Are You Ready for Linux?

I've heard it all before: Unix will control the world's desktop computers! No, NextStep will rule! Wait a minute, make that OS/2 -- OS/2 will bury Microsoft Windows!

Not one of these predictions has come to pass. Instead, it's the McDonald's of software, Microsoft Windows, that's become the de facto standard for business computing. But now there are echoes of a new mantra in the land of computers: Linux, Linux, Linux.

Linux is yet another operating system, and tech heads are predicting that it will one day take over the computing world. They might be right. This time, the upstart is supported by thousands of volunteer programmers, hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital, and stratospheric stock valuations.

And there's more. Unlike past contenders for the title of heavyweight operating system, Linux is free. Anyone can download Linux from the Internet, and it works on just about every type of computer. Moreover, Linux is stronger, tougher, faster, and more secure than Windows -- at least, that's what Linux evangelists claim.

Linux's rise has been truly remarkable. But even until recently, Linux was mostly confined to back-office computers. Now, however, several hardware and software companies are trying to convince the rest of us that we should use Linux too.

Can we depend on a free operating system to run all of our business applications? To find out, I spent a few weeks installing Linux on different systems and sampling Linux-based software packages. After much poking and prodding, I'm primed to take on 10 of the most frequently asked questions about Linux. Here, then, are the FAQs.

1. What is Linux, and is it really free?

Linux is the underlying software code, or "kernel," that tells a computer what to do and how its software should behave. The prime mover behind Linux is Linus Torvalds, a software engineer who, in 1991 -- while still a student at the University of Helsinki -- began working with Minix software to create a Unix-like operating system from scratch. But he hasn't been going it alone. For the past nine years, thousands of programmers have worked on Linux (pronounced LINN-ucks), developing a free operating system that anyone can download from the Net.

Linux is free in more ways than one. In Linux's case, "free" also means "transparent." That is, anyone can look at the software's underlying components -- which in most other operating systems are kept top secret -- make changes, and thus write better programs or fix problems easily. That's because Linux hews to an open-source model, where there are no licensing fees for looking at, adapting, and fixing the code. And that's a very big deal, because anybody can use Linux software to create embedded applications, such as programs that are customized for specific work requirements. (This comes with a caveat: If you alter the source code -- that is, the main components -- of the Linux software, you must in turn make the source code of any software you write freely available to other programmers.)

2. Enough about code. What about Linux's "look and feel"?

Although there's just one stable kernel version of Linux, there are several different graphical interfaces from which to choose, each with its own special features. Most of these friendlier, "Linux-for-the-rest-of-us" packages are based on one of two popular graphical user interfaces, or GUIs.

KDE (K Desktop Environment) was an early graphical interface brought over from the commercial Unix world. At first, many Linux proponents resisted KDE, because some of the tools that programmers used to create programs and improve the software in KDE were not "open" -- that is, a license was required to use them.

Consequently, a collection of volunteer programmers decided that a completely open and free GUI was necessary. So they created GNOME (meaning GNU Network Object Model Environment), a graphical front end that's comparable to KDE, but with a lot more flexibility. With GNOME (pronounced Guh-NOME), you can change and adjust nearly every aspect of your system. Since GNOME was released, KDE backers have also worked to distribute KDE tools for free. Consequently, retail versions of Linux are usually wrapped in either a KDE or a GNOME graphical interface.

To make things more confusing -- but also more flexible -- most GUIs work with several different "windows managers." These are the elements that you actually see on the screen, such as colored menu bars and cutesy icons. For example, GNOME works with several windows managers. One of these, called Enlightenment, looks very much like Microsoft Windows 98. You can also give GNOME a Macintosh-like interface, if that's what you're used to.