Does Microsoft fear Linux? Should it fear Linux? Does it fear Linux only in certain sectors, like Web servers, and not others, like the desktop? What exactly does “fear” mean here? Why do I still watch Lost? All important questions that deserve highly developed answers. PBS attempted to answer some of these questions, but that was in 1998. A lot has changed since then. I, for example, now wear a size 11 shoe as opposed to a 7.

I tend to view Linux as two different animals, rightly or wrongly. There’s Linux for the desktop, like Ubuntu, Gentoo, Knoppix and whatever flavor-of-the-month distro gets mentioned on this week’s Tekzilla. (I actually like Tekzilla, being a former TechTV viewer.) The average person, the man or woman who uses the computer at work to create spreadsheets or to order paper, doesn’t know Linux from Adam. At least until this past week, that is. They skip along happily, clicking “start” at the beginning of every day. Desktop Linux, supposedly, is for these folks, and certain distros, most notably Ubuntu, offer an easy-to-use environment, no command line needed. But really, with a 0.65 percent market share, do you really think Microsoft is worried about losing out to Linux? Its biggest competitor is Mac OS X, and that’s still only on 7.5 percent of all computers.

Linux on the server, however, is a whole ‘nother matter. A quick trip to microsoft.com offers a glimpse of how Redmond feels about the free as in freedom OS. There’s all sorts of charts and graphs and mentions of total costs of ownership.

But is that enough to call Microsoft “afraid” of Linux?

Judging by what Microsoft told me yesterday, the company seems as cool as you like and doesn’t view Linux, desktop or otherwise, as any sort of legitimate threat. Hubris? Hardly.

We have always had a very healthy attitude toward competition, knowing that it is always good for customers…. and we are confident that Windows Vista is the platform to enhance the individual digital lives of people around the world…. Windows Vista is on track to be the fastest selling operating system in Microsoft’s history, also thanks to our strong partner ecosystem.

That’s what the company’s rapid response team (well, that’s the name I gave it) told me. Even controlling for PR spin, to me those don’t look like the words of someone’s who’s “afraid” of anything. And why should it? Even though Vista has been universally panned—and some of that may not be specifically Microsoft’s fault—sales of 100 million licenses indicates that, someone, somewhere still takes Microsoft and Windows seriously.

And Linux on the deskop—come on now, really? Yes, Devin’s comments in this week’s Unreasonable Stance were a little on the bombastic side, but his general skeptical tone of Linux “making it,” or however you want to phrase it, looks right to me. Fact is, most people use the OS that ships with their computer. People who bought a mid-range Dell will use Windows XP or Vista for the life of the computer. The incoming college student who got a MacBook for his high school graduation will use Leopard. Do we really think that for all our huffing and puffing about Linux being more secure, which I’m not even disputing, we’ll get the average user to switch over? Convincing your friends to use Firefox instead of IE is trivial compared to asking someone to move away from Windows. I remember when I told one of my relatives that I got a Mac (this was a few years ago) he replied with something like, “Oh what type of Windows does it have?”

The average I-use-computers-to-check-my-e-mail-and-CNN-every-morning user is content with Windows. Tell them to turn on the built-in firewall and not to click strange things and you’ve solved any number of problems right there. Education, not a knee-jerk “switch to Linux!” reaction to the security problem is the best solution.

Not that I don’t like Linux. My experience with the OS sorta mirrored Biggs’. I remember once my high school closed early because of a gas leak or something else equally unsafe. Rather than use the free day to “hang out” with my friends, I installed Red Hat 8 on some old POS Compaq we had. More recently, I’ve been playing around with gOS. If the Wi-Fi support was a little better (read: if it worked on my MacBook), I could see myself taking in-class notes using Google Docs just to stand out. But just because I enjoy screwing around with command line doesn’t mean I’m gonna turn around and tell my uncle to drop his Windows setup.

So, should Microsoft be afraid of Linux? I really doubt it. I honestly can’t see regular users switching away from Windows, pirated or otherwise, to Linux. On the server market, yes, there’s a little more competition, but that just means Microsoft will have to actually try to innovate and convince its customers that a Windows license is worth their while.

Installing Ubuntu is literally as easy as dropping in a disk. However, it is important to understand that Ubuntu needs its own clean drive to run correctly. If you are a beginner, we would suggest installing Ubuntu on an older machine or running it from CD-ROM which will give you a taste of Linux without endangering your hard disk.

This is by no means an exhaustive examination of Linux but it does give you a quick and dirty description of how to install and run Ubuntu. Trust me: it’s easy.

What you need:
1. Ubuntu Linux install disk
2. A PC from after 2000. Older machines might not run the software well. You can literally put this on almost any machine including old laptops and desktops from the last few years.
3. A fresh hard drive if you need to keep the data on your current hard drive. You can partition your drive but unless you’re a Linux pro, just get a new drive.

Step-by-Step
1. Shut down your Windows PC and insert the Ubuntu disk.

2. Select “Start or install Ubuntu”

3. After inserting the disk you will boot into a single user live installation. Here you can play with Ubuntu all you want. You can try out all the installed applications, browse folders, and even play games. Note that you won’t be able to save any data when playing so don’t get too excited. Click the Install icon on the main screen.
4. Run through the basic configuration options until you come to the partitioning screen. If you’ve installed a new drive, it should appear as a master disk or as one of the drives in the configuration window. Clicking Guided and the drive name should allow you to install onto your clean disk. Note: This will delete anything on your drive, so be careful.
5. Wait.
6. Create a login and password.
7. Reboot. Select Ubuntu from the GRUB menu that should pop up. If nothing appears during the reboot or you go directly into Windows, you might have to try again. Most of the time the installation should be seamless.
8. Enjoy.

For further reading:
Installation documentation
Another install walkthrough
Another walkthrough

My feature for this week was to be “Linux rocks your Windows box” or something of the sort. Great, I thought. I’ll take Wubi for a spin, see how it stacks up against a partitioned install of Ubuntu, and search around for other ways of making Linux apps work in a Windows environment. Fun and informative!

But it’s just my luck that things wouldn’t go my way. Or rather, luck had nothing to do with it. Because Linux was out to get me.

Now, I’m no slouch in XP, but I’m like a newborn babe with Linux aside from a little toying around with Ubuntu 6 on my MacBook Pro some time ago. I did my best to make these things work, and to be honest if I couldn’t do it then most of the people I know and certainly nobody in my family could even get close. To be sure, these problems will not occur for everyone, but the fact that my every attempt to make this happen was thwarted on a healthy, normally-configured machine is pretty discouraging to me.

I started with Wubi, because I heard it was the simplest and easiest way to get Linux on your box. If it worked for me, that would have been absolutely true. First, I managed to download an old version of Wubi. It does not differ visually from the new version and unless you know what version you should have, it would be very easy to stick with this one. My mom doesn’t prefer herons over gibbons, in fact living in the Northwest makes her a fawn fan.

In any case, the installer started right up, was configured in a matter of seconds (though the helpful tooltips permanently disappeared for some reason – what if I don’t know what Kubuntu and Edubuntu, etc. are?), and an ISO started downloading immediately at a high speed. I made coffee and when I came back it was ready to restart. So far, so good. And when I restarted (after setting my mobo BIOS to take over USB functionality, lucky I knew how), I got the setup screen, which hung at the first step, recognizing the drives. It tried again and again, but died the true death when I didn’t feel like waiting another hundred seconds for a retry. I looked up the problem online, apparently there is a motherboard problem with P35s or something. The only workarounds involve physically disconnecting your DVD drive, or adding something to the startup config that slows certain activities to a crawl.

