When considering the open-source operating system Linux, one question immediately comes to mind: Why?
For all their problems and idiosyncrasies, Microsoft Windows 95 and NT work reasonably well. They help us do our jobs at least as often as they get in our way. They’re easy to install, they come with a tremendous number of applications — bundled and available — and everyone uses them.
Linux has a much smaller user base, no Microsoft applications and a cumbersome installation routine that requires the user to know the meaning of such terms as “multiple partitions,” “boot manager” and “emacs.”
Clearly, it’s for techies, the folks who use the word “administrate” instead of – “administer” and are usually depicted on television as pocket-protector wearers.
But Linux is a growing platform; aside from Windows, it’s the only computer operating system with a growing market share. Network computers run on it. Corel’s WordPerfect Suite, one of the few alternatives to Microsoft Office, will run on it. Cobalt Microserver www.cobaltmicro.com, a Mountain View, Calif., developer of hardware systems, licensed Linux as the operating system for its Qube line of Net servers because, in the words of one of its founders, “we don’t have to pay the tax for a Microsoft system.”
In the short run, the damage the Department of Justice can do to Windows is far greater than what Linux can do, but Linux is nibbling at the edges of various Microsoft markets, and such edges can be lucrative.
WHAT’S LINUX ?
In the fall of 1990, Linus Torvalds, a student at the University of Helsinki, took a UNIX course and came away wondering how UNIX could be made to run on a PC. Perhaps unaware of similar projects, such as the Santa Cruz Organization’s version of UNIX, he set about finding a solution. Within a year he completed the first usable build of his PC-based version of UNIX and named it after himself.
In 1992 and 1993, the user base of Linux expanded from about 100 to more than 1,000. Even though Torvalds wrote in an early newsgroup posting that Linux was “just a hobby,(not) big and professional,” March 1994 saw the release of the first stable and commercially available version of the OS.
Because the Linux source code was open for all to see, it received a tremendous amount of testing, which resulted in a product that was extremely reliable, even if there were but a few applications to run atop the operating system.
A major update, 2.0, arrived in June 1996, hastening the entry of multiple commercial versions. One of them, Red Hat Linux, was named “Operating System of the Year” by the trade paper InfoWorld.
A 1998 International Data Corp. (IDC) study suggests that 5 million people are using Linux, a 100 percent increase over the year before. Although this is tiny compared to Microsoft’s market, an estimated 220 million to 240 million, any OS that doubles its user base in a year — on the same machines built to run Windows 98 — is worth watching.
TECHIES LEAD THE WAY
Netscape vice president Marc Andreessen, whose company is adopting the Linux open-source model, said he knew of “innumerable” companies where the technical staff ran Windows systems at work because they had to, but they ran Linux systems at home because they wanted to.
In a recent survey, IDC’s Dan Kuznetsky was told by the chief financial officer at a large New York bank that the company wasn’t using and wouldn’t use Linux. But when Kuznetsky spoke to the company’s information-services staff, he learned that 100 servers within the company were in fact running on Linux.
As with other technology moves within large companies, any move to Linux will be a bottom-up conversion process. No one loses their job for buying Microsoft over a competitor, so the incentive for top executives to move to Linux is small. But for the workers in the trenches manning web servers and the like, there are no such disincentives. They just want to do their jobs. And sometimes Linux can help; the most popular Web server, the freeware package Apache, is said by Webmasters to run best on Linux.
WE’LL ASK AGAIN: WHY ?
Technical professionals like Linux because it resembles UNIX, the system most of them learned on, the system that runs most of the Internet. How might they convince their bosses ?
One Linux advantage is that it can be an inexpensive way to extend the life of outdated systems. Without XWindowing on top, the Linux OS can run on as little as two megabytes of memory. If you’re clever, you can run Linux, the windowing system and core utilities on a 16-megahertz 386SX system with 4 mb of RAM and 40 mb of hard disk space.
