Jamie's Random Musings

With new releases of several major Linux distributions coming up in the next few weeks, I would like to take a few minutes to debunk some of the more blatant inaccuracies which are circulated about Linux. Many of these will sound absurd to anyone with reasonable knowledge about Linux, but I have seen every one of these used in comments to my own blog within the past few months.

- You have to compile everything yourself to install Linux Even I was just about dumbstruck when I read this one. This has certainly not been the case for 10 years or more. All of the major Linux distributions come in binary form, and installation is essentially the same as installing Windows from scratch - only a lot faster and easier. I can install Linux from scratch, onto a blank disk, and be ready to work in well under an hour. Note that I said "ready to work", not just done with the base installation and ready to start a long cycle of update and service pack installations.

- Linux doesn't support much hardware This one is at least a little bit more current than the previous one, but these days it is equally incorrect. I regularly install Linux on a variety of desktop, laptop and netbook systems, and I almost never stumble across unsupported hardware. My personal systems have Intel CPUs (Core2, Pentium and Atom), AMD CPUs (Turion and Athlon Neo), VIA CPUs (C7-M), Intel graphic controllers (945, 950 and 965), ATI graphic controllers (Radeon 200M and HD 3410), VIA graphic controllers (Chrome 9), Wired network controllers from Broadcom and Marvel, Wireless network controllers from Intel, Broadcom and Atheros... the variety goes on and on, and it all works with all the latest Linux distributions, right out of the box.

- Linux is lacking in applications Whether this is true depends on what applications you mean, and how flexible you are willing to be. If you are one of the vast majority of PC users who wants to surf the internet, read/write email, download digital pictures from your camera, catalog/edit/process those pictures, and do some office work such as word processing and spreadsheets, then Linux has everything you need, many times over. In many (most) cases, the applications on Linux are not only "as good as" the comparable Windows applications, they are better, more powerful and more flexible, and they are FREE! If you need more applications than this, there are literally thousands of software packages available for Linux today, a quick look at the catalogs in the major distributions is likely to yield several alternatives to suit your needs.

- Linux is Difficult/Confusing to use Please, don't make me laugh. At the operating system user interface level, the difference between any version of Windows and any version of Linux is significantly less than the difference between XP and Vista. It's a desktop, it has menu bars, buttons and icons. In fact, if you can learn that the button to STOP Windows is labeled START, then you won't have any trouble using Linux. At the application level, the difference between Microsoft Office (whatever version) and OpenOffice 3 is much less than the difference between MS Office 2003 (or lower) and MS Office 2007, and the document format compatibility is much wider.

- Linux is an unreliable "hacker/hobbyist" system Compared to Windows, this could not be farther from the truth. Looking at short time frames, I don't think there is a Windows user in this world who could honestly say that they haven't experienced a crash, hang, or other system "event" that required rebooting or power cycling. The only question is how often it happens, and for most users the answer is very regularly. I honestly can't remember the last time one of my Linux systems hung or crashed on me. Looking at the longer term, Windows is still the world's only "self corrupting" operating system - over time the disk in general and the Windows Registry in particular become so scrambled that the standard solution to strange Windows behavior is "reload Windows from scratch". At the very least, there is a big market for "Registry Cleaner" and "System Optimizer" software for Windows. This is absolutely not the case with Linux, and I am not aware of any such equivant cleaner/speedup products, because there is simply no need for them.

- Linux is insecure I honestly don't know where this one comes from. Compared to Windows, the absolute pinnacle of security holes, viruses, worms, botnets, and whatever else, running Linux is an absolute dream. In fact, there is not only a security advantage, but that also gives rise to a huge performance advantage, because Linux isn't surrendering huge chunks of CPU time, memory and disk space to bloated, inefficient "Anti-Virus" or "Internet Security" packages - and Linux users don't have to pay for such software, and pay for "security update subscriptions".

- There are too many different versions of Linux available Who cares how many versions are available, when you only need one? Pick one, and try it. If it works for you, and it has what you want, then keep it, and forget about all the others. If you're not happy with it, try a different one - at least it doesn't cost you any money to keep trying until you find one that suits you! I live in Switzerland, and when I go in a supermarket in the U.S., I often think there are far too many different brands of breakfast cereal on the shelf, for example, but I don't let that put me off breakfast cereals completely.

