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Linux operating system

A computer operating system for those who want freedom.

Introduction

As I mentioned on the main computer page of this site, I was amazed with the UNIX operating system when I was exposed to it Cal State University San Bernardino back in 1993. The power of those systems eclipsed anything that I could have at home. As I learned more about UNIX and it's history, the more I became intrigued with it.

I also knew that the high power web sites were all run on UNIX based machines, so I knew that being comfortable with the UNIX environment would be an asset to my career. I looked into what my options were for a UNIX system at home, but the costs were too astronomical.

History

That all changed when I learned about the Linux operating system in 1997. Here was a UNIX-like operating system that I could run on a garden variety PC. It was also a community developed software, built on the philosphy of share and share alike. So I ended up buying a book on a Linux distribution (Slackware '96) so that I could read and inform myself before I dived in.

It was worth. In those days, hardware support was spotty. I had to make sure that all of my components would work with Linux. That meant learning hardware, which is what I did. I eventually got Slackware '96 installed onside of Windows on my first hand built PC. It was intoxicating.

From there, I tried many different distributions from Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS, Corel, Caldera, SUSE, and a few other smaller ones. Over the years, each new version of a distribution got easier to use and more refined. A common obstacle was hardware support. I learned quickly how to identify my hardware and reference it to the distribution's hardware compatibility list. I currently own two Linux "systems", but also use two Linux systems at work.

At home

Handheld: The first Linux system is a handheld I bought in 2006, a GamePark Holdings GP2X. The GP2X is similar in size and use to a Sony Playstation Portable (PSP), but it's more open to the average user to do things that Sony doesn't want you to do on the PSP. The GP2X encourages you to write your own software for it and to try things that the manufacturer hadn't envisioned. I use it as a portable game system and as an MP3 player, basically a portable personal entertainment device.

Desktop: My other Linux computer is my main desktop computer at home. This desktop is not the ultimate Linux computer by any means (in actuality, it's hardware is quite few years old), but it gets the job done, and it more reliable than any other computer I've owned. For those interested in the hardware, it's a 2.0GHz AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ with 2.0 GB of RAM, 120 GB hard drive, 19" Viewsonic E90 CRT monitor, and a Nvidia Quadro FX 500 video card with 128MB of video RAM. It runs the latest version of Ubuntu distribution.

At Yucaipa High

At work, I've installed the latest version of Ubuntu on my desktop computer and on a retired Dell PowerEdge 2300 server.

Desktop: My desktop computer started life as a basic system from Linkline Communications. A few careful modifications have brought it to it's current state which includes a Pentium III (866MHz) with 512MB processor, two 80GB IDE hard drives (it originally had a single 20GB drive), NVIDIA GeForce2 16MB video card (this was added to improve the from Intel 810 graphics chipset), and a 17" Samsung SyncMaster 720N LCD monitor (updated from a 17" CRT). It's very reliable and has actually made the hardware feel as though it was a more powerful system. I use it to do my day-to-day general duties, including email, web browsing, web site maintenance, accessing the Active Directory server and the campus FTP server. Although Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3 is installed alongside of Ubuntu, I haven't had to boot into Windows for months now.

Server: The server is an older Dell PowerEdge 2300 and it features two Pentium III 500MHz processors, 512MB PC100 ECC Registered RAM, one 9GB SCSI hard drive and one 18GB SCSI hard drive. I use the server to enable me to write a web-based reservation-scheduler program that I intend to use for the computer lab. When I took control of the Dell, it was running Windows 2000 Server, but getting Apache, PHP, and MySQL running was impossible: those are programs that are optimized for UNIX-like operating systems, not Microsoft Windows.

After a lot of frustration trying to integrate those programs into the Microsoft environment, I gave up and wiped the server to install Ubuntu Server. With Ubuntu Linux Server installed, installation of PHP, MySQL, and Apache was a breeze! Three simple command line instructions, along with the installation of Webmin, made the server up and running in less than an hour.

With the exception of a cooling fan failure, the server has been very reliable and has allowed me to concentrate on honing my skills on learning PHP and MySQL, and to make significant progress on my reservation lab scheduler.

In summary

The Linux of today is a far cry from those early days. It is an environment that lends itself well to an everyday system. I use it to browse the web, maintain email, and write web pages. The beauty is that I can do all of that with no fear of the garden variety viruses and spyware. I get them all of the time in emails, but since the system isn't a Microsoft technology, it's perfectly harmless. It's easy to chuckle and click "Delete". There are tons of programs for it, but I haven't had the time to fully investigate them.

So if you are getting bored with Windows and the BS that Microsoft puts you through to get their money, you might want to check out Linux. Ubuntu Linux seems to the be the easiest distribution to get started, but other worthy selections include Fedora Linux, CentOS, and SUSE Linux.