By comparison, a Windows 98 setup with less than 16 mb of RAM and 300 mb of free disk space would be so slow as to render it almost useless.
Loads of memory and storage aren’t required if the computers are being used as front-ends to large, server-based programs. But Linux can provide an inexpensive, full 32-bit OS upgrade to a machine thought to be headed for the landfill.
Compatibility isn’t a problem either. If you have a network that contains a variety of operating systems (MS-DOS, Windows whatever, and UNIX), Linux can work with them, either on a separate machine or as a partition on a single machine. You don’t have to change much else to bring Linux online and test it.
But the Linux advantage no boss can dispute is its price. The support program won’t be free, but the software is. And if the company doesn’t want to spend a dime on testing, there are enough Internet resources to answer nearly all questions.
POWER
What makes technical people love Linux (an “I Linux” T-shirt is available on the Web) ? It’s more than the open source code, the price or the chance to thumb one’s nose at Microsoft.
Techs love power, and Linux has it. Linux harnesses the multitasking capabilities of Intel’s 80386 and 80486 processor much more efficiently than MS-DOS and all but the most recent versions of Windows. Benchmarking tests reveal that Linux running on an inexpensive 100-mHz 80486 machine can surpass the speed of much more expensive UNIX workstations completing similar operations.
But that’s just the beginning. The real power of Linux is that in the right hands, it offers more control over every aspect of the computing experience. If you have the time and the talent, you can change the way the operating system looks and behaves. It’s the ultimate PC customizer.
MAINSTREAMING LINUX
If Linux is to become a mainstream operating system, it will have to be available on the desktops of people who don’t want to — or can’t — make all those adjustments. And that means some of the current Linux crowd’s favorite parts of the operating system will go away. Think of the early days of desktop publishing (or Web-page publishing, for that matter) when high-end design tools in novice hands led to some of the ugliest documents ever created. Expect novice programmers to do the same with Linux.
More and more people are turning to Linux not only because it’s cool but because it makes their lives easier. Those who learned on UNIX systems in college can keep using UNIX, even on industry-standard PCs.
No one believes Linux will overtake Windows, no matter what the market and the courts do to future versions of the Redmond OS. But there are niches in which Microsoft is vulnerable.
The Microsoft networked-PC strategy (formerly known as thin-client Windows and before that as diskless workstations, both of which failed) is still unformed. Its UNIX connectivity tools are still young, and the scalability of NT systems still falls behind UNIX. Just as Apache has slipped under the radar to lead in Web servers, there is ample room for Linux companies to build robust business without getting in the way of Microsoft. And in today’s computing world, that seems to be the only way to stay alive.
THE MOZILLA ANGLE
NETSCAPE ADOPTS THE OPEN-SOURCE MODEL
In January, Netscape Communications Corp. announced it would make the source code for its flagship Internet-browsing suite available for free to any developer willing to take the time to download and compile the large files.
It was the final weapon (short of Department of Justice intervention) available to Netscape in its fierce war with Microsoft for dominance of the Internet-software market. However the weapon performs, it will have a profound effect on the shape of both Netscape and its industry.
When an early version of the source code was made available two months later, Netscape Vice President Marc Andreessen wrote that the company was “building on the Internet tradition of collaboratively developed software, such as Linux.” In the first sentence of the first public announcement of source code availability, Andreessen invoked one example – Linux.
What does Netscape expect to achieve by adopting the Linux model of free community distribution ? It certainly doesn’t want Linux’s market share, currently less than one percent of the personal computer operating system market. According to recent research by International Data Corp., Netscape still controls more than 50 percent of the browser market, although its lead is eroding daily and is expected to disappear in 1999.
What Netscape hopes to gain from adopting the Linux model is an opportunity to leave the browser war and concentrate on the potentially lucrative server and tools market.