During one of probably five reinstalls, I noticed that the ISO it had downloaded was labeled “AMD64″ and I have a Core Duo. Cursing, I downloaded the latest i386 version and replaced the ISO and reinstalled. Upon restart, it had renamed the ISO to AMD64, raising a number of questions about compatibility, accessibility, and just how they expect anybody but the most dedicated to try to make this thing work. Threw Wubi out the window.

Next up, Ubuntu LiveCD. Less performance, but guaranteed compatibility, right? Nope – aside from having no autorun function on the CD to prompt unknowing users to start up and boot from the CD, the LiveCD also failed to work on my system. A similar problem appeared to stop it from communicating with my SATA drives. Apparently the issue has something to do with the motherboard’s ordering of the drives – the solution was as simple as reorganizing the drives and reassigning IRQ numbers. So simple! So easy! Ubuntu LiveCD out the window.

A little googling revealed the interesting andLinux, an actual in-windows Linux system that, instead of emulating, actually runs a ported full Linux kernel inside of Windows and runs stuff semi-natively. The CD-sized download includes a full office suite and other useful programs, and there’s a minimal option too if you only want to get some basic stuff through Synaptic. Here, then, was a solution that could not fail.

I installed it on my office computer. Firstly, it slowed things to a crawl, I know not why. Second, it would not run any of its programs due to being unable to connect to the virtual network device it had created. I decided to try it at home, where I implemented yet another forum-suggested workaround: disabling the network device, manually stopping the kernel service, then re-enabling the device and restarting the service. And I’d only have to do this every time I started the computer.

Still, I thought, why not if I have access to all these great Linux apps? So once I got the thing connected, I opened up Synaptic and selected a few cool things – Amarok, KMplayer, and a few more, and confirmed their download. And it wouldn’t connect. And when I googled it, my internet was dead. Because it had reconfigured my real NIC somewhere along the line. Not okay. andLinux out the window.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s three strikes. I don’t mean to say that these programs suck – quite the opposite, they seem excellently done, but the fact is that I ran into system-crippling problems immediately with every one. If that happens to one out of a hundred people who want to try it out, that kind of negative word-of-mouth info will start to fester.

I recommend trying all the tools I just mentioned. They’re free, they’re powerful, and they are easy – in theory. But the gates are closed for me, which is too bad because I really wanted to try this stuff out! When I spend hours reinstalling, rebooting, and dredging forums for unofficial fixes and still can’t get it to work, I think I’m justified in harboring a little bitterness. It doesn’t have to be that way for you, though. Maybe you will succeed where I failed. Only one way to find out.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of ten popular live Linux distros as voted on over at FrozenTech. Feel free to add your favorites in the comments section.

Slax (41MB to 202MB)

Slax is a modern, portable, small and fast Linux operating system with a modular approach and outstanding design. Despite its small size, Slax provides a wide collection of pre-installed software for daily use, including a well organized graphical user interface and useful recovery tools for system administrators.

Website: Slax.org

Kanotix (503MB to 719MB)

Kanotix is a rock-solid Linux based on Debian, which contains the newest packages and recognizes more modern hardware than any other operating system in use today…

..Kanotix will run as a LIVE-CD on practically any computer — automatically detecting and configuring virtually any piece of hardware. It is ideal for analysis, data rescue, forensic work, removal of viruses on Win-PCs – or simply for safe surfing and mailing in an internet cafe. It installs to your hard drive in just a few minutes and is ideal for use on your desktop workstation or notebook, or as a server.

Website: Kanotix.com

NimbleX (200MB)

NimbleX is a small but versatile operating system which is able to boot from a small 8 cm CD, from flash memory like USB pens or Mp3 players and even from the network. Because it runs entirely from a CD, USB or network it doesn’t require installation or even much hardware. NimbleX is based on Slackware with the use of linux-live scripts and it has a lot of this distribution advantages.

Website: NimbleX.net

PCLinuxOS (299MB to 685MB)

PCLinuxOS (abbreviated also as “PCLOS”) is distributed as a LiveCD, which can also be installed to a local hard disk drive. When used as a LiveCD, it can work with a USB flash drive, where the user’s configuration and personal data are saved. The entire CD can be copied to and run from memory (if the system has sufficient RAM) increasing speed.

PCLinuxOS uses the Advanced Packaging Tool (or APT), a package management system (originally from the Debian distribution), together with Synaptic Package Manager, a GUI frontend to APT, in order to add, remove or update packages. If there is enough memory on the machine and a network connection, the LiveCD can update packages.

PCLinuxOS is also designed to be easy to remaster after installation, creating one’s own personalized CD, using the mklivecd tool.

Website: PCLinuxOS.com

KNOPPIX (700MB)

KNOPPIX is a bootable Live system on CD or DVD, consisting of a representative collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. KNOPPIX can be used as a productive Linux system for the desktop, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos.

It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installed on it (over 8GB on the DVD “Maxi” edition).

Website: Knoppix.org

GoblinX (302MB)

GoblinX is a Live-CD that is based on the excellent Slackware, developed and maintained by Flavio de Oliveira a.k.a Grobsch and created by using Linuxlive scripts.

It is directed towards those users whose appreciate quality applications and a workspace that is both practical and beautiful. It contains some of the most often used and praised applications for Linux, a completely operational Linux system inside a single CD-ROM, runs from any CD-ROM drive without requiring the installation and can be easily customized by everyone. It also can be used inside a Pendrive or other bootable device.

Website: GoblinX.com.br

Damn Small Linux (48MB)

Damn Small Linux is a very versatile 50MB mini desktop oriented Linux distribution.

Damn Small is small enough and smart enough to do the following things:

• Boot from a business card CD as a live linux distribution (LiveCD)
• Boot from a USB pen drive
• Boot from within a host operating system (that’s right, it can run *inside* Windows)
• Run very nicely from an IDE Compact Flash drive via a method we call “frugal install”
• Transform into a Debian OS with a traditional hard drive install
• Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram
• Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)
• Modularly grow — DSL is highly extendable without the need to customize

Website: DamnSmallLinux.org

MEPIS (693MB)

SimplyMEPIS as a Live CD or DVD allows you to run the Linux operating system and all the programs from your CD or DVD drive before you install. There is no need to backup all your data, delete the whole hard disk and install the system, just to find it doesn’t meet your needs and expectations.

Insert the SimplyMepis disc in your drive and reboot your computer. Simple menu choices will quickly load SimplyMEPIS Linux allowing you to login. You’ll have a SimplyMEPIS desktop just as it would be when you install it to your hard drive. Test the included software, see if it supports all your hardware, and assure that your internet connection works. You can also use SimplyMEPIS as a recovery CD for troubleshooting computers and providing the tools to save your valuable data.

Website: MEPIS.org

Puppy Linux (60MB)

Puppy Linux is a LiveCD Linux distribution that is very small and focuses on ease of use. The entire operating system and all the applications run from RAM, allowing the boot medium to be removed after the operating system starts. Included are applications such as SeaMonkey, AbiWord, Sodipodi, Gnumeric, and Gxine/xine.

The distribution was developed from scratch by Barry Kauler; it is not based on any other distribution.

Website: PuppyLinux.org

Ubuntu (699MB to 3.5GB)

Ubuntu is a community developed operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. Whether you use it at home, at school or at work Ubuntu contains all the applications you’ll ever need, from word processing and email applications, to web server software and programming tools...

…We issue a new desktop and server release every six months. That means you’ll always have the the latest and greatest applications that the open source world has to offer.

Website: UbuntuLinux.org

Linux, as we’ve been stressing all week, is not just for desktops. Linux works in all sorts of ways on all sorts of devices. Embedded Linux is a popular choice with many manufacturers to keep development costs down on new hardware. It’s also good for portable devices with open architectures because if you know desktop Linux, you know portable Linux.

