Disclaimer: The information below is simply my advice. Computers are a very complicated piece of machinery and everything you do to them has the infinite potential for good or bad. I take no responsibility for any repercussions that may result from the opinions I have written below.

After another frustrating day with one of the most notorious operating systems in the business, Windows NT Server, I was finally ready to give the competition a chance- Linux. I was sick of editing registry values and constantly rebooting NT when something went wrong. One of my biggest grievances against NT is the fact that, to do anything really cool, you need to edit the registry and reboot the machine. This process has never made sense to me. I wanted the ability to change, and then monitor that change, on the fly.

The Installation Process….

My First Copy of Linux for Dummies:
I picked up a copy of Linux Version 6.x at a Barnes and Noble. Almost all Linux books contain a Linux installation CD-ROM. This wasn’t the first time I’ve bought a book store copy of Linux. This copy of Linux however, would do more that just populate a bookshelf. I actually planned to install it this time!

TECH NOTE: Version 6.x is the latest version of Linux. I’d suggest buying the "latest" copy of a book so you’ll get the latest copy of the software. I personally purchased "Linux for Dummies." I’ll refer more to the book later.

Installing the Software:
I installed Linux on a Pentium II 200 I had laying around the apartment. I expected to have a lot of difficulty installing the operating system but it really wasn’t that bad. The installation disks and CD-ROM contained enough information to install the correct device drivers for my CD-ROM and system board stuff. I installed Linux on the primary 2 gig partition on my 4 gig IDE drive.

TECH NOTE: I used a utility located on the Linux CD to create the boot disks needed to install the operating system.

Using Linux "This Cursor Keep BLINKING AT ME!!!":
Installing Linux was easy- maybe to easy. There were no difficult driver installs. My CD-ROM was easily recognized. Unfortunately though Linux didn’t look anything like Windows95/98. There was no start button, all it had was a blinking cursor next to a directory name. It all looked very much like command line dos, except some of the slashes and stuff were backwards.

TECH NOTE: What I was looking at is the Unix shell (command line interface). Many of the more powerful Unix features can be annexed only through this command line interface.

XWindows, The GUI interface for Linux:
You guessed it, XWindows is the windows-like graphical interface for the Unix operating systems. I was extremely satisfied with the XWindows interface. It seemed to respond much quicker to mouse clicks and keyboard strokes then Windows95/98/NT does. Instead of the one desktop that comes with 95/98/NT Linux had 8 separate desktop.

Here’s a list of the things I liked about the XWindows interface.

1. 8 separate desktops instead of one.
2. Long list of Unix games
3. Sharp screen picture
4. Screen decorations like "XEarth" the Real Time Revolving Globe
5. Quicker response times when switching between multiple programs.
6. Separate instances of the same program can be run together without interfering with each other.
7. Programs don’t lock entire machine when they lock up.

Logging on to the Internet:
What good is a computer if you can’t use it to surf the web? It took me about a half-hour of effort to get the modem working properly. Luckily Linux comes preinstalled with Netscape Communicator (4.7 as of this writing). Unfortunately Netscape crashed on me a couple of times, however, the crash didn’t prevent me from accessing other programs. As a matter of fact I was able to load up another copy of Netscape while the system was unloading the crashed copy. Perhaps one of the most impressive things about Linux was it’s ability to operate after a major application had crashed.

TECH NOTE: Installing network support for Linux was very similar to configuring an interface on a Cisco Router to support TCP/IP. The Unix command line interface, as it pertains to networking commands, is very Cisco-like.

Conclusion: Linux Holds Much Promise

Linux is going to take me a long time to figure out. I believe Linux has the potential to give me the confidence in the machinery and software that I’ve been seeking as a server administrator. When I’m setting up a high-end server for a major client I’d like to know exactly what’s going on with it. NT hides too much from me. Everything good is locked up in the registry and any major configuration change needs to be followed by a reboot. Hopefully Linux will give me the ability to make and control these changes (as a server). As a desktop system I’d like a machine that was a little more impervious to crashes and can quickly adapt to multiple environments (TCP/IP, NetWare, NT, etc…)