Bringing Linux Home to Meet the Family --- Software Is Free, but Setup Of Windows Alternative Is Not for the Faint of Heart
By Charles Forelle
17 December 2003
The Wall Street Journal
Inside Corporate data centers, the Linux operating system, a scrappy alternative to Microsoft's Windows, is making gains running big computers. Aficionados lavish it with praise: secure from hackers and viruses, resistant to crashes, easy to customize.
And, of course, there's the price: Linux is free. It is available on the Internet and elsewhere in versions that are constantly updated by an army of code writers who believe in "open" software.
But can Linux also work on the home desktop? It's an option that not a lot of people have taken. Only 1.4% of computer users have Linux on their home desktops, according to market researcher Jupiter Research. Most estimates put Microsoft's share of the home market above 90%, with Apple's Mac OS at about 5%.
Going all-Linux requires enough know-how that people with little patience for computers are likely to get flustered, and compatibility hiccups mean Linux isn't ready to be a replacement for Windows.
But Linux is slowly spreading beyond its core constituencies of governments, companies and computer geeks. Today, for example, the San Antonio Linux User Group -- started by a half-dozen "extreme experts" eight or nine years ago -- counts some 600 members, including scores of home users, says Albert Lochli, the group's president. That includes lawyers, artists and dentists, and Mr. Lochli says he's even converted two people from his regular bridge group.
One reason is that several makers of Linux software are smoothing out the installation process -- once a task that involved whacking through a thicket of jargon and fiddling with configuration files.
Perhaps most important, more attention is being paid to making Linux work with the Microsoft-centric universe, since Linux can't generally run applications designed for Windows. There are now untold thousands of free Linux programs, including ones that can read, write or play scores of file types that dominate the Windows world, such as documents written in Microsoft Word, or in Outlook e-mail, PDF files, JPEG pictures and MP3 music files. And Windows PCs and Linux PCs can share files over a network.
Linux is still a ways away from being a mass-market product. But with some patience and persistence surfing the Web -- and some shopping around for good used equipment -- we were able to put together a solid Linux-based desktop system for under $300. That compares to $528 for the cheapest new Dell desktop with Microsoft's Office software.
Our goal was to put together a working Linux PC at home that could handle such basic tasks as Web browsing, e-mail, word processing and digital music playing -- and that would save us money. We weren't looking to whiz through graphic-intensive video games or edit giant digital photos. With Linux available at no cost, we only needed to buy hardware. One of Linux's strengths is that it runs satisfactorily on the older, less-expensive gear with which Windows can struggle.
So we turned to used equipment, which is easy to find on the Web and in most cities, on sites like craigslist.org and Computer-show.com. The total bill: $298.97, including shipping costs and 10 floppy disks we needed for the Linux installation.
But be forewarned: Other than perhaps a short warranty, you'll get no guarantee with used equipment that Linux (or anything else) will work. Our hodgepodge machine didn't come with Linux installed; we had to do that ourselves.
Getting Linux isn't as simple as asking the guy behind the counter at your local computer store if he has it in stock -- it comes in dozens of flavors, called "distributions," assembled by organizations and individuals who have pulled together the core Linux software and other programs into cohesive packages.
Among the many options are distributions from RedHat Inc. and SUSE Linux AG, which are free but also can be bought with manuals, installation CDs and even technical support. If you have broadband Internet (or a surfeit of patience), you can download these distributions for nothing.
We picked that option and settled on the noncommercial Debian distribution, which has a reputation for being very conservative about adding cutting-edge features that could make a computer choke. (Unfortunately, it's also more difficult to install than some, though Debian developers are working on that.)
Following instructions at www.debian.org , we used a Windows machine to download several files to six floppy disks. Then we used those disks to install a tiny version of Linux on the new machine, which connected itself to the Internet, automatically found the Debian Web site and downloaded the rest of the Linux software.
It worked, eventually, though installation was mildly terrifying. An image of a rotund penguin (Linux's mascot) sat atop our screen for part of the time, leering down as streams of computer gibberish ("Loading 42hyperlatex") whirred past.
The installation program asked us a series of questions, some easy (what country do we live in), some hard (how should we "partition" our hard disk); we used the advice in the online Debian manual to guide our answers. For other obstacles, we searched (on another computer) archives of messages on a Debian mailing list to find people who had had similar problems.
This is not a project for the faint of heart: The installation took us several hours, spread out over a weekend, largely because we had to pause periodically and do a fair amount of reading and Web research. (That applies to technically competent computer users who like to tinker but have no programming experience; for others, it may take far longer.) Buying a beginner's book on Linux would undoubtedly have helped, as would an easier-to-install distribution.
Once Linux was up and running, it looked much like Windows. Still, we found that the Linux machine couldn't completely replace our Windows laptop. For one thing, we need Windows software to connect to systems at work. And we learned the hard way that it's not always easy to get Universal Serial Bus devices -- such as portable MP3 players and digital cameras -- up and running. We plugged a USB digital camera into our Windows laptop, and a folder with all the pictures came up within a minute. But our Linux machine didn't recognize it.
Linux developers say "hot-plugging" -- the ability to plug a USB device in while the computer is running -- will be improved in the next version of Linux, due to be released within days.
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Janina Sajka
Email: janina at rednote.net
Phone: (202) 408-8175
Director, Technology Research and Development
American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
http://www.afb.org
Chair, Accessibility Work Group
Free Standards Group
http://accessibility.freestandards.org