By moving to a Linux model, Netscape leverages the limitless resources of the programming community as a whole. Rather than struggle to pay its own programmers (Netscape was forced into layoffs late last year), the company can leave the tasks of fixing bugs or adding tiny new features to freelance (the operative word being “free”) programmers around the world.
“Some of the people in my company are more committed than the company is to free code,” Netscape Chief Executive Officer James Barksdale acknowledged at PC Forum in March. He said it wryly, but his point remains: Nearly all of the people working on future versions of the Netscape client are doing so
for reasons other than money. And that’s a model that can work wonders.
In 1996, InfoWorld magazine named a commercial version of Linux its Operating System of the Year. The following year the magazine awarded the Linux community its Best Technical Support prize.
How could this happen ? Because programs developed out in the open succeed-and operate more reliably. A revitalized Andreessen seems to be enjoying his position as the public face of free software; he has been writing and speaking more frequently and, er, openly. Indeed, at a recent Silicon Valley Linux Users Group meeting, he challenged Sun Microsystems to join the bandwagon and open Java’s source code, apparently in an attempt to unify the anti-Microsoft battle. Andreessen predicted that if Sun didn’t do it, something similar would happen anyway, and Sun would lose all control of the language.
Andreessen also spoke of Mozilla, the free, non-Netscape-branded version of the Netscape browser client as “the user environment of the future, where people can live and work on the Net.” Sounds like it’s a browser being repositioned as an operating system, based on its expected bundling with future versions of Linux. So Netscape isn’t really after Microsoft’s Internet Explorer anymore; realistically or not, it’s gunning for Windows.
Even if Sun Microsystems won’t accept the open-source challenge, other companies are. For example, a recent check of Corel’s Web site unearthed an avalanche of material regarding the regarding the company’s decision to make its WordPerfect source code freely available and to speed up its Linux development. A version of WordPerfect for Linux already is available; a more elaborate server version is expected by fall.
On May 26, Corel announced the release of its Linux-based source code for its new line of network computers. Rather than merely try to extend the life of its once-leading WordPerfect product, the company has now put into motion plans for a full hardware-and-software system based on Linux.
Although Microsoft still dominates the software industry, its competitors are discovering that hitching their wagons to Linux might help them compete without getting run over.
THE REEMERGENCE OF COMMUNITY-BUILT SOFTWARE
It didn’t take long to get the ball rolling after Netscape announced last January that it would release the source code of its Communicator Internet-browsing suite. A quick trip to the Mozilla Web site (www.mozilla.org) reveals expected information on the latest developments. But the site also contains a tool called Tinderbox, a continually updated page that lets developers see when the most recent version, or “build,” of the Mozilla project was loaded, along with notes about what’s working and what’s not.
It’s the sort of tool you’d expect to see in use on a private software development project, not something you’d expect to find and be able to alter on the public Internet. But that’s the world Linux has helped create.
In many ways, the ascendance of Linux brings the Internet and the PC industry back to their hobbyist roots. In the early 1980s, most PCs were used by enthusiasts — people who loved tinkering with hardware and software.
Some of the hobbyists eventually went pro, but most of the early-’80s PC programming — at least as reflected by what showed up on computer bulletin boards — focused on play, from porting games to new platforms to coaxing new noises out of the primitive sound chips on Kaypro IIs.
Other computer users didn’t seem to mind supporting the cause by sending money to the folks who had worked on some of the hardware and software because there was a feeling that this combination of commercial and homegrown tools was leading to something new. User group meetings at the time had an egalitarian, nearly utopian feel. Then, of course, came big software companies and copy protection, which sent such utopians reeling.
The same feeling of cooperation and collaboration infected the Internet before “.com” addresses started showing up. As late as 1993, you could ask a question about multimedia authoring on an unmoderated Usenet newsgroup like alt.hypertext and be reasonably sure that within a few days you would receive a definitive answer from an expert. Now those experts don’t seem to have time for overpopulated and spam-infested groups.
