily. However, on my 486 I had the document printed out before the other guy on the Pentium even had his remote connection established. The faster hardware ran slower.

How can this be? The answer is in the factors that I have not yet mentioned. The difference was made in the software. The 486 was running DOS and was dialing directly into a Bulletin Board Service. The Pentium was running Windows 95 and was dialing into an ISP for browsing HTML pages. An ancient 286 12MHz will boot DOS with lightning speed. It will be ready for action in DOS before a Pentium has managed to paint the color graphic Windows splash screen. Likewise, the old original Pentium will boot Windows 95 faster than the newest Intel Duo-Core with Gigabytes of RAM can manage to paint the color graphic Windows Vista splash screen. The faster the hardware, the slower the software runs.

The reason for this is because software development always out-paces hardware development. Software engineers always imagine doing all kinds of things that the limitations of the hardware will not allow them to do. As the hardware storage capacities become larger and processing and transfer speeds get faster, the software engineers already have ideas in storage gathering dust that they haul out, brush off, and implement. Software engineers always push the hardware to its limits. When the hardware limits expand, the software immediately exhausts the new limits. Think of software as water and hardware as a container. The software engineers start pouring water into the container and when the container fills up they just keep pouring. The hardware guys see that a bigger container is needed. They get one in place, but it is not long before it also is overflowing. They keep substituting larger and larger containers, but the software guys just keep pouring.

The software guys will "win" because they have limitless human ideas to work with, while the hardware guys are limited by physics. But, a "win" for software engineers is a loss for those of us who just want a lean, efficient, reliable computer to work with. Such an ideal is entirely possible. However, it is terribly frustrating to realize that it probably will never happen. The Paradox of Speed has become a deeply ingrained trend over the last 20 years. The more software engineers work to improve the PC, the more users of PC's, who just want to get some work done, want to throw it out the window. If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say that…..

Jack Wallen

• Date: September 22nd, 2008
• Author: Jack Wallen

I know, I know…you’re wondering why this is in the open source blog. The reason is simple: I have used open source operating systems for a long, long time now. I have championed against Microsoft for over ten years. But when Techrepublic liked the idea of me writing some Vista content for them, I couldn’t say no. Of course this meant me actually using Vista. So I thought it would be interesting for the open source crowd to get my initial reaction to my explorations with Windows Vista. You know, see how (or if) it stands up to Linux. It was a hard pill to swallow for me. It might be a equally as hard for you. Let’s find out. Shall we?

Installation
To begin with I didn’t have to do any installation. I wish I would have but I knew how finicky Vista was with hardware, so I wound up having to purchase a new laptop. This was the first strike against Vista. Why? Because I knew, with 100 percent assurance, that I could download the latest, greatest version of Linux and get it up and running (with full-blown 3D desktop and everything the Aero desktop has to offer) on any machine I have. With Vista - it’s a crap shoot. Unless you have hardware with that magical sticker that says that the machine is certified for Vista, you just never know.

And of course this brings up one of the many really nasty points about purchasing a machine with a Windows operating system - you rarely get an install disk. Why is that? I paid the “tax.” I bought the machine with an operating system on it. And we all know that Windows likes to be re-installed every so often. But without that disk - no dice. Fortunately I could create a “back up” disk so I could re-install the OS should it need…but only on that laptop. Oh but wait - this is Microsoft so I can only install the OS on one machine anyway. So much for that gripe.

First boot
Then after I unpacked the laptop it was time for the first boot. There was a small part of me that so badly wanted to toss in my Mandriva 2008 CD and forget the whole Vista experiment. But I behaved and let it boot.

During the boot process I couldn’t believe how much I had to go through to get to the desktop. When I first powered up the laptop I thought I was watching a full installation going on. It took nearly 30 minutes to get to the point where I could start agreeing to every possible EULA I could imagine. And after all of those agreements, I finally reached the initial setup. The final setup was mostly just the standard username/password/timezone information.

Once the setup was complete I was greeted with a screen asking me if I was interested in peeking at the typical “free trials” that always seem to accompany any Windows operating system. I really hate this part of Windows. Why is it they seem to think ANYONE wants any AOL product these days? Why not offer something like Hotmail or any other product owned by Microsoft. These products just take up space, annoy the users, and ultimately wind up being deleted from the system. You never see a Linux operating system with annoying free trials of worthless software.

