It’s called Linux. You may have to learn it. Soon. The good news is that the basics aren’t that hard to learn, and you may not need to learn much more if you don’t need to get into the guts of the thing. If you do, training is available.
Because it appears that Linux is not going to go away. A committee-written operating system, it offers an alternative to Windows NT for users who are not in a position to get a big-iron Unix box. It’s touted as being reliable, the source code is available, and if you can’t see paying about $50 for it on a CD-ROM you can download it free from the Internet.
“Last year there was a 212 percent growth in the shipment of Linux servers, and a 48 percent growth in Linux desktops,” estimated Jon Hall, head of the 60-member Linux International trade organization in Amherst, N.H. “At this point we are estimating that the entire installed base of Linux systems is about 10 million, which is about the same number as all commercial Unix systems.” (Of course, the average Unix installation is much bigger than the average Linux system, he admitted.)
Other sources claim that slightly more than a quarter of all public Web sites are on servers running Linux.
So at any moment the boss is likely to announce a switch to Linux for your office servers (or, more likely, a plan to set up a test project.)
Don’t panic. “Linux is a Unix work-alike, and people familiar with Unix will find it to be a very familiar environment,” said Paul McNamara, vice president of business development at Red Hat Software Inc. of Research Triangle Park, N.C.
Red Hat is the leading vendor of Linux — but no one owns Linux. Red Hat, like others, sells a “distribution” CD-ROM. You can download it free, but it will typically take six hours, and when it comes to installation you’re on your own.
His firm offers a week-long, $2,495 course for system administrators that gets down to the guts of the system (where, sources say, Linux differs considerably from Unix.)
For the more casual user, “You will find large Linux sections in all the major bookstores, and there are lot of excellent resources on the Web,” McNamara noted. Hall additionally recommended IDG Books’ “Linux for Dummies,” which he wrote.
“For DOS users who are used to a command line shell prompt, there is just a difference in what commands are available,” said Allan Smart, director of education services at Caldera Systems Inc. in Orem, Utah. (Caldera is another vendor that offers a “distribution” of Linux.) “For Windows users who are not used to a command line, it’s really new to them. They are used to a point-and-click environment and don’t know that there is a man behind the curtain.”
His firm offers a five-day, $1,995 class for systems administrators that gets into the guts of Linux, including how to play with that famous open source code and thus create your own customized operating system.
“If you follow certain guidelines, which we outline, it is not really dangerous at all,” Smart assured. “It is just a matter of selecting certain parameters.”
Art Tyde, head of Linuxcare Inc., a San Francisco training and support firm specializing in Linux, said, “It took me about six months to get up to speed, to where I could say I was a Linux guy.”
His firm now also offers five-day, $2,000 Linux administrator courses. “It’s very good to have a Unix background, but it will probably be a dull, boring Unix background without the flashy expectations that come from a Windows background,” he said. “The ideal person has a Unix background but is sick and tired of proprietary Unix, and runs Windows 95 at home and is tired of his system crashing all the time.”
“Customers come to us for a lot of reasons,” Tyde said. “Some are curious about Linux, and some are thinking about stability issues — Linux rarely goes down. So many users have an abusive codependent relationship with Microsoft — they don’t get freaked out when their machine locks up three or four times a day with data losses.”
As for his staff of Linux experts, Tyde said he looks at their computer knowledge and their passion for Linux, rather than any credentials. “We get punked-out guys with the ’80s Devo hair, to Unix guys who look like Jerry Garcia, to banker types,” he said. “The Linux community is very inclusive.”
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CORRECTION: Captions in the April 4 Jobs section incorrectly identified the locations of two technical education classes. The classes were conducted at the Madison Area Technical College.