Peter highlighted a handful of cool mobile devices running Linux, and here are a few more cool devices running different versions of the OS, including a forerunner to KITT.

KITT must run on Linux, right?

Belkin WiFi Skype phone

Belkin has a WiFi-connected Skype phone that we’ve been digging for awhile now. Did you know that it runs Linux? It does! Powered by Linux, it uses Skype’s own VoIP system to make voice calls over any WiFi hotspot.

It’s not the best Skype phone out there, but it’s inexpensive (you can find them for under $100 now) and works quite well.

Sony Mylo

The Sony Mylo 2 is a niche product that we neither love nor hate. It’s one device that we must give a qualified “meh” to. Looking very much like a Helio Ocean, the Mylo is a communications device with WiFi and VoIP built-in, as well as a usable QWERTY keyboard. It runs the same Qtopia-based flavor of Linux as the Belkin phone above. It also runs the NetFron Web browser customized with multimedia and Flash elements.

TI’s new security cams

Texas Insruments and Aptina have put together these very inexpensive Linux-based IP security cameras. Each one runs Linux via a RISC/DSP system on a chip. It can record and transmit live video at up to 720p and should cost less than $150 a unit when they ship later this year.

No WiFi, but the cameras are equipped with an Ethernet port that connects them to your network and provides their power. Pretty slick.

Stanley

We’ve heard of the DARPA Challenge, a road race for autonomous vehicles through the Californian dessert for cash and prizes, and we love it. Stanford University’s entrant, which won the race, was called Stanley, a Subaru SUB modified with lots of radar, ground-sensing, and optical gear, all running Linux.

While cars running Linux aren’t common yet, they could be in the future. The OS is suited well to the kinds of tasks someone driving might need — directions, music, environment, and even motor and drive operations, as Stanley demonstrates.

Chumby

We love the Chumby. We’re not sure what category it really fits into, but like the Mylo above, it’s a WiFi-enabled portable, well, thing. It’s not for newbies to Linux, but besides powerful it’s also fun, something not usually ascribed to Linux devices.

The Chumby is a fully open and customizable hardware platform. You make your chumby your own, and it loves you for it.

Why are we having a whole week dedicated to this runty OS? You’d think this ridiculous open-source movement was supposed to be the future of computing. Well, it’s time someone took a stand and let the world know what everyone is afraid of saying: Linux sucks. It sucks bad.

I can’t think of a single reason to prefer this motley conglomeration of oddly-named, half-functional applications over an established, warrantee-backed, proven and solid operating system like Windows XP, or Vista.

Let’s be fair, though, and check out the reasons people like these various Linuxes. Surely one of the big draws has to be how free they and their software are. Great! Of course, you can pick up XP for a song these days, or why not Windows 98SE or ME? They work just fine and I see ‘em in bargain bins all the time. Money saved by switching to Linux: $2.99! And the software? True, Photoshop costs hundreds of dollars. But you’re almost certainly going to be getting that cost covered by work, because you don’t really need Photoshop for day-to-day stuff. That’s what Paint is for. And even if you do need to use it at home, you’re probably rich enough to afford it.

Oh, but the wealth of programs available for Linux-based systems! So they say, but how many of them are MIDI composers with command-line interfaces? That wipes out about 40% of the apps available right there, and what about text editors — they make up a solid third of the library right there. The list of everyday, usable applications is no longer than Windows’, and even then there’s the issue of installing them. Nobody wants to spend all their time compiling things or work out exactly which libraries and repositories they need to have access to. Are you crazy? Here’s how it works: go to download.com, type in “cd burner program,” and get whatever’s got the editor’s choice award because those guys know their stuff. Or, failing that, I’ve heard there’s a bay somewhere that has lots of software just floating around.

The whole open source thing bugs me, too. These people are hocking their shady programs, probably built up lego-style from stolen Windows code, and hoping someone will download it and show it to Google or Facebook developers so they can get a job. And if not, there’s always that “donate” button. How can people be so greedy?

Linux sucks for games. What have you got available to Linux systems? Oh, Tux Racer. And don’t forget about America’s Army! Of course, there’s that program Wine, but first there’s the whole hassle of getting it configured right, and then you have to ask yourself, “Did I spend $300 on a new Radeon so I could emulate the latest games?” The answer, my friend, is no. And that’s okay.

So configurable! All those options, right out there in the open. All you have to do is “sudo rub-tummy-pat-head ramalamadingdong -j -5 -343 +$^^ (gno)” and you’re set. The console is straightforward and powerful. Don’t you just love it when this is the interface for your OS:

I hear a lot of servers are switching over to Linux, whatever that means. Whatever helps you sleep at night, guys. I personally would sleep better knowing an enormous corporation is standing behind each one of my boxes like a guardian angel, ready to help me out with well-trained staff in call centers throughout India. As for requests per second and all that technical stuff, I’m going to make an educated guess that that’s mainly to do with the hardware and what’s running on it just changes the error message when it fails.

I wouldn’t recommend Linux to my worst enemy. And as you can imagine I don’t like that guy very much. It’s a jumbled mess of heterogeneous, larval-stage software and overspecialized toys for coders, and there’s less fun to be had on it than OS X. Why do people use it? For the same reason people grow mustaches: chicks dig it.

Today I got to chat with Gerry Carr, a product manager for Canonical, the people behind Ubuntu, the very popular desktop version of Linux. Besides the merits of the Seattle and Portland areas, we talked about Ubuntu’s current status and its future in gaming, portable devices, and even desktop computers.

CrunchGear So first off, which version of Ubuntu are you using on your personal computer right now?

Gerry Carr I’m using the latest beta of the 804 LTS (Hardy Heron). It’s got a few known bugs still but overall it’s really good.

CrunchGear What third party apps are you using with it day to day that you like?

Gerry Carr The Firefox 3 beta 4 works really great with the 804. In fact, when it’s done, we’ll be the first major distributer to ship a distro with Firefox 3 bundled. That’s pretty exciting. It’ll also have our regular mail app. Adobe and IBM both have apps they’re working on specifically for 804, but they won’t be included. We’re looking to ship April 24 of this year.

CrunchGear That’ll be a good party, yes?

Gerry Carr Well, it’s rather hard, we have 105 people spread across 25 countries, so it’s difficult to get everyone together, but there will be launch parties all over the world. Every major city has them, some better than others.

CrunchGear I’ll have to try to find the one in Seattle. How are they?

Gerry Carr It’s many people sitting around a pub installing operating systems.

CrunchGear Party animals, for sure.

Gerry Carr Seattle’s pretty good for us. Portland, too, has a lot of users and developers.

CrunchGear Right now Linux is a full-fledged operating system. Do you think we’ll ever get to the point where Linux is more of a shell or gateway to Web-applications?

Gerry Carr well, we work pretty closely with Google to make the desktop Google apps better, but that is something that’s going to happen at some time to a large extent. However there’s a lot to be said about local processing and storage that is difficult to replicate on the Web. We are on the forefront of Web apps right now, but it’s still awhile before the OS is optimized for it.

CrunchGear The deal you guys got with Dell is pretty significant, and Microsoft isn’t happy about it. Are there any other major deals of this nature in the work?

Gerry Carr We’re of course looking to get a bunch of pre-installed partners, we’re working to make that happen, but that’s something for them to announce, not us. We’ll see it more with smaller vendors, some of which are shipping now.

CrunchGear Some people criticize Ubuntu for its short release cycle. Are there plans for longer or more regular cycles for future releases?

