Red
Hat Linux 9 - A comparative review
There
is a lot of speculation and debate whether Linux based systems can
become the preferred desktop OS configurations. So here is a
comparative review of the latest from Red Hat - Red Hat Linux 9 and MS
Windows XP.
The cost -
Lets
start from the beginning. a very important place to start. Red Hat Linux
comes as a 3 CD set that costs Rs. 900. As compared to the per license
cost of about Rs 4000 for MS Windows XP Home edition, this is really a
good deal. Plus there is one major advantage. Linux based systems are
(more or less) free software (for an introduction to free software visit href="www.gnu.org">The GNU organisation). Red Hat, to the best of
my knowledge, is free software. So you don't have to buy multiple
licenses if you have multiple setups. Of course, for developers free
software or even open source software is invaluable, but since I am
considering that the user is just a common user, the icing on the cake
does not matter.
The installation -
Next
comes the installation - the installation CD is bootable. I have an AMD
K6 500 MHz CPU with a 18 GB HDD and 128 MB of RAM. You just go on
pressing 'Enter' (with a few necessary options like the timezone that
you need to point out during the installation) and the installation
proceeds smoothly. I chose a desktop configuration with KDE as well as
Gnome to be installed (typically, any one is sufficient; Gnome is the
default choice). It took about an hour to install the software and
configure the graphics resolution and other stuff (usually, it is all
detected automatically and you just have to go on pressing enter). My
network card was automatically detacted and configured during setup. I
was asked for all three CDs during the installation and after it was
done, it rebooted.
The first boot -
The
installation installs the GRUB bootloader by default. If you have any
previous Windows OS installed, it automatically detects it and makes an
entry in the boot options. On booting Linux, you get a lot of details
about what is happening during the boot process. As all the services are
started, you get a list of what is happening. One service of interest is
the automatic hardware detection. My ISA Soundblaster 16 sound card was
detected and configured properly. The whole booting process takes about
a minute and fifteen seconds, almost as much as Windows XP. However,
one must not forget that the startup script starts a lot more services
than XP, for example the Sendmail mail server, an SSH login server,
etc. Then I was presented with the login screen. I typed in the
username and password and selected KDE as the session. In about half a
minute, the system was up and running. The first thing I did was to
configure the dialup internet connection. I was a cakewalk with the
internet connection wizard. Then I played around with the KDE look and
feel to my hearts content (and there was scope for a lot more) and
finally settled down with a look thats a combination of half a dozen
things.
The applications -
Practically,
anything that the home user might want comes with the distribution.
That is another advantage over Windows. After installing Windows, you
need to scratch your head as to where you are going to obtain an office
suite. Since the only one people have heard is MS Office, one has to
obtain another license for that (boy, I thought that the comman man has
a right to use computers!) and install it.
The
distribution comes with a large set of applications like OpenOffice and
KOffice for office suites, the Mozilla web browser, email client,
newsreader and web-page composer, the Kmail email client (my personal
favourite), GAIM - the multiprotocol instant messenger, scientific
calculators, a large collection of graphics applications including the
GIMP, which is arguably the best graphics manilulation program, a
postscript and a PDF viewer, a program to send, receive and view faxes,
a tool to synchronise with a PDA, a FTP client, a newsreader, an IRC
client, an Internet dialer, a download accelerator and lots more (hell,
I got bored going through the list).
Quite
rewarding for an investment of Rs 900 and one hour right? But wait, the
best is yet to come.
The community -
As
soon as you start using Linux and the other free software tools that are
packaged along with it, you not only benefit from a technically superior
and secure technology (which is a must with bandwidth becoming cheaper
and connectivity increasing) but you also benefit from an opportunity
of being a part of a community that builds and uses this software. More
than 95% of the software bundled with Red Hat Linux is not made by Red
Hat. It is made by a community of people who believe that sharing is
good, and they have proved that they are right. The software I am
running now is the fruit of a world-wide effort by developers to make
good, reliable software that is open to scrutiny, modification and
redistribution. There are no dark secrets behind the programs, no
backdoor entries to your computers - just peer reviewed, reliable
software. So if you have a problem, what do you do? One option is that
you go to Red Hat. But what if they refuse support (the support
contract is only a few months)? The other is to go to someone who knows
his way around the system - and there are plenty of them around because
like anyone else, they can know the system inside out - because it is
free (for scrutiny, modification and redistribution); it is free
software. Now the question is how do you reach such people? Well, if you
can get hold of one them, chances are that you will get hold of the
whole lot. That is because they hang around in groups called LUGs or
GNU/Linux User Groups. Every major city has its own LUG. And as the name
suggests, you can be part of this group. You don't have to be a 'techie'
or a geek to do so. Any knowledge that you can share with the group is
greatly appreciated. So to get support, you need not necessarily spend
monetarily, all you might have to do is give support to someone else
who needs it.
This
is how the community has come up, this is how it has prospered, this is
how it will proper; this is how it should be!
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