COMMENTARY--Hello from Linux! Today's column, a follow-up to my first "Life with Linux" story, is being prepared using the KWord word processor that's included with the KDE desktop I installed atop Red Hat Linux 7.3 Personal Edition. So far, so good.
At the end of the last column, I was struggling with how to change the screen resolution on my monitor. Turns out this is managed by a piece of middleware called X Windows, familiar to all in the Linux/Unix community. Alas, the only way to change the screen from low-resolution 640x480 to a more useful 1024x768 was to run a program called Xconfigurer from the command prompt. Or I could simply reinstall the OS, which seemed like the easier way out.
I used the opportunity to change machines, too. Moving from a 166MHz Pentium with something like 10MB RAM to a 500MHz AMD K6 with 256MB RAM had, as expected, a dramatic effect on system performance.
SO FAR, Linux has run just fine, hasn't crashed, and seems to offer tremendous flexibility, but this comes at the price of complexity. Up to a point, Linux is as easy to use as any other mainstream operating system. But after that point is passed, the water gets very deep, very quickly--as my monitor resolution issue serves to illustrate. Windows also suffers from this "easy up to a point" issue, but the point is a good bit farther down the road than it is in Linux.
Another challenge facing the potential desktop Linux user is the choice of which Linux you will run. The installation CD for Red Hat was barely out of the drive when I started getting reader e-mail telling me I'd made a big mistake. Mandrake seemed to be a popular choice. Lindows also generated several reader recommendations.
Each of these Linuxes work a little differently, which means that understanding Linux could mean understanding only one particular flavor. SuSE Linux, a German release, handles changing screen resolution differently (and seemingly more easily) than Red Hat. After I talked about my problems on the radio program, a reader send me instructions to solve the problem--but only if I had SuSE. I realized pretty quickly that his Linux and my Linux worked differently. This must be a source of at least occasional confusion.
STILL, nothing that Linux has hurled at me in the way of problems (really minor, actually) or confusion has come close to what Windows Me (aka Spawn of the Devil) did to me a couple of years ago. So, I am actually pretty happy with my Linux experience so far.
The KDE graphical desktop comes with a decent set of applications and a browser that seems capable enough, though both will require further testing on my part. I plan to install either Sun's StarOffice or its open-source sibling, OpenOffice, as my primary desktop app suite.
I was about to download OpenOffice until my friend Mark Kellner, who writes a computing column for the Washington Times, told me it lacks a spelling checker. That omission means that, for the sanity of my editors, I'll ask Sun to send me a copy of StarOffice (now that they are charging for it, I can't just download a copy), and try that instead.
KDE is a decent place to work, though the user interface doesn't seem as sophisticated as Windows. In fact, KDE reminds me of a graphical environment of the pre-Windows era called Geoworks. America Online used this for its first DOS releases, as I remember, and it's how many of us were introduced to the wonders of a graphical interface. This is not a catty way of saying the KDE interface looks really old--it doesn't. I actually miss Geoworks, and wish it had proven a better challenger to Microsoft Windows.
Anyway, if you generally understand Windows, KDE won't be terribly strange.
ONE THING I really like is an X Windows feature called Virtual Desktops. It lets you set up and then click back-and-forth among multiple desktops, each running its own set of applications. For example, in one desktop, I could have my e-mail app and a text editor open at the same time, the windows arranged just so. In another desktop, I could have my word processor and a publishing tool open. