Monday, October 16, 2000		Lead Article

Even a school-going kid knows who Bill Gates is but very few know about Linus Torvalds. It won’t be surprising, if even a geek was unable to tell who he is. He is the man who created Linux operating system at the University of Helsinki in Finland, which is now becoming a preferred operating system in the world as is seen as a cool alternative to Windows operating system.

For ages, Windows had a monopoly in operating systems. Windows has been the most preferred operating system as far as the desktop users are concerned. It is this wonder that made Bill Gates, the richest man on the planet. With Linux getting popular, individuals world over are adopting this next generation operating system for speed, stability, applications, productivity and networking.

Linux is a free, Unix-like operating system, developed originally for home PCs. It now runs on a variety of platforms including PowerPC, Macintosh, Amiga, Atari, DEC Alpha, Sun Sparc, ARM, and many others. Linux aims for POSIX compliancy to maintain maximum compatibility with other Unix-like systems.

It has millions of users worldwide and they are increasing day by day. Linux is now being eyed as an alternative for Unix-based system, with all major features of Unix incorporated in it. It uses a graphical interface like Windows and supports features like TCP/IP, Emacs editor, X windows systems, which are normally found in Unix-based systems. Linux even has the capability to offer a variety of commercial productivity packages and office suites, which can import and export files from other platforms, including Windows and Mac operating system.

Linux operating systems are preferred as they have a good track record in many areas as compared to other traditional operating systems. They have proved to be better for stability and speed. No matter how fast processor is, if the operating system is not compatible or it is not fast, then optimum performance may remain a distant dream. Stability and speed matters, both for end users and developers. Besides speed, it also addresses other important concerns like networking and software development.

As far as the stability is concerned, Linux is supposed to be the best operating system available after Unix. If an application has to run continuously over months or even years then Linux is preferred as the operating system, globally. Unlike Windows, it does not crash, or gets stuck up often. It goes on and on without any problems.

However, there is a small glitch in its stability. Like the Y2K problem, under which computers were supposed to behave erratically, for Linux-based system the trouble date is 2038. This is very far away and maybe, a solution would be worked out by that time by incorporating a small modification to the kernel.

Another great feature is that it is virus-free. As per a study, a majority of Windows-operated computers the world over have suffered the virus attack. Practically, no virus attacked either Unix or Linux-operating system. Though there was a virus hoax for the Unix-based operating systems a couple of weeks ago yet it was contained and was not reported any further.

Linux-based computers are very fast as compared with other operating systems, including Windows, because this operating system is efficient at managing resources, like memory, CPU power, and disk space. More of the Web than one might expect is actually powered by old 486 boxes running Linux and the Apache Web Server. Big organisations like NASA, Sandia, Fermilabs and others have built powerful yet inexpensive supercomputers by creating clusters of Linux-boxes running in parallel.

Unlike Unix-based systems, the Linux-based systems use intuitive graphical interface and has many highly configurable graphical interfaces, more popularly known as window managers, which run on top of XFree86. The most popular window managers at the moment are KDE or the K Desktop Environment and GNOME. All these graphical offers normal windows like feeling and have features like point-and-click and drag-and-drop. One can also easily alter the looks of Linux-based system, to make it look like a Mac or Windows desktop.

The Linux systems come with standard C and C++ compilers and an assembler, and also often include Pascal, Fortran, and Basic implementations as well. The list does not end here as it also has some modern language like Perl and Python and classic languages, like LISP fully functional and also completely free. Moreover, the source code for nearly any Linux program is freely available and is often included by default. If you visualise a future programmer in you, then you can start with Linux.

Well! Linux is not just for the developers and software professionals, but has a lot in store for the end users or the common men also. In fact, Linux-based software would eventually prove to be of more interest for the end users as they are normally free. Since the source codes of the Linux-based operating system is free, thus it has produced thousands of pieces of software of all varieties, which are constantly being improved and added to the list. A majority of them are available free along with the source code. Thus whatever you want to do with your Linux system, the software for it is probably already available. A software that is extremely popular among the Linux users is the GNU Image Manipulation Program or GIMP, which is similar to Adobe Photoshop.

Unlike PhotoShop this program is highly extensible, completely free, and guaranteed to stay that way. It also has others tonnes of software like audio applications, including players and recorders, drum machines, synthesisers, and synthesis languages. It also includes kitty software related to productivity, office, and financial packages.

Much to the delight of majority of end-users, Linux offers extensive support for games also. One can find many games on Linux platform, which also includes slick, commercial 3D games.

In fact, you can also find some top quality games in Linux version as the growing interest has prompted many software developers to produce high-end games for Linux-based systems. It is also worth mentioning here that the support for games is also better in case of Linux, due to its better platform. One can find traditional online board games such as chess more interesting on Linux.

Besides, games and end-user software, Linux also has a lot of programming software and system utilities. The best feature is that it has compatibility with other operating systems. Therefore Linux can co-exist on the same machine as other operating systems. Thus, you can have Linux, Windows, BeOS, and OS/2, all on one system!

The best way to learn this operating system is to actually use it.