Thursday 8 December 2005

Pic of the day: Do you want Java to run on your machine, Y/N?

Linuxes

I've been looking for Linux again. The free operating system. Officially that's "free as in free speech, not as in free beer"; but in practice, it is hard to take a lot of money for something when other people give away pretty much the same thing. And of course, if Linux ever becomes vaguely as user-friendly and useful as Windows, then neither will Microsoft be able to sell their operating system for its current price. It is a noticeable part of the price of every new PC. Or it would have been noticeable if you could buy them without, but around here you can't. In some developing countries they sell quite a number of PCs with Linux instead of Windows. But what actually happens is that people take them with them home (if they even get out of the shop first) and then install a pirate copy of Windows on them.

The sad truth is that Linux is not easy to use, not stable in pretty much any sense of the word, and simply cannot do the things Windows can. Namely, run people's favorite programs. That's what we have computers for, after all, the programs.

But Linux does see some use for servers, which basically just run a limited number of programs in the background that people don't need to interact with directly. So once you get it up and running, it doesn't really matter that it is as user friendly as a marathon on caltrops.

***

One company has taken the harsh reality to heart and created a version of Linux that is as similar to Windows as they dare. They even tried to call in Lindows, but lawyers intervened. It is now called Linspire. It seems to be substantially more Windows-like than the rest of the crop. It is also not free, but rather sells for $50. In practice you want to also subscribe to their program downloading library, in which case it costs too much for me even to remember.

Given the adaptable nature of Linux, if Linspire ever succeeds, there will be copycats aplenty, I trust. But so far it seems that most people who want Linux are geeks who don't at all mind something different and harder to use.

And in all fairness, it's not exactly MS-DOS. You normally have a desktop and the equivalent of a start menu. And you normally have openoffice.org, which is functionally nearly equivalent to Microsoft Office of a couple years ago. And you normally have either Opera or some other fully featured browser, often as not more than one. So if all you need is write and surf the web, then once you get it up and go, you really won't notice that much difference.

This is what I've been looking into lately. A Linux to have on a cheap machine at the workplace, that allows only these bare bones things. And I'm not likely to go for Linspire when there is just so much free Linux out there.

***

I have already tried Knoppix, a Linux that runs off a CD so you don't need to format your hard disk. The problem is, you are pretty much stuck with what's on the CD. If you want to install other programs in Linux, then suddenly it does matter that the hard disk is running the wrong operating system. Even such a thing as an upgraded Opera or OpenOffice.Org. Or a LiveJournal client. Not that LJ is a workplace requirement really, I guess...

Fedora seems to be pretty popular, a free simpler version of Red Hat Linux. I don't really know much more about it though.

Ubuntu Linux seems like the most interesting alternative right now. It is a very idealistic approach at making Linux available for the masses. Normally I don't identify strongly with the masses, but when it comes to software I do in practice. Also, Ubuntu is dedicated to localization, most notably translation into local languages. If I'm ever to get anyone else to touch it around here, I'll have to get a Norwegian version. I'm not really sure what the status is on that, though. I intend to come back to it, but this isn't really a high priority project. At least not right now.

Ideally I'd like to be able to run Windows and Linux on the same computer for a while. If I ever do, you're likely to be among the first to hear about it. I know it is possible, just not how.