What Can Linux Do For Me Right Now?
Immediate
Gratification
Run a Windows network and struggling with license fees?
Just got broadband? Then you need a firewall. No, really, you seriously need one. Read my page on how to avoid viruses. Particularly if you use Microsoft Windows.
Some of the most recent viruses randomly attack insecure systems via an open Internet connection. I won't go into the details, but a good firewall will block these. You will be best off installing Smoothwall on an old unused PC. Smoothwall is a Linux firewall system, which means it isn't vulnerable to Windows attacks. However, it is a dedicated system and it will wipe the hard disk of the machine you install it on, so don't use it on a machine you need for anything else.
People have this concept that Linux is too complicated to use or too geeky to be of use. If you have broadband and want to connect multiple PCs to it, Smoothwall covers everyhting you need at no financial cost and is very simple to configure via it's own built in web pages.
Smoothwall 1.0 will run comfortably on a 486 or early Pentium with 32MB RAM and a 500MB hard disk. Version 2.0 requires a low end Pentium with a no less RAM or disk space than version 1.0, though 64MB RAM and a 1GB HD is recommended.
You will also need at least one network card in each machine involved (ie one in the smoothwall machine and one in every machine that wants to connect to the internet. If you want to ). You will also need a monitor, graphics card, keyboard and CD Drive for installation but these can be removed after installation, before you turn the machine on for active duty as the firewall is configured, though for best practice I leave the graphics card, monitor and keyboard in case of emergency when you can't shut down the machine by the web interface.
You need to know the basics of configuring a network and have suitable networking equipment. You can read my page on Computer Network Basics which covers hardware and software setup if you are unsure. It covers as much as you need to know.
I will be writing a page that tells you how to install Smoothwall for a USB ADSL connection in the near future.
Why would you want your own webserver for chrissakes? It will cost you a fortune and you won't know what to do with it. Well, most regular Linux distributions come with Apache as standard and it doesn't cost you a thing. Apache is a production standard webserver that runs approximately 60% of the worlds websites.
If you have your own website and you have problems with having enough space for your site in the web space you have, your web space provider insists on adding pop-up adds or in page to every one of your pages or you have a really crap website address you might want to consider serving your own pages from your very own webserver. Its pretty simple.
All you have to do is ensure Apache is installed during the set up routine and then place your website under the /var/www/htdocs directory of your Linux system which is the default on most systems. You can run more than one website from the same machine at the same time.
You can run Apache on a standalone machine, just leave it running and only bother about it when you need to update your site, as Linux does not crash randomly like Windows, it either works or it doesn't and stuff like Apache will runs for years without problem.
Or you can run it on your desktop machine in the background though there are security implications with this. Ideally you want a dedicated machine and transfer your files across as and when necessary.
If you want to create your website on a different machine to the server and transfer them across there are a few ways but the best ways are to run and ftp server on your webserving machine and ftp your files across, which is no harder than running Apache, but is a little insecure as you need to know how to set it up properly, just install it in the setup routine, or run an SSH server. SSH is a secure equivalent to the hopelessly insecure telnet. It provides remote login facilities allowing you to work on a remote machine as though your were sitting at a local one. Using an SSH aware ftp client like WS-FTP for Windows or one of the many Linux clients available, you tell the client to connect to the remote machine using SSH and then copy your files across as though it were an ftp server. I recommend the SSH route. Again, all you have to do is ensure that the SSH server gets installed when you are installing Linux.
According to Microsoft, if you are an individual or an organisation and have recently purchased a 2nd hand PC or had one donated to you, you have somewhere between 30 and 90 days (I can't remember to be honest) to either purchase a new Windows license or to wipe the existing copy from the PC. In reality nobody ever does, but if you are conscientious or fear that your license arrangements put you at risk of legal action then you have to take one of the above courses of action. What to do? Install Linux thats what.
You can download Linux for free from most Linux distributors' web sites or you can purchase a boxed set with extra 'paid-for' software at approximately half the cost of a new copy of Windows.For an all-purpose Linnux set up I recommend Mandrake Linux, Red Hat or SuSE. Unless you are a beginner I would discount Mandrake. If you are familiar with Linux or feeling hardcore I would recommend Debian. Of these, Mandrake is best for beginners but may frustrate more advanced users, Red Hat and SuSE are best for intermediate, corporate and regular desktop users. They are very stable and cohesive systems. Debian is my recommendation overall but you need to be reasonably competent and be aware that due to Debian's strict software policy it lags behind the others in how up to date the software is. It also lacks hardware detection so you need to know what you are doing. Debian is free in all circumstances.
Microsoft are evil. Everybody knows that. They use unfair business practices to squeeze everybody else out of the market place. They use false information and a massive marketing budget to get you to buy their products and convince you that they are cheaper, more cost-effective, offer better performance than the alternatives and that all Linux people are loony communists providing a false economy and poor quality software. We all know thats what they're doing. I know. I like to think that eveybody else does, but sadly that is not true.