There are certainly a lot more myths circulating about why ordinary users can not, or should not, or will not use Linux. Feel free to add them here as comments, and we'll see which ones (if any) stand up.

jw 23/10/2009

Today, on the day Windows 7 was released, my Vista installation decided to do me a favor, and remind me why I hate Windows and Microsoft so much. I had booted Vista on my HP Pavillion dv2-1010ez for the first time in several weeks. While I was working, it decided to download Vista SP2 and announced that it was ready to install. Once I got home I decided to go ahead and let it install - if I am going to have to use it from time to time, I might as well let it keep up with updates and Service Packs. It thrashed around on the disk for a long, long time, then announced that it was done and I needed to reboot. When I let it reboot, it thrashed around for another very long time before shutting down, then finally rebooted, and thrashed around for another long time as it came back up again. After all of that... ready... it announced that the Service Pack didn't install correctly, and it was going to be removed again. It then thrashed around for another really, really long time, and asked for another reboot, and thrashed around again, and finally staggered up to the login screen.

So, what is the state of this laptop now? I don't know, and I don't care. I suppose that what all the dedicated Microsoft loyalists will tell me that I should rush right out and buy Windows 7, and I was stupid to have ever bought Vista in the first place (even though it was the only option on this laptop). One thing I can absolutely, positively guarantee you, though. All of this absurdity does NOT make me want to give Microsoft even more money in order to buy what they themselves say is "what Vista should have been". This time I'll wait, rather than set myself up to be called "stupid" by the Microsoft fanboys. We'll see soon enough how totally awful Win7 is, and how the real fixed, superior, absolutely wonderful operating system will be the next release from Microsoft. then I'll pass on that one too, thanks.

jw 22/10/2009

There are going to be a lot of good things coming our way over the next few weeks:

- Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala: The Release Candidate should be out today, and the final release is due out next Thursday. In addition to the usual progess to the latest Linux kernel (2.6.31), Gnome desktop (2.28), X.org 1.6 and various other packages, this release also includes the Ubuntu Software Center, the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, and the Ubuntu One file sharing service. Perhaps the best indication of the number and quality of improvements in this release is the lack of whinging about "why bother", at least so far. I've had it running on all of my systems since the early Alpha releases, and in my opinion it is incredibly good.

- Mandriva Linux 2010: Due on 3 November, one week after Ubuntu. This one also goes to Linux kernel 2.6.31, X.org server 1.6.3, and KDE 4.3.2, along with a lot of other package updates. Once again, I have had Mandriva One 2010 running on most of my systems at least since the Beta release, and it looks very good.

- openSuSE 11.2: Due just over a week after Mandriva 2010, on 12 November. Once again, Linux kernel 2.6.31, KDE 4.3 and Gnome 2.28, and a variety of other new packages. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like openSuSE has made some huge strides forward in usability, flexibility, reliability and even cosmetics over the past couple of releases, and this one looks like it will be no exception. I've had it loaded on various of my systems since about Milestone 3, and it has been interesting to watch how the diversity of systems on which it installs and runs easily has improved.

- Fedora 12: Just five days after openSuSE, the final release of Fedora 12. In addition to the usual progress to the latest Linux kernel, Gnome and such, there is new and better video support, an ingenious improvement in Bluetooth support (good news for me, as I use mice and printers this way), and much, much more.

What an interesting and exciting few weeks it is going to be! That is without even mentioning some of the derivative releases which will follow these major releases - I can hardly wait for Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu) and PCLinuxOS (based on Mandriva). There's fun for everyone coming soon!

jw 22/10/2009

Here is another excellent article describing the steps to take in order to get a refund (from Dell in this case) when you are forced to buy Windows in order to get the computer you want.

I strongly encourage people to do this. Sometimes it will work, and you will get some money back, but often it won't, and you will either be ignored, or you will be told, as I have been, that if you don't accept the license agreement, your only option is to return the entire computer for a refund. But either way, it makes some noise and if enough people do it, perhaps some OEMs will start to pay more attention.

Why bother? Here's a simple analogy. Suppose you were buying a new television, and for the particular model you wanted, you were required to also buy a specific cable or satellite subscription. I don't think it would take long before consumers were up in arms about that.

jw 18/10/2009

If you haven't looked at the Ubuntu Netbook Remix lately, I think you are in for a very pleasant surprise. Check out either the Beta distribution or the Daily Build.

I loaded the Beta on my ASUS N10J, and I was amazed. I have not been a big fan of UNR until now, I found the desktop to be a bit, hmmm, I can't quite think of the right description - clunky, unrefined, very much in-your-face, I suppose in an attempt to make it "obvious". It was vastly superior to the Moblin desktop if your purpose with the netbook was anything other than "Social Networking", but I still didn't care for it for my own daily use. The new desktop is much nicer, it seems smoother and I actually find it much more obvious to use than the previous version simply because you don't have everything "shouting at you" from the desktop.

jw 15/10/2009