Ready to Try Linux? Here's What to Do

I've been sharing my blog from time to time with the interested few, but I've mostly found that people are content with (or resigned to) working with Windows and not getting too worked up about things like freedom from EULAs. People don't like change, and I can't criticize, since I'm very much a creature of habit myself. But I spoke with a library colleague this week who has actually found my blog helpful (!), but who is on the fence about committing to Linux and is intimidated by the idea of drive partitioning for dual booting (which I actually haven't done, since I installed Linux onto a separate hard drive than Windows). I'm thinking about getting a new laptop for my looming new job (more later), so when I do, I'll set up a dual boot on a single hard drive and report back.

In the meantime, if you just want to try out Linux, you have a few options that will not ruin your life forever (though you probably want to back up your data - but this is good practice anyway):

Live CDs/DVDs

A live CD (or DVD) allows you to boot up a Linux system without installing anything on your hard drive. The most well-known of these is Knoppix, which is based on Debian and runs a KDE desktop. Running Knoppix was my first Linux experience, and I was impressed by what I saw. Nowdays, though, nearly any of the most popular distributions will have a Live CD option, including Fedora and Ubuntu, both of which use the Gnome desktop, which I prefer. Here are some basic things to know about using Live CDs:

• You can order these from each individual distribution's web site, or if you have a CD burner, you can download an ISO file and burn it to a CD yourself using a decent CD recorder program (like this one). Please note that the built-in Windows CD burning tool will not do this!
• You need enough RAM to run a live CD - 512 MB should suffice, 1GB is better, but I've run Knoppix - slowly - on 128 MB
• Most desktops are not configured to boot from CDs, so you will need to change your BIOS settings to allow this (this page might give you an idea of what to do - poor spelling, good illustrations)

NOTE: While Knoppix (others work this way too) boots up, you might be alarmed by all the text running across the screen, thinking that it's something dangerous and irreversible, but please relax - this is just the Linux kernel at work, detecting your system's hardware configuration and attaching drivers to each device. Ubuntu saves you from this and presents a splash screen not unlike Windows XP.

Wubi

One of the bragging points about the new Ubuntu distribution (8.04 LTS, also known as "Hardy Heron" or just "Hardy") is that you can install Ubuntu as a program that runs inside Windows. I haven't gotten this to work yet, but since I already run Hardy Heron on three computers, there's no need :-). Wubi (as this program is known) is available on the Hardy Heron Live CD or by direct download. One thing to know about Wubi is that it modifies the way your computer boots so that you can choose to boot into Ubuntu or into your normal operating system (like a dual boot, but easily reversible). If you install Wubi and don't like it, you can uninstall it by going to "Add/Remove Programs" in your Windows control panel.

Damn Small Linux

Another Linux distribution you can install inside Windows is Damn Small Linux (or DSL). DSL works well with older systems with very few resources, and runs very stripped down versions of Firefox and other standard Linux programs. It takes up virtually no hard drive space and no memory on a standard PC. There are others of these "minimal" Linux distributions (including Puppy Linux, which I used to briefly resurrect an old laptop).

Virtual Machines

If you have the hard drive space and memory to spare, a virtual machine might be the way to go. The most popular is VMWare, which is not a free program (though I think you can install a basic version for "educational purposes"), but my program of choice, at least on Ubuntu, is VirtualBox, a version of which is licensed under the GPL (as are all software programs currently dear to me :-)). Windows has some special prerequisite installation programs before it will run VirtualBox, but the program is well-documented.

Virtual Machines have the advantage of allowing you to run different operating systems independently and without affecting your hard drive (aside from taking up space). If you have the resources, try Ubuntu, Fedora, or whatever distributions you like without having to make a big commitment. Another advantage is that you don't have to burn the installation disk to a physical CD. You can point the virtual machine to the CD image, which is actually much faster (and cheaper).

Good luck and have fun!

I (heart) Debian

As I mentioned, I am using a virtual installation of Debian "etch" to learn how a Linux server works, and I wanted to write about how impressed I am with Debian in particular as a rock-solid, stable, and principled Linux distribution. I was just reading through some of the online documentation provided on their website and I just get the warm fuzzies about it :-). Of course, this is a sign that I've either 1) finally lost it or 2) have achieved a level of geekdom seldom dreamed about or 3) a bit of both. Okay, here's what I love about Debian:

Stability and Functionality

Debian takes great care testing software and making sure that it is as bug-free as possible, which results in situation where it is both a) never on the cutting edge of software technology and b) extremely reliable and functional. They maintain three versions of Debian at a time: the stable distribution (currently named "etch"), the testing distribution (currently named "lenny") and the unstable distribution (always named "sid"). The names come from the Pixar film Toy Story, a fact which I just recently learned. Debian is often criticized in the Linux community for being so slow to release, and is not nearly as popular as a desktop distribution as, say, Ubuntu (more about this comparison to follow).

