Lots of you may have heard of Linux, an alternative operating system to Windows and quite possibly rejected it. There are lots of reasons for this rejections but in this article I would like to look at some of them and explore how Linux could benefit you and you your business.
Linux is for geeks! I have to hold my hand up here and say that this was certainly the case when Linux was in its infancy, but in the last few years and especially the last 2-3 years things have changed. The days when a Linux OS could only be used by someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of command lines and the ability to compile programs has thankfully departed, leaving in its wake a core of users who have neither the time nor the skills to be more aware of the inner workings of say Ubuntu, than they would have on XP or Vista. Someone looking to move to Linux will find that modern versions are driven by graphic user interfaces (GUI) every bit as well designed as their Redmond equivalent. A new user will find themselves presented with a desktop which does not differ too radically from one generated by XP or Vista.
Linux can't be any good, its Free... You are literally spoiled for choice when it comes to which version of Linux to choose and the majority can be downloaded for only the cost of the time on the internet. But don't be fooled into thinking that because of this you are likely to get something a bit cheap and nasty. The latest version of Linux are sophisticated beasts capable of doing just about anything that Windows can do. Firefox will let you browse the internet, Thunderbird will handle your multiple POP3 email accounts. AMSN and Pidgin will let you instant message your friends and colleagues. Rhythmbox or Amorak will take care of your music and let you add to your MP3 collection on your Ipod or stick player. GIMP will handle images and Open Office is a fully fledged office productivity programme. A mature distribution will include all these and a lot more besides and additional applications are usually free!
Linux is not as good as Windows...Linux in its many forms is not the 'same' as Windows and it has to be said that some of the minor 'Distros' (Distributions) as they are known are inferior to XP and Vista in ease of use and features. But the major distros are a very different story indeed. Top of the pile at the moment is probably Ubuntu and its variants. Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu for how this OS has developed. Ubuntu is released twice a year in April and October and the current version is 8.10. Compare this to the eight year life span of XP along with its service packs and the probable three year life span of Vista before it is retired in favour of Windows 7 most likely sometime in 2010 or 2011. Ubuntu can do anything XP/Vista can do and a lot more besides. Unlike Windows there are relatively few viruses for Linux whose operating architecture is significantly more difficult to compromise (although not impossible).
Perhaps the one area where Linux lags behind is gaming. For the hard core gamer Windows is still the way to go. That's not to say you cannot play games using Linux and a host of games exist for those who want to fight battles, defeat demons, shoot monsters, race cars or even practice their flight skills.
So what's the catch? The good news is that there is no catch as such, you can even simply add something like Ubuntu to your XP set up as a dual boot. But Linux does require just a 'little' commitment, and the little is the desire to learn the ways that it differs from Windows. On the forums you will often see posts to the effect that 'xxx' does not work properly and after a half-hearted attempt to solve the problem the poster will announce angrily that they are going back to XP/Vista. Linux needs a bit of time to learn and people who use this as a minus point are forgetting that the same held true when they first used Windows in whatever form they first encountered it, 95,98, NT (Cries of Never heard of it! ME (Cries of I don't want to hear about it!) W2K, XP, and Vista.
Pound for pound, Linux is less bloated than its Redmond cousin, it will run better on lower specified software, unlike Vista which needs a powerful machine to get the best out of it. Vista is some 15gb in size on the HDD, my version of Feather Linux is fully features with admittedly 'lite' applications but they all work and the size is a mere 120mb (that's not a typo, one hundred and twenty megabytes!). Ubuntu has its own cut down version called Xubuntu.
Small companies can benefit from the Linux community, aside from the Desktop operation systems, there are server versions of Linux to be had, with Fedora and SuSe leading the pack when I last looked. In fact there is a lot to be said for using Linux in the small office environment. Aside from the cost saving, the you will get better performance from Linux distros and basic internet browsing and email could be accomplished on some very basic machines P3 machines with 128mb RAM and a hard drive of between 5 and 10gb would do fine. This sort of hardware can often be had cheaply or for free.
With the credit crunch and the need to make every penny count, 2009 could be a good year for Linux. Anyone interested in setting up their own Linux machines should give me a call. For a small cost I will install a fully featured version of Ubuntu, will fill DVD and MP3 support and all the software you could want. The package includes virtualisation software so that you can run another operating system from within Linux. I regularly run various version of Windows for troubleshooting purposes. Contact wanderjahre@wanderjahre.co.uk
Next time I'll be talking about VLC a media player and media transcoding application all in one. Want to convert your videos to another format then you'll want to read this.
