If you have any involvement with Information Technology, you’re probably already familiar with Linux as a server operating system. Indeed, for many

applications Linux is an accepted and even preferred platform. Google has built and is expanding one of the world’s largest cluster of Linux servers to host its pervasive search engine system. Major hardware vendors, including IBM and Hewlett-Packard, sell servers preloaded with Linux and provide premium support for the operating system. Oracle is the largest commercial database running on Linux with more than 80% market share. Successful commercial applications like VMware ESX are built on Linux foundations. And many of the largest Internet hosting providers run on Linux.

On the other hand, if your computer experience is limited to your own home PC, you may never have even heard of Linux and may be wondering what all the fuss is about. If that’s the case, listen up because Linux may be coming to a desktop near you!

What is Linux?

Simply put, Linux is a computer operating system like the Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows. The difference is that Linux is open source; anyone can view, modify, and redistribute the underlying code. Further, while OS X is designed to run only on Apple hardware, and while Windows runs primarily on x86 processors from Intel and AMD, there are many distributions or flavors of Linux, compiled to run on a wide array of hardware, everything from high-end corporate servers and mainframes, to home PC’s, to cell phones.

Linux began as a pet project of a Finnish university student, Linus Torvalds, in 1991 as an alternative to the server operating system Unix. He made it freely available to anyone who wished to modify it and it was quickly adopted and grew. Still, it remained primarily a server-based system. Few home users would have chosen its complex command-line interface over the comfortable and easy-to-use point-and-click GUI of the Macintosh or Windows.

However, Linux now also sports a graphical front-end and a plethora of user-friendly applications.

Going GUI

Since Linux is all about choice, it’s not surprising that there are a number of graphical environments available. The two most popular that come preloaded on many distributions targeted for desktop or workstation use are Gnome and KDE. Both offer features home users have come to expect: menus, icons from which to launch applications and documents, desktop wallpaper, screen savers, trash icons, and the like.

Connecting to printers is a simple process of selecting the printer type from a menu and telling the system where to find it, either on a local port or a network queue. To print from most applications simply select File, Print. No surprises there.

Sharing folders is equally simple and relies upon standard protocols that interface well with Macintosh and Windows systems.

For security, you can create multiple user accounts; each user gets their own desktop they can customize as they wish. There’s also a built-in firewall to protect you from Internet intruders.

Of course, most people are more interested in the applications they can run, rather than the underlying operating system. Here, Linux is in no way deprived.

Applications

For browsing the Internet, there’s Mozilla’s Firefox and Konqueror. For e-mail there’s Thunderbird and Evolution. The popular OpenOffice.org suite provides typical office functionality including word processing, spreadsheet, database, drawing, and presentations. The Gimp and Inkscape offer advanced graphics capabilities. And there’s a variety of utilities for burning CDs and DVDs, listening to music, watching videos, and chatting via services like AOL’s Instant Messenger.

This list is by no means complete. There are thousands of open source applications for Linux; you’d be hard-pressed not to find one that could do what you need. But there are also many commercial applications available.

Drawbacks

If Linux offers so much of the same functionality as Windows, why isn’t it more widely used? Why do many home and corporate users reject it?

Microsoft Windows, while it has many faults, has become so widespread in its use as to be nearly ubiquitous. It has become the de facto standard by which other systems are measured. For those people already familiar with and comfortable with Windows, anything else is a step back, even if it is faster, more intuitive, more stable, and more secure.

Also, it must be admitted, there are still situations where you may need to venture into the cryptic world of the Linux command shell. For those used to living with a mouse in one hand, typing commands like awk and grep at a flashing cursor is unacceptable.

And, while there are enough applications to satisfy all but the most demanding of users, there are a few notable exceptions. Microsoft Office is not available on Linux, and likely never will be. Adobe Photoshop is also missing. In both cases, nearly all of the functionality these two giants provide is available in other applications, but for some die hards, that’s not good enough. While there are ways of running some Windows applications on Linux, they’re not usually as fast or as stable — or as easy to implement — as native Linux applications.

