Project Heresy on CNET RADIO

For computerphiles who can't seem to ever get enough, there's a radio show called CNET Radio that you can listen to via your streaming Real Audio client. Brian Cooley and Dan Shafer each take a cut at replacing the Windows monarchy on their desktops with Linux for day-to-day office operations. This attempt stems from their frustration and dissatisfaction with Windows, as well as their curiosity to see if there really is an alternative that the ``common Joe'' can use. While these 5 hours of broadcasts originally took place in May of '98, they are still available via streaming Real Audio, and you may review their findings: http://www.news.com/Radio/Features/0,155,205,0.html.

How They Did

For me it was a little painful to listen to them. In retrospect, I remember the feelings of helplessness when I first migrated to Unix as a Microsoft refugee. I wanted to reach out and tell them how to do things and where to find solutions. But, I didn't need to, as it turned out. They hooked up to the global Linux support network and solved most of their problems themselves. Indeed, they applauded Linux as a real alternative to Windows, for the most part. Their only reservations were that it probably wouldn't work for the computer illiterate person, but that would probably change within a year. Their other reservation was that there were still significant holes in user applications: Windows still draws more developers' interest for commercial reasons. Big surprise? Not really.

I guess one of the things that surprised me was how quickly these guys got up to speed for many of their daily tasks. The less technically inclined of the two, Brian Cooley, lagged a little bit because he tried too many Linux distributions at once, and he also picked a more difficult distribution to work with for a newbie: Slackware. Meanwhile, Dan Shafer installed Red Hat without a hitch, then installed Applixware, and he got up to speed with his production quite quickly. Brian picked a more challenging route, and I'm sure he was rewarded with understanding rather than productivity, which was his choice. Dan picked the more productive route, clearly.

I'm sure it must have been like trying to swim for them. Once you learn how, it feels quite natural. It's very enjoyable. But that learning curve must not be underestimated: those first few big gulps of water don't taste very good!

Did they replace Windows on their computers? In most cases, yes. Most of the office servers are now running Linux whereas they weren't before. They run Linux at least some of the time on their personal desktop machines. But they haven't replaced Windows entirely. That was largely because of one or two ``niche'' applications that weren't available for Linux that they were committed to.

What I Would Have Done...

First, I would have told them to pick an ``easy'' Linux distribution to start with. Red Hat, Caldera, Suse, these are highly polished distributions with more of the corporate customer in mind who wants to become productive right away. Other distributions are excellent, such as Debian and Slackware, but they are slightly more inclined for the experienced hacker. (When Debian gets a replacement for deselect, this will likely change! Deity is in the works, and it could push Debian to the top of the distribution heap in many respects.) Sometimes these commercial distributions have tradeoffs. The default installation may be inadequate for your needs, but at least you can upgrade it more easily than you can with Windows (full dependency checking is the norm in Linux).

Second, I would not have been so categorical about replacing Windows entirely for a newer user, or one who has never used Unix very much. The nature of their project was that they needed a categorical ``yes'' or ``no'' by the end of their 5-week evaluation period. This is quite artificial, really. Companies expect you to take longer than that to learn how to do your job at a top level of production. And it takes longer than that to learn how to use Windows to its full potential. Yet, Linux didn't get the same break in their test. Brian and Dan admitted this and apologized for it, but they did say they would keep on using it on both their home systems and their work systems under a dual boot scenario.

Third, a more realistic scenario is to not depend on Linux soley, but to have a Windows machine handy somewhere on a network for those few times you might need it. That's what I have at home. My two year old daughter loves her educational software, and I haven't gotten them to run under Linux yet, so she has a Windows box she can use. It's also handy for me if I get some weird Windows document that Linux doesn't handle very well. Example: one of my brothers sends me Internet Phone voice mail files. These come as email attachments which I save in my Unix home directory. Through a Samba share, I can open this file up under the Windows ``Network Neighborhood'' and play it with a proprietary player which isn't available for Linux. It's handy.

Most commonly-used file formats work fine with Linux office suites, such as Applixware. Word, Excel, Paint, and so on, are easily importable and exportable through filters included with this office suite. But Windows popular and proprietary applications are so numerous that some incompatabilities are bound to persist as long as Windows controls so many desktop machines. (It's not in Microsoft's financial interest to promote interoperability between operating systems.)

My Conclusion

Right now, as I write this in August of 1998, you still need to be a bit of a hacker to use Linux. Not a big hacker, just someone who understands things like disk partitions, filesystems, file and directory permissions, and can begin to appreciate a multi-user, multi-processing network operating system. Unless you have a neighbor or good buddy who can help get you started and get you out of trouble when you stumble into it, you can't really ``fake it'' with Linux.

In an office environment, where you probably will have at least one geek around who can help you, Linux can and does go a long way. Since Linux can just run and run without a reboot, you can simply log out and come back in the morning without a hitch. It becomes irrelevant that you're running Linux because you only worry about your applications. If you bought a computer with Linux preinstalled and a suitable desktop environment already installed, you probably will have achieved this nirvana rather closely. See a recent copy of Linux Journal for advertisements from OEMs who sell machines with Linux preinstalled!