Getting to work
Finally. The desktop is loaded and I can get to work. The first order of business is to install Firefox, OpenOffice, and The Gimp. I may be using a Windows operating system, but that doesn’t mean I have to use Office, Explorer, and some proprietary graphics application. The installation of these applications brought about the next really annoying issue with Vista. Being a long-time open source software user I am accustomed to having to give the root password in order to install software. But just giving permission to continue to perform an installation does nothing more than annoy the user. What good does it do? I click on the OpenOffice install icon and then I have to give Vista permission to install OpenOffice? Didn’t I just do that by clicking the OpenOffice install icon? Seriously…what is the purpose of this? There is no safety with this system. It’s not like you have to enter an administrator password - you just say “sure Vista, you can go ahead with this installation.” So of course, after too many instances of having to allow the UAC (User Access Controls) to do what I had already told the system to do, I decided to disable this control. It didn’t really take me long to figure this out (doing a search in Explorer for “user” finds the configuration setting) and, once I had it disabled, I was able to do a bit more work with a little less hassle.

With the UAC out of my way, Vista just seemed like yet another Windows operating system. I was limited with my configuration options; I couldn’t control sub-systems the way I can with Linux, and Aero is seriously limited to what it could do. The former two points I expected (Windows is very limiting in user control). The latter point really surprised me though. Microsoft had proclaimed Vista’s Aero to be the next level of user interface. Really? Some half-attempt at transparency and a bit of a reconfiguration of the Start Menu? Seriously? No. I think the next level of user interface is what I am currently working with - Compiz. And besides, Linux has been doing transparency for over five years (remember AfterStep 1.6?)! So where is the innovation? I can understand that the standard Windows user would look at Aero and ooh and ahh because that’s how Microsoft works the public opinion - they steal ideas and make everyone think they where the originators (Can anyone say “Mouse”?).

Now, at this point I started having good feelings about the Vista Media Center. It’s pretty simple to use. But very quickly the lack of options and customizations really hit me. There are a few Linux versions of the media center, and with each version, they can be customized in nearly any way you want. With the Vista Media Center customizations/optimizations are very limited. Typical Microsoft micro-management.

Another issue. I wanted to make sure the laptop always connected to my wireless network by default. I failed to check that option when I first set up the connection on the laptop and had a LOT of trouble figuring out how to make it so (without having to delete the wireless connection and start over). Again, with Linux this is simple.

The verdict
I can’t say I hate Vista. I can say that, in comparison to the open source operating system that I use day in and day out, Vista pales in comparison. Vista can not do nearly the things Ubuntu or Mandriva (or SuSE, or PCLinuxOS, etc.) can do. And, at least from my perspective, the various forms of Linux can do all of these things much easier and much more efficiently.

My point is this: It seems that everyone assumes that the Windows operating system is the most user-friendly available. I think they are wrong. I think that Microsoft has actually managed to “dumb down” the operating system (in Vista at least) to the point where very little makes sense. Very basic tasks should be obvious. They are not. Obvious locations for certain tools are no longer valid. Administration that should be quick and easy is time consuming and confusing (at times).

If you think about it like this: Microsoft has basically created a new distribution of Windows. And migrating from one distribution (XP) to another (Vista) isn’t as easy as it should be. Now migrating from, say, Ubuntu to Mandriva is simple. In either Ubuntu or Mandriva everything makes sense. And, in the case of Ubuntu/Mandriva you’re migrating to an entirely different package management system…and it still makes sense. But migrating from one Windows distro to another becomes a task even administrators don’t want to undertake.

I interviewed a head teacher at a local school that offers classes in various Windows topics (from MS Office to administrator-level SQL to programming) and he said they can’t find anyone to teach and no one who wants to learn Vista. So they are sticking with XP. When I told him I had to pick up a Vista-ready laptop his first question was if I had already installed another operating system over Vista. I said “no;” he winced and apologized.

I’m not so quick to get rid of Vista. I find it challenging and I like a good challenge. But I will say that I find this Windows distribution (Vista) not nearly as user-friendly as most of the modern Linux distributions. Not only are the Linux desktops easier to use they are far more flexible and easier to administer. And yes, as soon as I no longer have a need for Vista, that Sony Vaio will sport Mandriva.

Windows STOP Button

A persistent feature of Windows since Windows95 has been the START Button. For equally as long, Windows has been in dire need of a STOP Button, but they never have gotten around to devising such a thing. It would prove most useful, and it would boost Windows’ popularity among a growingly cynical public. But, for some reason Microsoft has not seen the wisdom of adding it.