The situation is even dimmer for games. While the console market — PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox — is growing, the PC and Mac game market is shrinking. The commercial Linux game market is even smaller. Oh, there are plenty of games for Linux, but most are modest efforts, with few of the heavy hitters widely available on other platforms. Those that have been ported to Linux are not always fully supported — if they’re supported at all — by the original producer. For example, while you can purchase Quake 4 for Linux, don’t expect id Software to help you get it running, a task not for neophytes or those who shy away from the command line.

Vendors

Despite any apparent drawbacks, some major vendors are actively promoting Linux on the desktop. Novell now offers the SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, while Red Hat offers Enterprise Linux WS, both targeted at corporations. Since users in this environment are likely to have a fixed set of applications without a heavy gaming need, Linux is often ideal. And a number of organizations are taking advantage of the potential savings offered by these open source options. Governments especially, under scrutiny for how they handle the public purse, are often quick to make the move. Among them are the cities of Largo, Florida, USA; Bristol, UK; and Bergen, Norway. They have each made their taxpayers happy with significant savings over the closed source, proprietary systems they used to use.

Choices

If you’re a heavy gamer, then you’ll probably want to stick with Windows or a dedicated console. If your focus is advanced graphics and video editing, then Linux may be an option, if you’re willing to give up certain commercial applications. Otherwise, you’d be better off with a Macintosh. If you’re just surfing the Internet, sending e-mail, writing letters, and editing spreadsheets, then Linux and the open source software that comes with many distributions will do everything you need.

On the other hand, if you don’t want to ever see a command line or edit configuration files by hand, then Linux probably isn’t for you just yet. But it may be soon.

.About the Author:

Jules Smith is the principal of LightningStrike Studios, a professional business and technical writing firm.

Early up-graders to Windows Vista are reporting

annoyance by the loads of software and hardware incompatibilities coming to the fore as they use Windows Vista. For the record the Redmond, Wash., software giant launched Vista and a companion update called Windows Vista Application Compatibility Update to the market on Jan 30. Seems like they expected a lot of issues with the system because they made sure that Vista patches were available on the net even before the Compact disks of the operating system left the factory.

That update, KB929427, makes good some of the more challenging application incompatibilities, but the nightmare is far from over, for the early bird upgraders. There is nothing new about

compatibility issues when a new operating system is launched, however, Vista is not only has a number of incompatibilities with existing applications but also lacks many drivers for critical hardware components and hardware peripherals. Support for Vista hardware is compounded by the fact that most vendors have not created drivers of their hardware that is compatible for Vista making support more of a headache. This is understood when it comes to peripherals such as printers and scanners but so far as critical hardware components such as hard drives, chipset controllers and video cards are concerned the lack of compatibility will crash the system. The manufacturers of primary components of the computer hardware system are just not ready with their wares to support Vista.

Early adopters of Vista have the following problems to contend with:

They will face a drastic lack of available drivers vendors leading to conflicts in applications.

New peripheral hardware components will lack compatible Vista drivers and the old components drivers will simply refuse to work in most cases.

New security feature often flags existing applications as suspicious and interrupts service

The OS automatically recommends which Vista versions is best for each PC’s configuration. This will cause small businesses to download different versions of Vista.

SO in the ultimate analysis, Vista may seem attractive in it’s packaging but it still has far to go.

.About the Author:

Anmol Taneja is a Gadget enthusiast and critique. He has written several articles on various aspects of gadgets and the role they play in our day to day lives. Anmol is involved with several organizations involved in the evaluation and review of gadgets including http://gadgets.in thegadgetcast.com and gadgetenclave.in

Ive been using Windows Vista on one of my computers for the past month. Rather than write about the experience before Ive had the chance to fully try

it out, I instead ran it through the paces. I used it almost exclusively for one month. So what did I think?

Not bad. Its definitely a different experience, although not too different. Its not a very far leap from Windows XP.

One thing that I was happy about, is that for once it seems that Microsoft has released a product that is stable from day one. I have been using Vista for over a month, and I have yet to see it crash. Compared to my Windows XP system which crashes at least once a month.

The most evident changes is the User Interface, its quite a bit different than the XP version. With the very tight integration with Internet Explorer 7, it seems that Vista is more capable than ever at multi-tasking. The gadgets are really cool too, and I cant wait to see what new and interesting gadgets are developed for Vista in the near future. You just have to get your hands on it, to see the difference, words cant really adequately describe it.

