True Freedom of Choice

When it comes to using computers, I, like
most people, use general software. Typically, I use my computer as
a tool for a few primary tasks: web browsing, sending and receiving
e-mail, home financial bookkeeping and word processing. Knowing
this, why would I start looking to change my operating system, when
most of the applications I need to run are provided by one
vendor?Why I Switched to LinuxDid I want to switch because I longed for the "good old days"
when you knew, or at least could have a good idea about, what
making a change to your computer would cause that computer to do?
Was it because I suspected some better operating system was out
there? Was I concerned, after reading my End User License
Agreement, that use of the operating system implied a right for the
vendor to gain access to my machine and apply unnecessary or
unwanted updates? In a nutshell, the answer to all these questions
was "yes".For the better part of a week, I sought and reviewed
alternative operating systems for my PC. What I wanted was a
non-Microsoft operating system for my x86-based PC, but one that
was more or less widely distributed and supported by either a
corporate entity a very active community. Additionally, due to my
job requirements, I needed to have applications available on this
new platform that could open and save documents created with
Microsoft Office. In the end, I decided that Linux would suit my
needs well because of the large community of users available who
were ready, willing and able to help me become the newest member of
their community.After choosing Linux as my new operating system, I thought my
selection work was complete. However, as a Linux user, there is
another choice to be made--the Linux distribution. Distribution
preference are largely driven by personal taste and support
requirements. Geography plays a role as well. For those users here
in America, Red Hat is the dominant distribution, while SuSE is the
leading distribution in Europe.Which Distribution to Use?Several of my friends and coworkers voiced an almost
unanimous recommendation that I install the Red Hat distribution.
I'm positive their recommendations had less to do with a technical
superiority of this distribution than it did with the fact that RH
is such a recognizable name in the realm of Linux. Other people may
recommend Mandrake, SuSE, Debian, Lindows, Corel and so on, based
on their personal preferences and requirements. As far as
application compatibility is concerned, each distribution pretty
much runs the same software. Where the distributions differ is ease
of installation of both the operating system and subsequent
applications and corporate support. If you have a requirement to
provide a specific level of support for an environment, or if you
feel less adventurous in terms of searching for device drivers or
troubleshooting problems, I would recommend you stick with one of
the more widely distributed versions, such as Red Hat, SuSE or
Mandrake. Doing so will likely make your experience of installing
Linux less intimidating and more fulfilling.For my installation, I chose Red Hat 7.3 for several reasons.
First, it was the one recommended by my pals at work. Next, I
wanted to purchase the media rather than download it, and although
other distributions were available at the computer store near my
home, Red Hat was the only distribution of Linux on the shelf at
the time. Finally, I chose Red Hat because of the included ability
to download updates via the Red Hat network and the free 30 days of
installation support.After a week of researching and deciding, I was ready to
install Linux on my home computer. Although I had the option to
install my new operating system alongside my existing Windows
installation, I chose to perform a wholesale switch to Linux. I did
this to ensure that I would live in this new operating system and
not fall back on my Windows applications. Going cold turkey, I
expunged from my machine an operating system that I have lived
with, in one form or another, for close to ten years.The Fruits of my LaborI'm pleased to say that I have been with Linux for over a
month now, and due to my overwhelmingly positive experience, I have
no intention of reinstalling Windows.One of the selling points of Linux is it's a rather
lightweight but robust operating system. Even if your machine is
less powerful than my 1.2GHz desktop system with 512MB of RAM,
depending on the services that you start on your system, you will
experience a faster operating system. In fact, if you are
interested in only the character-based shell terminals available
with Linux, you can have a fairly robust system using a 486
processor machine with 32MB or less of RAM.Prior to my installation, I backed up certain documents that
I wanted to keep. I also exported my e-mail addresses from Outlook
to both a comma-delimited text file and V-cards. During this time,
I also read the installation guide that Red Hat included in their
package. After I prepared myself with this data backup and extra
bit of research, I inserted the first Red Hat CD and restarted my
machine.After the machine went through its power-up tests, I was
greeted with a descriptive screen welcoming me and telling me how
to start up the Linux installation. Simply put, pressing Enter
started me down the path to my new operating system. Soon, I was
watching Linux load the requisite hardware drivers required to get
me through the installation, followed shortly by the greeting of
the Red Hat logo splash screen.After a few moments, the Red Hat logo screen disappeared, and
I was presented with a screen introducing me to the installation
configuration. For anyone who has installed an operating system or
application for Windows, the graphical tool presented by Red Hat is
a similarly intuitive interface. If you haven't installed an
operating system before, don't fear.  The screens presented by
the installer are extremely explanatory about what the system is
requesting and why it is requesting the information. If you run
into problems, you can get assistance from the on-screen help or by
calling Red Hat installation support.First, I was asked the type of boot loader I wanted to use.
