Introducing Technology Thursdays. SA Tech talk by Justin Hartman every Thursday.
Linux. It’s that magical geek word that when uttered sheds absolute fear among 90% of the world’s computer-literate population. For the layman Linux is simply a program in a computer operating system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run.
GNU on the other hand is really the operating system and it uses Linux to power the system yet through a peculiar turn of events GNU has been incorrectly dubbed “Linux” and many users are not aware that there is in fact a difference. Most people in fact have never heard of GNU. Even most of the people who use the GNU system have never heard of GNU but many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day without realising it.
Ignorance and a lack of understanding are the biggest problems everyday users face in attempting to utilise GNU/Linux however this paradigm is starting to shift all thanks to South African technology purist, Mark Shuttleworth.
In 2004 Mark Shuttleworth founded the Ubuntu project to distribute a free desktop operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux that would compete with Microsoft Windows. The whole aim and focus of Ubuntu is to shift the perception that GNU/Linux is a geek-only technology to a more feature-rich operating system that is made for everyday human beings.
Ubuntu is without doubt one of the fastest growing Linux-based operating systems to hit modern times and if you believe Shuttleworth’s statistics there are at least 8 million users running Ubuntu after only two short years.
Anyone who’s installed Ubuntu will tell you that installation is as easy as 1-2-3. Your system is immediately usable and you have a full set of business productivity applications, internet applications, drawing and graphics applications, and games. You also have access to a further 18,000 applications covering almost every sector you can think of and it remains, as always, free!
Ubuntu is scalable, flexible and completely customisable yet it can also just work right out of the box without any prior knowledge.
However, as simplistic as it can be Ubuntu is not for everyone. If you’re thinking about installing it you’ll find it’s probably best to get an Ubuntu Live CD and run the software off the disk for a while and familiarise yourself with the system before actually taking the plunge.
What does make Ubuntu special is that it has a huge community-based support system and you can find solutions to any problem by visiting the forums, IRC channels or the mailing lists.
What I find absolutely fantastic is the amount of local South African involvement in the Ubuntu project. I don’t have statistics however there is a high percentage working for Canonical (Shuttleworth’s company based in the Isle of Man) and we even have a Local Community of Ubuntu users who try and carry the message of freedom to people who simply don’t have access to it.
A big question though is can Ubuntu really ever replace the commodity software operating systems such as Windows and Apple’s OS X? In short I think the answer is probably not but it is possible and Shuttleworth and Ubuntu will certainly put up a good fight trying.
What you will probably find is Ubuntu (or Edubuntu in this case) rippling it’s way into educational institutes because it has a lower total cost of ownership and hopefully this breeds a new kind of computer user amongst our youth of today.
Having tried numerous Linux-based operating systems myself I have to admit that Ubuntu really lives up to its promise that it is Linux for human beings.
Justin Hartman
http://justinhartman.com
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- Ubuntu on Dell plus an interview with Mark Shuttleworth
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March 2nd, 2007 at 12:38 pm
my opinon is that linux is not trying to replace Windows or Mac, its another choice you have when it comes to choosing an OS. I don’t think it would be good to only have one OS, as Windows or Mac tries to do, this would simply cause a monopoly, and that can’t be good at all, think Telkom !
Another thing is that myself as a Web Designer using flash, have been Linux as my primary OS without having to reboot into windows for about two weeks now. I got Flash8, Dreamweave8 and IE6 installed on linux, so i don’t need windows at all anymore.
That was my choice, and who knows maybe one day i will choose windows or Mac
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Guys, sorry to put a damper on things but this is a hard to read / follow post. Most people do not know the difference between Windows and Linux, let alone Ubuntu vs Suse, etc.
I for one am a Linux advocate, but think we need to see things in perspective.
Windows dominates the desktop simply because it is a good solution. Linux desktops have a long way to go before you can call them user-friendly.
When it comes to server platforms then yes, Linux is king, from little web servers to large database servers.
But since this blog is aimed mostly at the non (or semi) technical I think we should stick to “desktop talk”. I use countless utilities on my Windows desktop that I would be hard pressed to find Linux alternatives for.
In my mind, the real challenge Linux faces is not to convince the world that it is a credible alternative to Windows (this it is ,or will be in time), but that it is an evolution of Windows. It needs to be easy to install and use, even for non techno folks like my darling wife.
Like Microsoft in the early days, it is now about marketing, not the technology.
March 2nd, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Imel while I hear your thoughts mate I have to disagree. Ubuntu is user-friendly and is easy to install and I’m sure your wife can actually install it assuming she could install windows on her pc.
Your point about evolving Windows is not the best argument. It’s like saying the Mac is an evolution to Windows when in fact they are like chalk and cheese.
Remember you are only hard-pressed to find linux alternatives to your windows software because that’s years of development for a commercial market which you’re trying to replace.
If we all did our bit you’d start to see commercial applications migrated to a linux environment anyway and IMHO Ubuntu is starting to do that in a big way – more than any other Linux distro available today.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Justin, I am simply saying (poorly perhaps) that the fight for the Desktop will not be won through collective engineering or social pressure.
The differentiator between Windows and Linux is purely based on cost when viewed by the biggest market, the business users base.
When real costs include support and loss of porductivity then Linux has a long battle to fight, hence my argument for changing the differentiator from cost to perception, thus me “evolution” angle.
In the end it will be marketing that will be the decider, just like it was for Excel over Lotus, Word over WordPerfect, etc.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I feel the need to post here. I think that Linux falls short in one major area when it comes to competing for the OS market: Linux is associated with serious progammers/geeks/jeeks and nerds who live for the code and are able to operate a system as “complex” as Linux once was. This has changed apparently and I think that’s great. But how do people know this? How does the average user know that they have an alternative to Windows?
They don’t and this is where Linux falls short if they are trying to take on windows. Are they trying to do this? Or are they going for that niche market of people?