Unless you've been living underground for the past year, you have surely heard of Linux. Linux is currently the darling of the computer industry, and it's being touted as everything from the Microsoft-killer to the future of the human race. In reality, it's just an excellent operating system that offers a much-needed alternative to the Windows 95/98/NT hegemony that many are tired of suffering under. Linux at its core is a UNIX variant offering speed, stability, and style to users.
July 11, 1999
Linux has, in the past, truly lacked in friendliness and utility to the average user. Thankfully, Linux vendors have been moving forward at lightning speed to bring the upstart operating system into the hands of Everyman. The newest distributions of Linux are almost drastic departures from the Linux many of us know and love. What once was an arcane text-only system now offers graphical installs, plug and play, and full suites of useful applications.
Caldera OpenLinux 2.2
If ever there were a chance for Linux to give Windows 95/98 a good thrashing on the desktop, this is it. Caldera's newly updated distribution takes the best parts of Windows 95/98 and integrates them into Linux. From a fully graphical installation to a post-install game of Tetris, Caldera's distribution offers everything the Linux beginner and home user could hope for, though limiting its usability as a server OS.
The Caldera OpenLinux installer is 100% graphical. If you already have Windows 95/98 on your system, you can simply insert the CD-ROM into the drive and find yourself immediately dropped into the installer. The OpenLinux installer comes with a "lite" version of PowerQuest's Partition Magic, which automates divvying up your hard drive for Windows, Linux, and the Linux swap partition. Anyone who's ever tried partitioning with FDISK will truly appreciate this.
After partitioning your disk, the install begins. The installer leads you by the hand through the entire process, prompting the user with easy to understand (and answer) questions. While you're answering one set of questions, the program is actually installing the software you chose in previous questions. This really speeds up the install, though on slower machines tends to cause a few weird problems (such as mouse sluggishness). Once all questions have been answered, a game of Tetris appears, allowing you to while away the time while the install finishes. The total time to install can vary from 20 minutes to an hour depending on machine speed and the size of the install that you choose.
Immediately after install, you're booted into the KDE graphical environment. KDE is a fairly straightforward knock-off of the Windows 9x GUI. KDE is a great tool to get new users acquainted with Linux on the desktop, though Caldera's reliance on KDE keeps users from learning about the internals of the operating system.
There are a few troubling problems with Caldera OpenLinux 2.2. First off, the automated install is weak when it comes to setting up your video card. On my laptop, it tested various settings I had chosen and told me they were OK. Alas, this was not true, and when my PC attempted to load the KDE graphical environment, it crashed, crashed, and crashed again. Thankfully, I knew how to jump to a virtual console and shut down the system's attempt to load the GUI. New users are quite obviously going to have a major headache should they run into this little scene.
Another issue with OpenLinux is the near-complete removal of command line/console-mode tools. I'm a huge fan of the PICO text editor, and use it religiously to edit configuration files. For the sake of ease-of-use, Caldera removed this console tool. In place of it you're given Kedit, a graphical knock-off of Windows Notepad, which is nowhere near as fast or as full-featured as PICO. This is just one example of the sacrifices Caldera made in order to make Linux more desktop-friendly.
My final complaint about OpenLinux is the over-reliance on GUI tools (Okay, I've already mentioned it above, but it really bugs me). When attempting to set up networking, I found that I was forced into using the COAS (Caldera Open Administration System) GUI, which was pretty confusing and weak. New users will find themselves ringing up their Linux gurus to help them configure their machines. Linux is console-based at heart, and trying to make it 100% GUI is going to cause problems. As a side note, whatever COAS was trying to do with networking kept frying my system, so much so that I had to boot without the network adapter inserted just to get the machine to function.
Red Hat Linux 6.0
Red Hat is doubtless the most recognized name (next to Linus Torvalds) in the Linux community. They have always produced outstanding distributions of Linux that have done well at balancing cutting-edge features and robust systems. Red Hat Linux 6.0 is further proof that they will continue their dominance as a Linux distributor. While Caldera excels at being the Linux for desktop users, Red Hat is shooting for dominance in the server market, and as an advanced user OS.
The Red Hat installer is nowhere near as polished as Caldera's. Once you've booted from either a set of boot floppies (making these is sure to frustrate any new user) or the CD-ROM (if your CD-ROM drive supports booting from CD, you're in luck) you're greeted with an ugly character/text-based installer. New users will probably think they've just begun installing DOS 6.0. Trudging through the install, you are prompted to set up your partitions via Disk Druid or FDISK (not the DOS-version, but an even more complex Linux version). I know of more than one user who has accidentally nuked their existing Windows 95/98 partitions, so let the beginner beware!
The questions asked throughout the install from then on are fairly straightforward, involving software choices, printer and network configuration, and installing the boot loader. LILO, the classic Linux bootloader, is used by Red Hat to allow you to choose between Windows and Linux at boot time. LILO is a simple text-based application, which is great when it works, and murder when it doesn't. Caldera uses the very graphical and easy-to-configure BootMagic boot loader in place of LILO, which gives it a leg up on Red Hat in this department.
Red Hat 6.0 allows the user to install and configure not only the KDE graphical desktop, but also the GNOME environment, whose development was sponsored in part by Red Hat. The version of KDE is the same as that used by Caldera, so the experience is the same. GNOME on the other hand is graphically inferior to KDE, though in my opinion much faster. The nice thing about Red Hat is that it's very simple for the user to choose from multiple GUIs, or even integrate one GUI into another, as long as you understand using the console and the command line.
Ahh, the command line! How glad I was to see it return with a vengeance. Sure, you can run Red Hat 6.0 almost completely through the KDE GUI, but you're not forced to. And that's where it shines over Caldera for advanced users. Administrators can drop out to the command prompt at any time and find all their favorite text-based friends (even PICO) waiting to help out. For hard-core Linux users, nothing is as fast or as complete as command-line file editing and system configuration.
Summing It Up
Linux is here to stay both as a desktop and server OS. If you're one of the many looking for a Linux distribution that's simple to install and use, then Caldera is for you. Caldera's OpenLinux makes for a great desktop OS, but it is far too hobbled by its GUI-centric nature to be used on the server side.
If you're looking for a server-oriented Linux distribution, you won't go wrong with Red Hat 6.0. While not as friendly as Caldera, it maintains a stronger suite of administration tools, networking tools, and server options.
Both distributions come with a wide variety of applications, thereby firmly putting to rest the myth that there aren't enough applications for the operating system. Corel's WordPerfect 8, StarDivision's Staroffice 5.0, Netscape Communicator, and dozens of other programs are included to round out both distributions.
If you've been curious about Linux, or are looking to upgrade your current Linux system, this new crop of offerings is certainly worth looking into. And if you're curious, I'm a Red Hat man, all hail the console!