What I found surprising is the voice recognition capabilities of Vista. I hadnt expected that it would be so robust. It takes a little bit of getting used to, but you can effortlessly blend normal computer operation with voice control. Its not perfect, dont get me wrong, but it is a novel way to interact with the computer and has tons of potential.

The problem is hardware requirements. Vista is a beast when it comes to hardware. The more you got the better it performs. I find that Vista loves memory, and a fast video card is essential as well. I wouldnt bother with Vista unless I had a computer that was made in the last year or so that had at least 1GB of memory. I played with it, when I took most of my memory out, and left 256MB in the machine, and it almost ground to a halt.

All in all, I found Vista to be quite capable. A very nice upgrade from XP, surprisingly stable. I probably wouldnt upgrade an existing computer, but would feel fine with purchasing a new computer with XP already installed. Good luck, and enjoy Vista.

.About the Author:

For more information about computer repair, memory upgrades, and laptop repair visit his Jacksonville Computer Repair website. He provides quality, on site computer repairs throughout the Jacksonville, Florida area.

If you are an Internet junkie and surf nearly 24 hours a day, it may be to your benefit to understand how Web Browser hijacking works and what you can

be to prevent it as well as get rid of this nagging problem should you experience it.

The web contain sites that will override your browser’s homepage setting and then replace it with their own. You can correct this by opening Internet Options in Control Panel and under Home Page, click either use blank or you specify a site of your choice.

But correcting a hijacked home page is much easier than correcting a hijacked Web Browser itself.This happens when your Web Browser is taken over by software with you having little and sometimes no control over its actions.

This happens when you are hit by such browser hijacking programs as CWS or CoolWebSearch.This software appeared in 2003 and is now one of the most invasive browser hijackers.You know you have been struck when you experience the following actions in your browser.

There is a noticeable decrease in overall PC performance.

User’s homepages are Smartsearch or other hijacked files and attempts to remove these are blocked.

Suddenly there appears a new toolbar in your browser

You are bombarded with porn ads and porn is now being bookmarked in your favorites.

Your Internet Explorer browser quickly slows to a crawl.

All web searches are redirected to other sites, in nearly all cases they will be porn.

You will have little and sometimes no control over your web browser.Watch the files you download.

These programs may sometime arrive via a download. If this happens, you need to pay attention to where you are on the Internet and avoid these locations. Try to avoid downloading free screensavers for example.

Free screensavers or screensaver samples are often loaded with spyware, adware, and who knows what other insidious files that lurks within. If you do perform such download do a good virus, spyware scan.

What would be the remedy to get rid of this nightmare. You would not want porn pop-ups appearing on your PC when little Mary or David is nearby.

First go to http://www.helptogo.com and click on the link for a program named Hijackthis. Having this or other hijack removal files on disk will be your first line of defense.

And try to download CoolWebShredder to see if it will remove the program. However, even this may not work.

http://www.softpedia.com is where you can learn more and download this program.

If CoolWebShredder don’t work, you will have to do a complete reformat of your hard drive followed by a clean installation of Windows XP.

If you’re computer is working fine now, take the time to backup your critical files. If you have to perform a clean installation of Windows XP, you will lose programs you installed.

Web Hijacking is growing and fast becoming a real pain in the “you know what” and removing them are becoming more and more a big headache.

You can also go to Google and do a search for the term “web browser hijackers” and find other files you can get to be ready you should run into this annoyance.

Download the file and copy it on a cdrom or floppy disk, depending on the file size. Make two copies of the file and store it a safe place should you need it.

When you visit a site, you may be watched by what is known as a Web bug. This is a tiny graphic which sends information to another computer.It will have your IP and web site address and other data about you.

As you spend time on the Internet, stop and take time to learn as much as possible about these Web Bugs.This bugs may transmit your web site and email address, for example to the web bug’s main computer.

But being in the know ahead of time can save you lots of downtime using the Internet.Have that backup handy, and prepare an XP Recovery Kit and place in a safe and very secure place.

.About the Author:

Otis F. Cooper is solely dedicated to boosting the

knowledge and confidence of every computer user.

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