The boot loader is similar to the menu you receive on a Windows
system when choosing which version of their operating system to
load in a multiboot scenario. GRUB, which is the newest generation
of boot loader, is recommended unless you have a specific need to
run LILO.Next, I was asked what type of installation I wanted:
Workstation, Server, Laptop or Custom. Having no idea what I really
wanted, I had read in the Installation Guide there is a way to
install everything that shipped with the operating system. Since I
wasn't short on space, I chose the "Custom" installation, and then
when I was prompted to select the packages I wanted to install, I
scrolled to the bottom and chose "Everything", which installed all
the features that shipped with the OS.After answering some cursory questions about the networking
interface on my machine and the type of password mechanism that I
wanted, the system asked if I wanted to install the firewall that
ships with the OS. Since I run my at-home system behind a hardware
firewall, I chose not to initiate the firewall application. On
other screens, choosing the defaults is usually sufficient to get
you up and running.Next, I was prompted to tell the system how I wanted to
partition my hard drive. Because filesystem installation is one of
the more complex steps in any operating system installation, I was
pleased to see that Red Hat included an option that allows for
automatic partitioning of the drive. I chose this option and then
deleted all existing partitions.After this, the installation began. Selecting Next here would
cause the system to format the drive, and I would be kissing my
data "goodbye." Up to this point, I could roll back my changes and
still go back to my Windows system.I Checked, Rechecked, and Then Checked
Again...and...It WorkedEven though I knew I had saved everything that I needed, I
still approached looked at the Next button with a large measure of
trepidation. Like a stunt-man jogging back to get enough of a
flying leap to cross an open chasm, I went back and reviewed my
choices. Screen-by-screen, I pressed Next, until I came again to
the confirmation screen, which I passed with another click of the
Next button. The Formatting Filesystem message popped up,
indicating I was on my way to a new operating system.Forty minutes later, after progressing through each of three
CDs, the installer prompted me for some final cleanup details. I
was asked to select a graphical or text-based login and which
desktop system I wanted to use, KDE or GNOME. It then prompted me
to select the resolution at which I wanted to view the screen. Not
being familiar with any of the different desktop systems, I kept
the defaults for all of the entries.The setup completed with Linux dropping back to a text
screen, and I heard my CD-ROM spin down and eject. The system
rebooted itself, and within 30 seconds after the boot process
started, the screen full of text cleared to a login; I was ready to
sign on to my new system.That was the total extent of the input I had to make to
install my new Linux operating system. The hardest part was
sitting, waiting to swap CD-ROM disks as the system would eject
them one by one during the phases of installation. The Installation
Guide didn't mention that it was this easy. Even though I had
followed all of the steps in the guide, I still suspected that
because I had built my own system I would have some difficulty
getting at least one device to work.At the graphical login prompt, I logged into my GNOME desktop
as the root user. (This practice is not condoned, for security
purposes, and for the safety of the system files. Red Hat's GNOME
desktop even warns you about this when you log in as the root
user.) I wanted to get a quick look at my new operating environment
and had not established any other users during the install.The Differences Were Readily ApparentThe first thing that struck me was how large the panel is, as
the task bar is called in GNOME parlance. In Microsoft Windows, I
was used to a ½"-thick task bar. In the GNOME desktop, the
default panel was about one inch thick, with large icons. I soon
found out that this feature, along with almost every other facet of
the window environment, is highly configurable. The next thing that
struck me was the flashing exclamation point within the panel. This
is Red Hat Network's automatic updating software, UP2DATE,
informing you that updates are available.Because I am security-conscious, one of the first thing I do
when installing Microsoft's Windows is perform all of the critical
and recommended updates. It follows that I would do the same here.
Therefore, I took the time to sign up for my trial membership with
the Red Hat Network. This tool, for better or worse, allows you to
keep up to date with all of the changes that Red Hat publishes for
its operating system. Its use is free for the first month of
ownership if you purchase the OS in a store or from them on-line.
Thereafter, it's $60.00 per year-a small price to pay to keep the
operating system up-to-date and secure.After going through all of the screens and entering my
demographic information for the Red Hat Network, I was prompted to
join the Red Hat Linux 7.3 channel for downloads. After this step,
the UP2DATE tool ran a comparison of all software installed on the
machine versus a database that it maintains on the server. What was
returned was a list of all the applicable updates that I could
apply to my system. I chose them all and was informed that it would
be a 180MB download. So, I set it to work and went for a snack.