Gerry Carr The timing of that question is quite perfect. The April release of 804 is a LTS or Long Term Service release. Normally we release new versions every 18 months. 804 will have a three-year cycle on desktops and a five-year cycle on servers. Normally it’s 18 months on desktops and three years for servers. We’re very happy about this.

CrunchGear That’s good news for nerds, for sure. What about application support? Another criticism — not just of Ubuntu, but Linux — is the lack of big name software, specifically games. Do you guys have games on your radar?

Gerry Carr Honestly, no. We’re not aiming to be a gaming platform. Game building is so expensive. You’ll see more Linux games appear, but until Linux is far more ubiquitous, you won’t really see major titles, especailly with the rise of the game console. I mean, you buy and Xbox and plug it into your TV and you’re there.

CrunchGear Well what about other devices? Do you see ubuntu going towards more devices like cellphones in the future?

Gerry Carr Definitely. We’ve got a mobile group that is dedicated to making Ubuntu work on portable devices. All devices are are things that connect to the internet. There are different standards between desktops and mobiles, but Ubuntu can deal with both. You’ll see portable devices running ubuntu this year.

CrunchGear Thanks Gerry, this is all really great stuff. We’ll be keeping an eye on Hardy Heron next month for sure.

Gerry Carr Thanks for talking to me. And cheers.

Today, we’re interviewing Charles Ogilvie, the Director of Inflight Entertainment and designer of RED.

CG: Why did you pick linux for RED?

CO: Linux is very stable and agile. We were able to pare down the embedded seat-back side to only the libraries we need, license a container app and then write the code needed to tie everything together

Which distribution are you using?
Flavors of Red Hat & Fedora (we have embedded seat-back units, seat & distribution boxes and a head-end that consists of some file servers)

How long was it in testing?
We’ve been developing it for 4 years and it has gone through numerous iterations. Before a new version is released, it is tested on a simulation rack

Did Microsoft approach you about running Windows on the back end?
We’ve talked with a lot of software vendors.

What was the hardest part about creating the system? Was it the software? The hardware?
The hardest part is maintaining agility. The beauty of the architecture is that we can continue to move forward, innovate and constantly look for additional areas to add new, unprecedented functionality like our inflight food ordering system or seat-to-seat chat.

Why don’t more people use Linux in high traffic situations like this?
I don’t know. They should.

How often does it crash? The Linux machines, not the planes…
Resets or reboots occur in different areas. Because we are trying different open source games, we do notice issues with porting them for example. Over time, we work through those issues. Our inflight team members (flight attendants) have the ability to reboot seats. The seat units also monitor themselves and can reset themselves if they freeze or lose connectivity (a heart-beat) with the head-end.

What’s the deal with the in-flight chat? Why was that included? Have people connected through that?
Seat-to-seat chat and TV-Chat are some of the most fun features we have. We’ve had everything from people striking up great conversations with other guests in chats to groups using it laugh and have fun while watching the same program. The whole idea behind it is to allow a sense of community to take place in a typically confined, airborne environment. I cannot wait for broadband and the chance for our passengers to chat with the ground

What’s in store for the future besides in-flight Wi-Fi?
The ability to compose a music-video playlist is pretty cool and on the horizon. The READ section is also awesome in that it takes what is typically a bunch of wasted trees (excess newspapers, periodicals) and allows us to be more environmentally friendly and timely with things like news/event info/sports/entertainment etc.

I’ve been loving *NIX since 1993 or so. That’s when I got my first shell account at Ohio State while I was still in high school. I didn’t realize what I was using at the time but I understood the power after spending some time at AT&T’s Scouting group where they invited Boy Scouts in to play on some monstrous UNIX machines in their training center in Columbus. I understood shell scripts and networks, but not enough to fully grasp the power of the platform. It was during this time that I wrote POSDT to copy some of the things I learned in UNIX. My friends in college were already using UNIX with regularity and used to borrow my account to telnet to distant accounts.

I forgot about UNIX and Linux for most of college. I remember kids in the Carnegie Mellon computer clusters downloading something called Red Hat and burning it to CDs, but I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. CMU had Sun X terminals, Macs, and PCs. The X terms were the most fun because they were so nasty. We’re talking green screens and mice the size of your head. It wasn’t like CMU couldn’t afford anything newer — I think the CS nerds liked them. I suspect we were using BSD then, but I don’t remember.

Fast forward to 1998. I was consulting in Washington DC when they flew me to Warsaw, Poland to work on a telecom switches. I knew nothing about telecom switches, but I spoke Polish and apparently it was a good idea to fly kids over, give them big apartments and an American salary (back with the dollar was worth more than the Canadian cent), and let them loose on nascent cellular networks. It was pre 2K madness and I was programming COBOL on a VAX machine in Warsaw, Poland. We used to write scripts using a scriptable terminal program to send Man-Machine Language codes to Nokia switches to add call forwarding to thousands of subscribers, for example. If you had a problem with your phone, for example, the terminal GUI would let you add and delete features right on the switch, which I suspect was madness.

There I fell in love with Mandrake. Poland, like most European countries, had a rich and varied magazine culture. You could get all sorts of magazines and most of them came with CD-ROMs simply because, at that time, broadband was fairly rare in Central Europe. They bundled games, movies, and even Linux distros in these magazines and they still do, slapping in nine DVDs chock full of code for your installation pleasure. I installed Red Hat, didn’t quite like it, and then found Mandrake. The early versions of Mandrake had a text installer but then I found one that had a GUI installer and I was hooked. It was as easy to install Windows 95 and twice as powerful. Mandrake is now Mandriva and they were one of the first distros to support “themed” versions like distros for gaming or graphics. It was at this time I also became a KDE user, finding users of GNOME to be far inferior and its users and fans to be petulant pooftas. Just joking. I couldn’t care less about desktops. Heck. I used barebones X at one point.

I used Mandrake for my home PC and Red Hat at the office where we tinkered with a few dot-bomb ideas running on a single Linux machine. I also ran my websites on Red Hat.

Heading back the US in 2000 I forgot Linux for a bit. I actually began using cygwin in Poland and carried it over with me to the US where I installed it on most of my Windows PCs. It gave me the comforting feeling of power over a box that could, with any luck, explode at a moment’s notice. Shell scripting was a great way to get research done and I discovered the magic of wget when stealing entire websites before they were taken down by the DMCA. Good times.

I used Linux at YRB, where I worked for a time. I moved the mail server over to postfix and and ran floppy firewall on another 386 machine which acted as the entire website’s firewall. Yes, I used a floppy disk to protect an ecommerce site — and it worked. The website itself was written in Visual Basic ASP and I had so many problems with it that I almost ported it over to PHP. In fact, I had this one crazy ASP problem where two integers (1 and 3, for example) just wouldn’t add. I had to do three or four statements (a=1+1, a=a+2 or something equally stupid) just to get it to work in production. I knew I was done with Windows at that point.

I kept getting new distros from Poland when we went back to visit. I ran Mandrake for a few years as an alternate OS then Red Hat when it became a little more user friendly. I also used Knoppix to troubleshoot computer problems. I’d boot up in Knoppix, mount the NTFS or FAT32 filesystem, and do my business. About three years ago my Dad called and told me his computer was acting up. This was during my OS X phase, which is *NIX enough for my blood, although it was BSD. Instead of fixing his Windows install, I installed Xandros Linux and let him go crazy. I had no service calls after that. I then gave him my old Mac Mini and I had even fewer problems.

Starting to run Linux is like knowing owning a pick-up truck: you basically can do more stuff. Need a website? Boom. Need an easy desktop? Bang. Need a hug? Tux! Going through all these distros — and I’m sure my experience is very limited compared to some of yours. Tell me about your favorite distros. Maybe I’ll learn something new.