For some examples: A print job is not printing. Windows already told you that the job failed to print, and you dutifully have canceled the failed job. The status of the job in the queue has changed to “Deleting…” And then you could sit and watch it for hours as it seems to be working real hard trying to delete that job. Wouldn’t it be great to have a STOP Button you can click? Clicking it would tell Windows, “Whatever it is you are doing, just STOP!” Or, how about the time when you double-click a folder, and an outline of a window paints on the screen, and then you sit and wait….and wait….and wait some more for Windows to fill in the list of folder contents. There is no HDD activity. You check the Task Manager, and the CPU is 99% Idle. What on earth is Windows doing? It is times like these when that STOP Button would come in handy. “Whatever it is you are doing, just STOP!”

Maybe Microsoft felt that they really didn’t need to include a STOP Button in Windows because all PCs already have a STOP Button on the case. It’s that little Button with the figure of a partially open circle and a vertical line through the gap in the circle. Whenever Windows seems lost in thought and won’t stop, just push in on that little Button and hold it in for about 5 seconds. (I still think it would be cooler if Microsoft put a STOP Button in Windows!)

Price / Quality Ratio

As people compare computers today vs. computers of thirty years ago, two things usually dominate the comments: 1) how much smaller and faster computers are today, and 2) how much cheaper today's computers and peripherals are. Of course, they mean "cheaper" in the sense of less costly. However, just like adjusting prices for inflation, with computers we need to adjust prices for quality, because computers also have become "cheaper" over the years in the sense of "shoddy." I can remember when a "Hard Drive" was an external device about the size of a microwave oven, had a capacity of 50 megabytes, and a price tag of about $5000.00. (These were the days before the PC - such a contraption typically connected to a "mini-frame", such as the DEC PDP11-23) These days you can't get a Hard Drive any smaller than 80 gigabytes (more than a thousand times larger), and the cost is only about a hundred bucks. We tend to be wowed over the price / capacity ratios of then compared to now. But some of the wow diminishes when we stop to factor in the price / quality ratio. That big, old, expensive, external Hard Drive would run forever. You connect it, configure it, and then it just runs. After years have gone by, it still is running. Now, I realize that there are a lot of the new, smaller, cheaper Hard Drives that also run reliably for years. But, there is a scene these days that is all too common, and which was a rarity in the old days. Anyone reading this blog probably is familiar with it: The damn thing doesn't work - spend hours on the telephone trying to convince the Vendor that it is defective - if successful, they will ship a replacement - all of which is assuming that it still is under warranty. If warranty has expired, then you simply shell out another hundred bucks or so for a replacement really-small-really-fast-super-cheap component. It seems that all the manufacturers are caught up in the price war. Maybe I am too old and nostalgic, but I have to wonder whether there just might be a market out there for some rather pricey but well-made and reliable computer hardware.

The Magical Land Of eBay........

As you may remember about two months ago eBay drastically changed their feedback system in the following ways:

· eBay sellers no longer have the capability to leave neutral or negative feedback for a buyer under any circumstance. This put sellers in a very disadvantageous spot where there was a ton of risk and little reward, all of the while unpaid buyers could run the eBay community amuck without consequence.
· Neutral feedback counts toward the overall positive rating of a member meaning for example:
If “member A” has 10 blatantly negative feedback's and 10 positive feedback's their rating would be identical to that of “member B” who has 10 neutral feedback's, 10 positive feedback's, and 0 negative.
· These changes also came at the same time eBay significantly raised the percentage taken on final value fees.

As a result of these changes many members lost their Power Seller status because their overall positive feedback percentage dipped below 98%. eBay’s phone support was drowned for weeks with questions that could not properly be answered, and many members closed or threatened to close their accounts.

Today part of this system has been reverted, and though not admittedly I’m sure this is in response to the eBay community’s downright hatred for this among other policy changes. As a result of this change in policy our overall positive feedback rating increased from a mediocre 98.7% to a 99.9% immediately. I thought this was an interesting development that should be shared in light of our recent problems with eBay. I am not surprised really that the system has been changed back, however it makes the original question of how a clearly flawed system was ever put into place even more pertinent. It is always quite a task when trying to exist in a community that lacks on every level the ability to communicate and reason but today can certainly be counted as a victory for the little guy in the magical land of eBay.

To be continued……………………………………………..

Scott's Rants

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