After about an hour, I came back, and all of the updates had been
downloaded. The next phase, installation, took about 30
minutes.Once I installed all of the updates, including a new kernel,
UP2DATE suggested I restart my machine. I did so and noticed that
the boot loader (GRUB in my case) had some additional entries in
it. The entry that was chosen by default was the entry for the new
kernel. I let GRUB do it's thing, and in time, the machine came
back up to the graphical login screen.After logging back into my system, I was greeted with the Red
Hat Network's blue checkmark on the panel. This told me with a
glance that everything was up to date with my system. I then set
about logging in as root, again with the warnings, and adding
additional users to my system.So, I Have a New Operating System...Now
What?Anybody who has toyed with the idea of implementing Linux as
their only operating system has contemplated how they will do their
productivity tasks on the desktop. Unless you are a die-hard gamer,
you will not be disappointed by the variety of applications
available on the desktop. And if you are a die-hard gamer, ports of
many but the most recent applications are generally available for
Linux.The applications I used most often on my Windows PC were
Microsoft Outlook for e-mail, Outlook Express for newsgroups, Word
for word processing, Excel for spreadsheet needs, PowerPoint for
presentations, Internet Explorer 6.0 for web browsing and Quicken
2002 Deluxe for money management. Prior to implementing my newly
chosen operating system, I did some research and found that Linux
applications were available to suit each of my needs. In fact,
there wasn't only one application for each need, as I suspected
there would be. Instead, I was given a choice of applications to
use for each of my needs.For e-mail, I chose Ximian's Evolution product. Version 1.0.3
of this application shipped with my version of Red Hat Linux and
came preconfigured in the GNOME desktop. The only thing I had to do
was set up the mail accounts so that I could send and receive
e-mail via my Earthlink account. For those of you used to
integrating your e-mail with your personal information manager, I
would recommend this application. While it looks like Outlook, its
summary page gives you much more information, in a more
configurable manner. For example, I have it set to give me weather
reports from all of the towns to which I travel within the state,
so that at a moment's notice, I can get the information for my next
destination.For my newsreader, I chose the Pan newsreader. Like
Evolution, this came preconfigured for the GNOME desktop. The only
thing I had to do was point it to my news server. While less
graphically intensive and less intuitive than Evolution, it serves
its purpose as a newsreader quite well. It also takes up
considerably less memory than the comparable product would have
under Windows.For my office applications, at first I installed Sun's
StarOffice 5.2, which shipped with my distribution. I was pleased
with the general interface presented in each of the applications. I
was not pleased, however, with how the products were integrated, so
I looked for an alternative. My alternative was initially Open
Office's application package. But after subscribing to a high-speed
download link available from Ximian to get their latest and
greatest updates, I was able to download and install Sun's
StarOffice 6.0 application. In this version, Sun got rid of the
centralized interface they were shipping with 5.2. Even though the
products don't share a browser-like interface like they did in 5.2,
they did much better product integration with version 6.0.It is important for my daily work to be able to open, read
and edit Microsoft Word and Excel documents, as well as PowerPoint
presentations. While my Word documents generally imported well and
were quite viewable, I did notice there would be problems with
documents using a lot of tables. Since I don't deal with tables
often enough to warrant too much concern, I'm not disappointed with
the StarOffice writer. My other documents (including presentations)
were viewable without issue within the StarOffice 6.0
applications.For my home finances, I discovered GnuCash. This is a nifty
little application that shipped with the GNOME desktop. It provides
a basic but thorough way to track my home expenses. Although it is
somewhat lacking in its ability to help with a home budget, I'm
thinking that I might volunteer with the GnuCash project to help
them design this facet of the product. After all, this is what the
open-source experience is all about-contributing your
knowledge.It's a Wrap!To wrap up, I've tried to share with you my experience of
installing Linux on my home PC as my desktop operating system. My
goal with this article was not only to share with you the
experience that I've gained, but to inspire others who may want to
try an extraordinary operating system but, for one reason or
another, can't get off the fence. As long as you do your research
and find that you have acceptable tools in another medium, it's not
that difficult to replace your operating system. While your mileage
may vary, you very likely will learn more about your computer than
you have working with any other software.The biggest feeling of success I have garnered from this
endeavor is the satisfaction of knowing that I have chosen how my
system is configured, how it behaves and how it will benefit me. It
truly is a feeling of freedom; a true freedom of choice.

email: sbossinger