Strong Principles

In the late 1990s, when the free-software movement developed the term "open source" to describe free software projects in a way that the business world could understand, the creators based the Open Source Definition (OSD) on the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Debian as an organization adheres very strictly to these when choosing software to include in its distributions, and there have been controversies (in the free/open source software world) about the policy, including a high-profile rejection of the Mozilla Firefox brand name. For the average end user, this does not amount to much, of course, but that's one of the main reasons Debian is able to keep its reputation for integrity - they are willing to make controversial or otherwise unpopular decisions. Debian also insists on officially being called "Debian GNU/Linux" in reference to the fact that the Linux kernel is only a part of the operating system as a whole. Free software pioneer Richard Stallman has an opinion about this as well.

Foundational for Other Great Distributions

Debian is the basis for many other distributions, most notably Knoppix and (of course) Ubuntu. Since I moved to Ubuntu, I have often thought of it as Debian's "really unstable" branch, though Ubuntu has a different mission in mind and is associated closely with Canonical, which, like Red Hat, is a for-profit company seeking to gain an enterprise Linux market share (not that there's anything wrong with that :-)). Debian was my first choice as a Linux distribution when I got into all this, and I'm happy I went with it.

A First Look at KDE

As I mentioned in a previous post, there are options about which desktop environment to use in Linux. This is difficult to wrap your mind around when you're used to using either Windows or Mac, which only have their own displays that you can only slightly modify or configure. When it comes down to it, if you want Windows to look drastically different, you have to buy another version (which often means buying a new computer!). Linux GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) have basic functionalities you can't modify, but with know-how, it seems like you could tailor it to whatever you want. This is part of what is meant by "free software" in the GNU and Debian definitions of the term (also mentioned in that other post) - you can modify it however you want. Anyway, the major GUIs for Linux are Gnome and KDE.

As I mentioned, Gnome is the default desktop environment for Ubuntu, and it is the only option that comes with the initial installation. There is an Ubuntu variant called Kubuntu that has KDE as the native environment, and I was considering giving that a shot sometime soon, but after doing some reading on the Ubuntu Forums, I learned that using both is quite easy, and that I just have to download it from the software repositories and install it. This I did, and I got a chance to give it a whirl. Here's a screenshot:



My first impression is that everything is blue (I changed the default blue background to the photograph you see), which is a shock after the orange-brown "Human" theme of Ubuntu's Gnome. All of my installed files and programs are still available, plus a positive slew of KDE programs: games, widgets, educational software, and many others. With the Gnome programs also available in each menu, I'm actually having a hard time finding anything. One thing about KDE that grates on my nerves a little is that all of its applications either begin with the letter "K" (Konqueror - the default browser, KNotes, KPilot, etc.) or have the letter "K" prominently in the name. The names also often don't correlate with any function of the program ("Kaffeine" is a music player, I learned), which makes the menus a little more overwhelming. This is strange (in my view) for a program touted for its usability. Here's a shot of the screen with the start menu:



The other thing I noticed is that KDE looks a lot like Windows, and moving from Windows to KDE, at least visually, would be a more intuitive switch. Other things to mention:

• I found that Firefox does not display as well in KDE. The default text size is too small.
• Konqueror, the native Internet browser and file manager is very nice, and in some ways, I like it better than Firefox. It actually resembles Opera a little.
• The "eye candy" factor is quite impressive. It seems that Linux desktop environments rival Windows Vista and Mac in this respect.

There are many features and applications I have yet to explore. I'll report back when I have more to say!

A Basic Take on Using Ubuntu

Well, last month I took the plunge and installed a dual-boot installation of Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux, and I wanted to share my thoughts about the choice of using Linux and the experience I've gained.

Why Would You Want to Use Linux?

A basic question that you need a good answer to before embarking on any Linux project. My answer is that I began using open source software while in grad school and have been interested in what Linux is and what it does for about three years now. In one my classes we were required to learn UNIX commands (a predecessor to Linux), which gave me some basic ideas about how UNIX-derived systems work. The main thing I learned from this experience is that Linux is an alternative operating system that achieves many of the same purposes as Windows (or any other operating system).