If you don't believe what I'm saying go read the Halloween Documents. This is an internal Microsoft review of Linux that got leaked. It describes Linux as a best of breed UNIX and the best way to defeat it is to 'leverage existing standards and add proprietary Microsoft only extensions to ensure customer tie-in'. What they mean is that are going to take the stuff that everybody uses and change it to make Micrososft only versions and make everybody pay to use them. Fair? No.
Other tactics include FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). This is the bit about telling everybody that the alternatives to Microsoft products are created by lunatics, communists and incompetents and that the software is substandard. Read the Linux Myths on why this is rubbish.
Run a Windows network and struggling with license fees?
In 2 words, Samba and money. Samba allows Linux to act as a Windows primary domain controller and also to allow Linux to access Windows network shares including printers. So you can do away with your expensive Windows servers and licenses. You can also do away with paying the Windows Server client access licenses for connecting Windows PCs to Windows Servers. Or you can swap your Windows desktops for Linux ones, thereby getting rid of the client access licenses and the desktop licenses, though if you're going to do this, you may aswell get rid of the servers too.
Linux is free to download or about half the price of Windows for paid versions. So financial savings are obvious. Samba on Linux outperforms Windows servers almost 2 to 1 in the files it can serve per second and the number of clients it can support. Go get some figures, it's true.
Most arguments regarding Linux and Windows come down to support, applications and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). With Windows you get support from the vendor, from external organisations and from shared knowledge amongst other users. The same is true of Linux. The fear factor or FUD (as spread by Microsoft) is the most common obstacle in this area. Where do you go when Linux goes wrong? Where do you go when Windows goes wrong? Ultimately the answers will be the same, a third party support organisation or community support. The fact is that the peer support provided by the Linux community is a lot more structured and expansive than in the Windows world.
With Windows you can choose almost any software for any purpose. With Linux there are obvious choices and then some gaps in more specialist areas. Linux has most of the common aplication groups. It is laden almost as much as Windows, if not more so in areas such as *good quality* mail clients, web browsers, office software, multimedia players etc, but there are gaps when it comes to organisation level specialist apps (aka middleware) like finance and accounting software and special purpose academic software. The fact is that there are solutions out there, but they are most likely paid for and so don't as much coverege as their free Linux or paid Windows counterparts. This requires some investigation. People like IBM, Oracle and others have moved their product ranges to include Linux so the answers are out there you just have to find them. How did you find your Windows solution? Do the same again with Linux. Linux distributors will most likely help if you ask them.
TCO is a 2 way game and ulimately has never been proven either way. Linux is cheaper to buy and is cheaper to maintain, since it does not crash obscurely and can run for years without problem. It either works or it doesn't work at all. There are many stories of people uncovering a forgotten Linux machine chugging away. So long in fact that they didn't even know what it did any more until they turned it off and stuff started to fail. Stanford University found one bricked up in a forgotten cupboard that was still running the DNS system. They didn't know this until they found it and turned it off. If Linux works it will stay working in most scenarios until the hardware fails. Now *thats* uptime. There are also stories of Windows sysadmin asking their colleague how he got months of uptime from his Windows NT server when theirs had to be rebooted every few days. His answer? I use Linux. Their reply? What's Linux. Hmmmm...
The fact is that Linux is cheaper to buy and maintain, but the problem is that most people from IT support staff to end users know Windows and don't know Linux which means retraining which in turn costs money. Also Linux qualified staff are more expensive as the skills are rarer. Windows is so pervasive that the skill set is widely available. Linux is less common and so is the necessary skillset to maintain it. In a market economy that means paying Linux staff more. What has not been proven is whether the stability of Linux means you need less staff to maintain it. Linux qualified staff are also rarer as creditable qualification schemes are fewer in Linux circles than in Windows ones. You want Microsoft qualified staff, you go for people with an MCE or MCSE. You want qualified Linux staff you go to ummm... Well fortunately this is changing. Linux vendor Red Hat runs the RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) programme which ensures it's people are suitable to administer Red Hat Linux machines in the same way an MCSE is with Windows. Also the LPI (Linux Professional Institute) provide vendor agnostic Linux training and you can be sure that LPI qualified staff have an incredible level of training. Novell is also introducing similar schemes. So the gap is closing between training for Windows and Linux.
The choices are yours to make or at least review. Speak to a Linux vendor like Red Hat or SuSE and they will most likely help put together a package for you to at least look at. I know personally the head of a school who himself has a moderate knowledge of Linux who with the help of the Linux community has moved all of the school's computing infrastructure (ie web, mail and DNS servers etc) to Linux and installed a 16 machine computer lab running Red Hat and spent the savings made by installing Red Hat instead of Windows on TFT monitors for all of the machines in the lab.
The truth is out there.
Didn't find what you wanted eh?
If you really need help try joining your local Linux User Group, thats what they are for - asking questions and giving and requesting assistance from your peers. There are lists for the UK at http://www.lug.org.uk/ and worldwide at http://www.linux.org/
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