Just in time for All About Linux week we offer this little Sweded gem. After all, those twisty little passages didn’t invent themselves, right?

As previously mentioned in this week’s Orientation, Linux is not limited to just desktops. It’s far reaching, actually. Not that you’d have a Terminal app on it or anything, but you could. Some of you may have a mobile phone running Linux and you probably don’t even know it. The most popular phone in the world runs Unix. That’s right. The iPhone, my arch nemesis, runs on Unix. Are there any other cool mobile devices out there running on Linux or Unix? Of course there are. Enter, dear friends, and be amazed.

Motorola’s forthcoming ROKR E8 for T-Mobile isn’t the prettiest thing they’ve ever produced and that’s probably why their design team got the axe and the business is being split apart, but I digress. Moto’s latest venture into the music phone realm doesn’t have the best looks, but its features make up for it.

It runs a hybrid Linux/Java OS and the “ModeShift” interface is quite nice and causes less confusion when you’re trying to distinguish the phone controls from the music-dedicated controls. It simply morphs from one UI to another. It’s also the first Moto to sport a haptic keypad and the “FastScroll” crescent control whips through menus quickly. It’s not a bad music phone, really. I suggest you go to the store and play with it and decide for yourself.

The Nokia N810 is not a phone per se, but you can make VoIP calls on it so that’s why we’re including it. The Internet tablet is rumored to integrate WiMAX and we’ll find out for sure next week at CTIA. Being Linux-based, the N810 features a full Mozilla-based browser though, an installable version was available for the N800. It’s just there out of the box now. If you remember the N800 was hacked to bits with silly apps such as an iPhone-like keyboard and kinetic scrolling.

OpenMoko is probably the first group to bring a truly open device to market in recent months. The Neo is reminiscent of Sony’s Mylo in terms of form factor, but that’s about it. The company is dedicated to bringing a completely open device to the masses. The OS is open to all so you can have your way with the code and now they’re opening up the CAD files for the hardware itself. Of course, the hardware has nothing to do with Linux, but the fact that you can is awesome. It’s the first mobile phone that allows you to dictate what’s on it and what it’s going to look like. We’ll see what the zzzPhone can actually do even though it doesn’t run Linux.

Taking on the Motorola Qs and Blackjacks of the world is the Grundig B700, a QWERTY-packing, Linux-powered smartphone with lots of media playback capabilities. Other highlights include an FM tuner, microSD, and a rather cool retro design. It’s GSM and Edge, and should work with AT&T or T-Mobile SIMs.

We like that when it launches (which should be rather soon) it’ll be inexpensive, great for those of you on month-to-month GSM contracts.

Motorola does love their Linux-based phones, and for good reason. Unfortunately for us we won’t ever see the MING. The PDA is only available in Asia, but I’ve heard great things about it. The GSM clamshell has a 240×320 touchscreen, stylus, and is affordable, with importers selling them unlocked for as little as $350 in the US.

The point is that Linux-based OS’s are abundant among the Windows Mobile and Symbian-based devices. You just have to know where to look. It might not necessarily be your cup of tea, but OpenMoko is a prime example of what could be possible in this space.

Continuing with this week’s festival do Linux, I’ll be endorsing open source software today. Not so random, no. Only software that’s free as in freedom has been considered; freeware that I can’t futz around with the source code, not that I would know what to do, rightly, was ignored. Devastating, yes.

This endorsement is a twofer. First I’ll try to answer the tough question as to why, pray tell, you should give a damn about open source source, hereafter referred to as OSS. I write that sentence knowing full well that, oh, say, all of you already know what OSS is and why it’s worth your while. I’m merely following orders. Anyway, part two will be a few applications that you might want to check out… again, knowing full well that you’re probably aware of lots of them. Have you heard of Firefox? I hear it’s all the rage these days.

Anyhow, OSS. It’s cool. Use it.

You’re reading this, sipping your cup of coffee while, wondering, perhaps aloud (to the annoyance of your co-workers), just what exactly is OSS. And you should! The Open Source Initiative, sort of the BCS of OSS, has 10 criteria that a piece of software must meet in order for it to be considered, “officially,” open source. Wikipedia has all ten commandments, but the gist of it is that the software’s source code—the software’s blueprints, kinda—needs to be freely available for all to see and modify.

Firefox, arguably the most popular piece of OSS, has its source code available for all to see and modify. You can check it out here if you’re so inclined. (It’s the .bz2 file)

What are the benefits to you, the end user with a mortgage and kids who hog your big screen TV all day long? The community has your back.

Think of it like this. If a critical flaw is found in Internet Explorer—that’s happened once or twice I think—you’re at the mercy of Microsoft. If it takes one day or one month to release a fix, well, you’re waiting. Since Microsoft controls the source code of its wonderful browser, only it can alter it any way. Compare that to Firefox. Let’s say a critical flaw is found overnight tonight. Could happen. Theoretically, anyone with an Internet connection could help patch the security flaw. It all sounds very socialistic, people helping each other out. I don’t know, y’all get it, I trust.

Oh, also! If you read sites like Slashdot, digg, CrunchGear, etc. it’s pretty much a requirement to prefer OSS to closed source software whenever possible. That’s the sense I’ve gotten over the years, at any rate.

Would would someone want to make their software open source? Why would they prefer to give away their work, their labor, for free (under the GPL is many cases)? Part of it is that Craigslistian philosophy of wanting to help your fellow man. Real altruism. Real crazy, I say. (Not really.) Wired had a piece the other day talking about for-profit OSS, which just seems sorta weird. Not that the Mozilla Foundation doesn’t make money off Firefox—Google pays it every time you use the built-in search bar—but, to me, OSS always seemed to serve a higher purpose. OSS coders were the white knights, the good guys, riding in from the hills to save all of us from horridly written, horribly insecure (fast fact: I actually had written “unsecure” instead of “insecure” right there) software. They weren’t supposed to be in “it” for the money. Again, that was always the feeling I got.

So that’s my gross oversimplification of OSS. Back when I was 16 or so, I was way more into the whole “movement” than I am now. Something about having bills to pay and other real world issues to confront sorta sapped much of my interest in it. Same thing with video games.

Lo! the software! My God in Heaven, the software! There’s so much OSS out there for you to play with. SourceForge is a fine place to search, as is Open Source Alternative. Linux and Open Source Blog is a neat resource, too, as is ZDNet’s Open Source.

I recommend y’all check out the following: Firefox, VLC/MPlayer/Xine/XBMC, Adium/Pidgin, AIM Sniff, Gimp(shop), Audacity and Azureus.

Firefox
Hi-res version

There’s no way to avoid mentioning Firefox, what I consider to be the epitome of OSS. The browser first gained mind and market share among the Slashdot crowd, a generic term I use haphazardly for people who heavily use the Internet. Now it’s the preferred browser of 17 percent of all Web users.

What first attracted me to it way back when it was called Phoenix was tabbed browsing. That it was inherently safer than IE and not made by Microsoft sweetened the deal. (Youth truly is wasted on the young.) Nowadays…

The browser is slated to hit version 3.0 in the coming months, but, in my opinion, Firefox just isn’t what it used to be. I had it open a minute ago, idle, and it crashed—did I look at it the wrong way? I’ve switched to Safari as my browser of choice, but Firefox is still worthy of praise.

VLC/MPlayer/Xine/XBMC
Hi-res version

At least one of these three applications should be on your system at all times. They’re all based on FFmpeg, an open source Swiss Army knife of audio/video handling. They all support pretty much every file format known to man, save for the proprietary ones like WMV, which is only partially supported.