But as Linux has been transformed from a neat little hack into a major business tool, the hobbyist ethic has returned.
It’s different now, though. All but the most defiantly libertarian programmers want some structure to open source coding. They argue that you need someone like Linux creator Linus Torvalds or a committee of “Lini” to consider the various additions to the public source-code base and decide what should be in and what shouldn’t. If you have several dozen versions of a program or an operating system in circulation, it loses any pretension to a standard and becomes useless, they say.
Eric S. Raymond, author of The New Hacker’s Dictionary (MIT Press, $17.50), has created a metaphor for how an ideal free or community-generated software package should be maintained. His essay, “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” www.redhat.com/redhat/cathedral-bazaar/, has been wildly influential within the free-software circle and was one of the documents Netscape executives pointed to when they took the Communicator code public. Raymond’s essay asserts that commercial software is built like a cathedral, “carefully crafted by individual wizards . . . working in splendid isolation.”
When Torvalds unleashed Linux, Raymond wrote, the model changed to something more like a bazaar, in which multiple loud voices fight for attention, often in different languages, and the code is remarkably stable because so many people get to inspect it before it joins the official code base. “Linux is subversive,” Raymond wrote. “Who would have thought even five years ago that a world-class operating system could coalesce as if by magic out of part-time hacking by several thousand developers scattered all over the planet, connected only by the tenuous strands of the Internet ?”
That is precisely what has happened. The excitement of being part of a larger effort, the desire to thwart Microsoft and the intellectual challenge of creating a better OS have all led to a process that shows no sign of subsiding. To date, successful Linux ports have been written for the Motorola 680×0, Digital Alpha, Sun SPARC, PowerPC/Power Macintosh, Be, MIPS (including a Silicon Graphics version), Fujitsu AP1000+ supercomputer, the NeXT box, various network computers and at least three palmtop computers.
A couple of years ago there was once a Microsoft promotion called “Windows Everywhere.” It looks like “Linux Everywhere,” thanks to community development, was possible first.
LINUX RESOURCES
As you’d expect, the Internet is stuffed with Linux resources. An AltaVista search in late May yielded 4,078,460 hits. Rather than turn that firehose on you, we offer a set of Linux links to get you started. After that, you can dig forever.
El Weasel’s Linux page,http://www.ghg.net/crholmstrom/linux.html, is a good place to start when you’re trying to track down online Linux resources. But even before you go here, go to the real source, The Rampantly Unofficial Linus Torvalds FAQ, at http://earthspace.net/esr/faqs/linus/index.html. His somewhat more official (but much less useful) home page is at http://www.cs.Helsinki.FI/torvalds/(less than)/a(greater than).
Looking for a Linux application, any Linux application, from printer utilities to Java development environments ? Start at http://www.xnet.com/blatura/linapps.html. As fan sites go, the Mining Co. compilation at http://linux.miningco.com/is quite extensive. A similar site run by O’Reilly and Associates, at http://linux.oreilly.com/, includes excerpts from that publisher’s excellent technical resources. If you want to relive past programming triumphs, you can find a version of Pascal for Linux at http://www.brain.uni-freiburg.de/klaus/fpc/.
Linux is free, of course, but there are several commercial versions that include support and documentation: Try Red Hat at http://www.redhat.com or Caldera at http://www.caldera.com. Mac enthusiasts don’t miss anything, so you won’t be surprised to learn that there’s a project for porting Linux to Apple systems, http://www.mac.linux-m68k.org/.
Can’t figure out how to pronounce “Linux” correctly ? Listen along at http://earthspace.net/esr/faqs/linus/english.au.
If you want to get involved with open source programming or learn more about it, check out www.opensource.org.
And, finally, Id Software doesn’t support it, but there is a version of Quake available for Linux systems. It’s buried on the company’s FTP site at ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/unsup/intellinuxquake101.tgz.
Fire away.