There is a great deal of politics that surrounds the "free" or "open source" (another viewpoint here) software world. For many within this world, the whole point is to be free of corporate control over what you do on your computer. Computer software companies learned that they can license their products in ways that limit the way they are used. Free or open source software is almost always licensed to require the user to release the software from any proprietary limits and allow others to use, modify, or adapt the software in any way they see fit. Truly living this way requires sacrifices that I imagine most computer users are not willing to make. In any case, most users would not give up all proprietary software for the sake of a fairly obscure political stance that requires constant definition and clarification and that even its proponents do not always agree on.

So my own interest in using Linux is not political, even if I am not a fan of big corporations. I'm pragmatic enough to allow myself to continue to use Windows. To be even more heretical from the open source standpoint, I've found that I still like Windows, particularly Windows XP. Yes, it's not as secure. Yes, it sometimes takes a long time to load. etc. etc. But I'm not really a power user anyway. :-) I have no plans to "upgrade" to Vista anytime soon. By the time XP stops being supported, I will probably be in a position to fully commit to a Linux box.

What are Similarities Between Linux and Windows?

Well, I'm not a programmer, and with the exception of HTML and its variants, computer code looks like hieroglyphics to me. The desktop versions of Linux I've used mostly look and act a lot like Windows. Here's a screen shot of my current Ubuntu desktop:


Ubuntu uses Gnome, which is only one option for a desktop program on Linux operating systems (the other most popular one is called KDE - there is actually a historic competition between these two - I prefer the aesthetics of Gnome, myself). Visually, the layout is very similar to Windows, with an added "menu bar" at the top. There are menus and files and folders just like you'd be used to. Your mouse, printer, network card, and sound cards all work the same. I don't know why this impresses me so much, but it does. This is the power Microsoft has - that we think they're the only ones who know how to program for our PCs. There are many differences, though.

I'll go into the differences in another post.

Puppy Linux for our Laptop

In a side project, we have a 1999-2000 Compaq Presario 1900 laptop that runs Windows 98 SE and is on its last legs. After we bought our main desktop, the laptop fell into disuse, and was not revived until I set up our Ethernet network a couple of years ago. Even then though, it takes about 8 minutes to fully boot up and moves VERY slowly when performing even the most basic tasks and crashes often. This was my wife's computer when she was a student about 6 years ago and she intentionally bought it to be as bare bones as possible, because 1) she just needed Internet access and word processing capability and 2) laptops were quite expensive at that time.

Here are the specs:

Pentium III Processor
64 MB RAM
3 1/2 floppy drive (out of alignment and not functional)
6 (?) GB Hard Drive
1 USB port
CD/DVD ROM drive (no writing capability)

The PC Magazine Linux Book that I was consulting mentioned using "Puppy Linux" on older PCs with low memory specs. Once we got DSL again I downloaded the ISO from a mirror site and tried it out on the Compaq. It works fine, though when running it the first time it was awfully slow because of the small amount of RAM. What Puppy does, however, is create a file (which can reside on your hard drive) that keeps your settings, documents, etc., so when you log in the next time, it doesn't have to use as much RAM and programs run fine. Much much faster, in fact, than Windows 98 ever was. I have to boot from CD to get into Puppy, and Windows is still on the PC, but I don't ever have to use it.

I've had a little trouble configuring the network to provide Internet access, but I'm confident it can work. Of course, this means I now have 4 computers. Who needs 4 computers??!

Choosing a Linux Distribution

Since I work in a very busy suburban public library, I see a lot of interesting books come through. I have been casually reading about Linux and Apache and MySQL and other similar projects for the past couple of years. I came across a book done by PC Magazine about Linux, and it included a CD with Knoppix on it. I decided to try it out on my Dell desktop (our family PC running Win XP). For some reason there was a problem with the display, and it looked too strange to use.

When I got my parents' old PC, I tried the Knoppix CD and the display looked fine. When I tried to open programs like Open Office, or Internet browsers, there wasn't really enough memory to run them (since the live CD boots using RAM and not hard drive space, this shrinks the amount of memory considerably). I was impressed by the clean interface of KDE and thought how great open source software is.

After reading through my book, I decided to choose Debian for its stability and its many different software packages. The book described Debian's relative stodginess, that years can pass between new distributions, while other Linux distributions are out on the cutting edge. Well, my interests are in stability, not cutting edge, and I have been approaching this cautiously, so the seeming conservatism of Debian is actually attractive to me.

So Debian it is!