XBMC deserves a special mention. Back in the Xbox1 days, XBMC was what I used to watch movie rips on my impressive-for-a-dorm-room TV. Everything about it makes sense and everything works; it was my replacement Dashboard for quite a while. Note that it’s still in development, even though Xbox1 has long since passed the torch to the 360.

Adium/Pidgin
Hi-res version

Easily the best IM application(s) out there. Every time I see someone using iChat in class, I think to myself, in a football hooligan’s tone, “You don’t know what you’re doing!” Both are based on libpurple (formerly libgaim), an OSS implementation of the various IM protocols in use today. All of us here use at CrunchGear, except Doug (who uses AIM Pro), use it for our everyday, excruciatingly mundane AIM needs. Yes, I know they don’t support video chat, and that’s terrible, but I’ve video chatted maybe twice in the past year. For that, fire up iChat and call it a day.

Both are great because they’re customizable. I use a Mario sound set with Adium, so every time I get a message I’m reminded of happier days when all I had on my plate was figuring out how to get to Special World in Super Mario World.

Aim Sniff
Hi-res version

This application, as the name implies, lets you snoop AIM conversations, which I brought up during SXSW. Legal? I don’t know. But I do know that my dorm freshman year was filled with a bunch of dullards. The most interesting IM conversation I intercepted was one of my roommates having cyber sex. Big deal.

The program was a pain in the ass to setup on my PowerBook G4 since you had to compile the source and do all sorts of wizardry (MITM attacks on my dorm’s switch, etc.) to get it up and running. Maybe similar applications exist, I don’t know, but it’s what I used. Could make a fun little weekend project.

Gimp
Hi-res version

Gimp is sorta like Photoshop, only it’s not as good. Gimpshop is similar, only it’s designed to mimic the look and feel of Photoshop a little more. It is free as in freedom, however, and will take care of most of your photo editing needs.

Audacity
Hi-res version

She’s a fully featured audio editor. I use it when I’m editing my DJ mixes, but not for much else. Definitely one of those apps that, for me, sit on your hard drive for months at a time without being used. Still, it’s the OSS audio editor.

OpenOffice.org
Hi-res version

Before Google Docs, OO.org was the best way to read and write for free on any platform. Along with Firefox, OO.og was the best example of what open source software could be. Writer, Impress and Calc are the standout components here.

Azureus
Hi-res version

Azureus is a gigantic resource hog, but for whatever reason I find it seeds torrents much better than Transmission does. It could well be my imagination, but in my experience Azureus is bulletproof. It sucks that it’s all “Vuze this, Vuze that” now, but that can, and should, be simply ignored.

If you know of any “hot” applications I miseed, and I’m 100 percent sure I did, feel free to drop me a line and/or harangue me.

All About Linux 2008

Stripped-down versions of Linux are well suited for modern cellphones. The OS already has all most of the needed code for connectivity of every kind built into it, and there are enough other open-source apps that can be adopted that it cuts production time — and costs — considerably.

Because of this many smartphone makers and application makers and carriers are turning their attention to Linux for handsets. And you might want to consider it too.

Linux now

Among them is Motorola, who currently uses Windows Mobile on its smartphones. Recently, though, Moto announced that it would start basing almost all of its phones on Linux, even the humble RAZR series. Are you using a RAZR 2? That’s Linux, baby. This is a testament to the things Linux can do on even modest hardware.

Samsung has had a handful of its phones running different versions of Linux and plans to roll out more this year. So far it’s released phones (mostly overseas) running Mandrake, RedHat, Gentoo, Debian, Ubuntu, and other flavors. It appears as if Sammy is trying them all on until it finds a good fit.

The future of Linux on handsets

But the real good news is the LiMo Foundation. Counting both Samsung and Motorola as founding members, the LiMo Foundation is a non-profit alliance that aims to create a common Linux-based platform for mobile phones, to insure greater interoperability of apps and communications between member devices.

In other words, it’s something of an official governing body for Linux on phones.

It’s important to note that not all phones will have a full-on install of Linux. In fact, most won’t. Linux’s modular construction means that aside from the kernal itself makers only need install components needed, keeping system overhead low and ensuring ease of use.

Other players

There are others working on putting Linux in your pocket, such as the Openmoko project that combines the open-source software of Linux with the open-source hardware philosophy to make custom, powerful phones.

But the real 800lb gorilla in the mobile Linux world is a name you’ve heard. Google’s Android platform promises to change the game in ways we can’t even anticipate right now.

Android was announced to great fanfare a few months ago and people are looking forward to it as the first real alternative to Windows Mobile in years. By combining Google’s own crack coders with the open-source community, Android is looking like its going to be a powerful force. And by leveraging Google’s own large network of services, the OS becomes almost secondary to the services it handles.

And that’s exactly what an operating system should be like, especially on a phone.

Amping it up

It’d be easy to say that Linux is a trend, but it’s not. Linux is slowly spreading, and when it eventually blankets the mobile world, it won’t be going anywhere. In Japan, there are already over 20 million handsets running Linux being used every day. You can likely expect numbers like that in America within the next year.

This is because people like Linux. Not that it’s popular as an application to the end user, but because there are many programmers already writing apps for the platform. These apps, most of them open-source, can be adapted to the mobile environment fairly easily, again cutting costs and resources spent.

This means a Samsung running the LiMo Platform will look entirely different than a Motorola running the same version. The underlying OS will be compatible.

This type of seamless interoperability is the future of mobile communications, and it’s a welcome one.

Using your Linux-based phone

When you get your first Linux-based phone, you probably won’t know it. Linux has a long way to go to become an appealing mass-market brand. Today it’s still associated with being something only serious nerds can get into, and in some ways it is. Because of this, you likely won’t see “Powered by Linux! Yah!” stickers on mobile phone boxes. But it’ll be in there, silently toiling away as you send catty text messages to your frienemies.

Some phones, though, will proudly boast their Linux cores, especially those meant for enterprise or small business. When these guys hear Linux, they think of security and all things non-Windows.

The large catalog of apps already available will grow as more mobile users adopt the platforms. Now there are few MMS management applications for Linux as there are few uses for it. It’s in the nature of Linux to improve with each implementation, and these improvements will be tangible on handsets, and ultimately might be Linux’s greatest strength in the market.

You will have a Linux phone in the near future, and you will love it, and that won’t make you a nerd.

The above video may or may not be an accurate depiction of the early days of Linux.

The Beginning

In Helsinki in 1991, a college student named Linus Torvalds was working on what was “initially a terminal emulator, which Torvalds used to access the large UNIX servers of the university” developed on Minix using the GNU C compiler. Linus “wrote the program specifically for the hardware he was using and independent of an operating system because he wanted to use the functions of his new PC with an 80386 processor.”

According to Wikipedia, “in his book Just for Fun, he eventually realized that he had written an operating system kernel. On 25 August 1991, he announced this system in a Usenet posting to the newsgroup “comp.os.minix.”:

Hello everybody out there using minix -

I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I’ve currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I’ll get something practical within a few months, and I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them :-)

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have :-(.

– Linus Torvalds

Torvalds originally wanted the name of the operating system to be called “Freax,” a combination of the words “free” and “freak” with an X added as a nod to UNIX. He thought the name “Linux” was too egotistical, but his co-worker responsible for maintain the servers where the “Freax” files were stored felt that “Linux” was a better name and “dubbed the project ‘Linux’ without consulting Torvalds,” according to Wikipedia.

“After many arguments, [Torvalds] finally admitted that Linux was simply the better name. In the source code of version 0.01 of Linux, the name ‘Freax’ was still used in the makefile. Only later was the name Linux used. Thus the name actually not planned at all became generally accepted world-wide.”

In 1992, the author of the Minix microkernal system, Andrew S. Tanenbaum, “wrote a Usenet article on the newsgroup comp.os.minix with the title ‘Linux is obsolete,’ which marked the beginning of a famous debate about the structure of the then-recent Linux kernel.” It turned out that Linux was not, in fact, obsolete, as it went on to become the popular operating system we all know and (some of us) love.

History of Linux [Wikipedia]

Like this video? View more here…

The “What’s the difference between UNIX and Linux?” question can be answered similar to the analogy section that many of us had to complete on the SAT test;

UNIX is to DOS as Linux is to Windows.

That’s a grossly oversimplified answer to a complex question and I’ll no doubt get flamed by some of the more advanced UNIX and/or Linux users out there but in the interest of keeping things simple, let’s go with the above italicized sentence.

If you’re no more interested in the differences between UNIX and Linux, then the simple UNIX is to DOS as Linux is to Windows phrase should be enough to keep you from getting knifed at a LAN party. It saved my ass back in ‘99 but that’s another story for another time. Let’s just say that BSD, Bawls, and 21-inch CRT monitors don’t mix.

A Little History

Which came first? UNIX came first. UNIX came way first. It was developed back in 1969 by AT&T employees working at Bell Labs. Linux came about in either 1983 or 1984 or 1991, depending upon who’s holding the knife. The GNU operating system was announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman and started in 1984, while the Linux kernel came about in 1991 courtesy of Linus Torvalds. Torvalds lent his first name to Linux by swiftly and deftly replacing the S with an X, so it could be argued that Linux, proper, was officially born in the early nineties.

Can UNIX stand on its own without Linux? Yes. Can Linux stand on its own without UNIX? Not really — although I’m sure it could be argued differently much in the same way that Windows doesn’t actually rely on DOS anymore even though DOS provided the initial foundation for Windows.

Ownership

Who “owns” each name?

The UNIX trademark is currently owned by The Open Group, which is made up of members from a bunch of different companies like HP, IBM, NEC, Hitachi, Fujitsu, and even the US Department of Defense and NASA. The group exists mostly to enforce standards. Systems that pass can be called UNIX, systems that don’t can be called UNIX-like or UNIX system-like. Linux is a UNIX-like operating system.

The Linux trademark is owned by Linus Torvalds. Companies that use the term “Linux” for commercial distributions are apparently supposed to pay him a yearly licensing fee between $200 and $5000 for use of the name but there’s some dissension as to whether or not they actually pony up. Apparently Red Hat doesn’t pay the license (as of 2005) but companies like Novell do pay. The Linux kernel itself is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

Flavors

Linux has hundreds of different distributions. UNIX has variants (Linux is actually a UNIX variant based somewhat on Minix, which is a UNIX variant) but the proper versions of the UNIX system are much smaller in number. Mac OS X Leopard is built upon UNIX code and certified under the Single UNIX Specification, which is “the collective name of a family of standards for computer operating systems to qualify for the name ‘Unix’”, according to Wikipedia.

Hardware and Cost

Linux can run on “regular” off-the-shelf computers. UNIX-based systems generally require proprietary hardware configurations and can cost thousands of dollars. As such, most people have tinkered with Linux while few have tried UNIX (although when you get into using the Linux command line, it’s very similar to UNIX).

Most Linux applications are available for free, while UNIX applications generally cost money. Linux is much more mainstream now than it used to be, so the line between what UNIX can do versus what Linux can do gets blurrier all the time. Most IT managers would have a hard time selling UNIX over Linux.

Other Differences?

I’m sure there are many of you out there who know a lot about the differences between Linux and UNIX, so please feel free to leave a comment below if I’m missing something important or I haven’t covered something accurately (see below).

[UPDATE] Here are some corrections I’ve gotten from our readers. Thanks to those of you who have left constructive and insightful comments. I’ve filtered out the parts about my inability to cohesively grasp all of the available information, but your comments — even the aggressive ones, provided they also contain some sort of helpful information — are warranted and appreciated because I’ll be the first to admit that I’m definitely not an expert when it comes to this stuff. This is a big, unwieldy concept for a lot of people and I want to make sure to get things straight, so thanks again for the help.

Comments from this post

Linux is no more a ‘variant’ of unix then toyota is a ‘variant’ of ford. Strictly speaking, linux is a clone of unix.. Just as the toyota could be called a ‘clone’ of ford (in other words ford came up with the model a, and toyota used that basic idea in the future, as in the design architechure). Linux isn’t even strictly a unix clone.. Its a kernel clone of minix, while gnu tools are clone’s of unix tools that run on top of linux.

Actually, no, that is not correct. If you read Linus’s biography, he is clear that he thought very little of Minix… The Minix kernel is based on a micro kernel design while the Linux kernel is based on a monolithic design. They are two very different animals.

First, Linux is not a variant of UNIX in any sense. Variants of UNIX all grew out of the UNIX code base. The Linux kernel was a ground up, clean implementation of the UNIX api, with plenty of rethinking and redesign along the way. The Linux userland is primarily GNU. GNU = Gnu’s Not UNIX (meaning is doesn’t use any of the UNIX codebase). While Linux is very UNIX-like, it is not UNIX.

Second, to say that Linux could not stand on its own with UNIX is false. There isn’t any UNIX to remove from Linux. If your point is that Linux resembles UNIX, well, yes it does. If your point is that Linux is a derivative of UNIX, no it isn’t.

You state: “Mac OS X Leopard is built upon UNIX code.”

Actually, Mac OS X Leopard is built upon the BSD code base (with a little GNU thrown in here and there). While it is true that BSD was originally based on the UNIX code base, the BSD developers replaced all the original UNIX code long before Apple based its OS on BSD. Therefore, it is incorrect to state that Mac OS X Leopard is based on UNIX code as it does not include any UNIX code.

You’re missing the fact that there’s a difference between Unix, and UNIX®.

UNIX® is a registered trademark owned and enforced. For something to be UNIX® it has to pass a barrage of compatibility tests. For instance, Mac OS X 10.5 is UNIX®.

The Unix community uses Unix (not all-caps) to refer to the family of operating systems descended from v7 Unix at Bell Labs. That includes the commercial Unixes descended through AT&T System V (SYSV), and the mostly non-commercial Unixes descended through BSD.

What complicates the picture is the question of what it really means for something to be based on something else. Saying it needs to have code from it doesn’t really work, as there’s very little v7 code left in OS X.

In the case of Unix, the best guideline for whether something is Unix or not is POSIX compliance. Both SYSV and BSD are moving towards the same POSIX standards for everything. Since Linux and Minix are too, and since they’re both modeled on the core Unix design elements from v7, it makes sense to say that they are Unix, even if they aren’t UNIX®–just like FreeBSD is Unix, even though it isn’t UNIX®.

Comments from Digg

IMO that analogy isn’t accurate enough. There are many flavours of UNIX, some arguable much better. These include Solaris and System V. No one uses DOS anymore in a corporate environment but many people still use UNIX. UNIX has a GUI FYI!

Unix is an operating System start was written in 1969. Just like most people say an operating system comprises of a Kernel and some user based tools, Unix consists of a kernel and some simple tools like sh (shell) and cc (c compiler). Then Stallman wanted Free Software so he started to replace all the UNIX tools with free alternatives starting with these userland tools. Those replacements included gcc (GNU C Compiler) and BASH (Bourne Again Shell). These tools were written for the UNIX Kernel. Then Linux, not acting as a part of the GNU team wrote Linux, a replacement for the UNIX kernel. Then people who wanted a free UNIX ran the GNU tools and the Linux Kernel to create a complete OS replacement.

History aside it’s worth noting that UNIX is still here and the GNU toolkit still runs against it. Nexenta (http://www.nexenta.org/os) is a flavour of UNIX that looks and feels just like Ubuntu. It has a copy of X, a copy of gnome, the GNU C Compiler but has a kernel based on Solaris (which is a version of Unix).

I think this pretty picture does the history much more justice: http://www.netneurotic.net/mac/unix/images/UNIX.pn …

If I was writing an article to submit to digg however (rather than just a comment) I would have provided references for my material.

Linux isn’t a unix-variant it’s unix-like. It’s just a kernel that uses GNU which stands for Gnu’s Not Unix.

You know who you are: the guy who doesn’t do Linux. Windows works fine, all of your software works under Windows, and things are much cooler when you don’t have to worry about all that command-line garbage. Sure, Vista is a dog and SP1 causes cancer. Sure gaming is getting hit or miss without enough hardware to launch a space mission. Windows works for business and pleasure. I’m here to convince you otherwise, if I can.

When I write, I like to imagine a potential reader. This potential reader is a buddy of mine who works in web development and has focused on Windows/ASP/.NET for the past four years, never looking around to watch the world of LAMP blossom around him. This, then, is for him.

Linux is easy

Command line interfaces are hard, right? XP has a great GUI and you so rarely have to use MS-DOS that there’s no reason to learn all those fancy commands. Well, there are some things you can do in the command line so quickly that it boggles the mind. Want to resize a bunch of images? Fix your mailbox? Scan through your files? Command-line tools are your best bet. Want to tweak network and OS configurations? Watch for intruders? Figure out why a GUI program isn’t working? Command lines are perfect for these purposes. If you’re a power user — or call yourself a power user — not using command line tools is like calling yourself a pirate and never sailing the seven seas.

Then, take a look at some modern Linux GUIs. This is some serious stuff. Many complain that Linux steals ideas from other operating systems, which is fair, but I’d rather have a bunch of budding programmers work on a copy of OS X than a copy of Windows Vista.

Linux is feature-rich

Linux is a fully-featured OS for desktops and for developers. The OS comes out of the box with text editors, SDKs, games, cool UIs, theme-able desktops, widgets, and support for most major codecs. It even has a few office suites. What can’t you really run? A lot of proprietary stuff like iTunes and Quicken, but you’re a geek, right? You’ll figure out a way to get around those problems.

Linux is secure
Like OS X, Linux viruses are few and far between and security is all but baked into applications. If you’re programming for the web, Linux is your best bet. See point 4.

Linux is fun

Linux is fun to learn. It’s a challenge and amazingly easy and ugly and beautiful at the same time. Linux is like turning on your first computer and figuring out what all those weird boxes did. Once you figure out all the secrets, I’d say Linux offers a greater power-user satisfaction than XP, as a whole. Exploring Linux is fun. Exploring XP is a dummies book.

Linux runs the Internet
If you’re a web consultant and you don’t know Linux, you’re a moron. As pretty as .NET is, it’sLAMP(Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP|Perl)’s world and Ruby lives in it. We’re just visiting PHP is as simple as Visual Basic used to be and amazingly powerful. With a little effort, a quick prototype backend can be coded overnight and a final product in a few days. You could run your web apps on Windows, but then you’d face hordes of bots attacking your server and a sense that something is amiss. Don’t do it.

Linux makes you money
As a former consultant, learning LAMP was the best thing I could have ever done. The software is free, you can amaze your clients with cool programs, and you don’t have to convince them to buy a huge server or invest in an OS just to run a stupid little web site. Sure, you can get virtual hosting somewhere on an NT box, but you can get a LAMP box cheaper and more readily and, thanks to command line tools, you can tweak the setup in seconds rather than digging through menus.

In short, Linux makes good personal and business sense. Granted, I use OSX as my daily OS, but I run all of my websites remotely using the shell and faith. Linux — and open source — work and work well.

Keeping with our Linux theme for the week, I present this week’s Orientation on, well, Linux. Despite a market share of less than 1 percent for the Linux OS compared to 92 percent for Windows and a smidge over 7 percent for Apple’s Mac OS, the seldom used (by the general public) OS is the epitome of open source dev and free software. I mostly dabbled with Linux in college and haven’t really used it much since. I’m a Mac user now but Darwin is different from the Linux kernel. It’s all based on Unix, but different nonetheless.

So for the uninitiated, here’s Linux in a nutshell.

Per the usual, let’s start with the basics. Linux is derived from the Linux kernel, which was started by Linus Torvalds in 1991. What’s a kernel? Well, it’s the central component of an OS. It essentially manages the communication between hardware and software. The Linux kernel is as wide open as Britney Spears’ legs when she gets out of a car. Everyone has a shot at it. But I digress. While in college Torvalds was enamored with Minix, but he wanted to make it better and that’s when Linux was born. When the Linux kernel was released, Torvalds called upon other programmers to build upon the kernel so long as they agreed to make it accessible to all.

Many have feared Linux for years because they thought it was too hard to navigate or that it wasn’t consumer friendly enough. It is, after all, based on Unix and that’s enough to scare anyone. But that’s not necessarily the case today. It’s gaining more of a foothold as proven by Dell’s inclusion of Ubuntu. It’s actually a pretty easy OS to learn thanks to the thousands of developers who’ve dumbed it down a bit for the common man. Developers like Mozilla and OpenOffice are two big ones that come to mind.

It all starts with a desktop management system that appears friendly and welcoming. GNOME and KDE are probably the most commonly used systems today. An X window manager is also a useful GUI that allocates separates windows for separate programs thus making your desktop clutter free and more manageable. Kind of like Spaces for Macs. From there you can program away in whatever language you prefer and optimize the OS to suit your needs. However, this can be somewhat of disadvantage for Linux.

You see, there are various distributions floating around and that can cause some confusion among the sheep. Each distribution of Linux has the same kernel, but the attached software, GUI, and even install process differ. However, I think that’s where Ubuntu fits in since a major manufacturer is distributing it. It won’t penetrate the market and gobble up significant market share from Windows or OS X, but it’s a step in the right direction. It’s a more unified approach that appeals to the masses.

Linux isn’t just a desktop OS anymore, either. It’s slowly creeping its way into phones and gaming systems. The Nokia N810 Internet tablet is a prime example and even Virgin America’s RED entertainment system is a flavor of Linux. Sony’s PS2 and PS3 consoles run Linux and previous gen iPods have been hacked to run Linux as well. Open source is the key here. A prime example of what is possible with a Linux OS is what Bug Labs is doing with open source hardware. It’s fully customizable to suit your needs and wants.

So, you see, Linux isn’t just an OS for nerds anymore. It’s infiltrating the general public ever so slightly. You may not know it, but it’s there like a lolcat in your cheeseburger that’s undercooked.

If you’re brave enough to try Linux then give Knoppix a whirl. It’s completely free and boots off a CD. So you don’t have to replace your existing OS.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/03/24/welcome-to-crunchgears-all-about-linux-2008/ As a service to you, our dear readers, and to us, the clueless morons, we’re going to explore Linux in all its guises this week, deciding once and for all if this crazy, hippy-dippy thing they call “Linux” is ready for prime time.

Just joking, fanbois. We know Linux kicks ass. It runs most web applications, powers millions of desktops, and is gaining traction in the average user space every day. Heck: OS X owes a debt to Linux and Open Source and Android promises to bring Linux-alike abilities to common smartphones. Linux is everywhere but it is, unfortunately, mostly invisible.

This week we’ll explore a number of distributions, talk about installing Linux for fun and profit, and discuss some of the fastest ways to start working with the OS without buying a manual. Stay tuned.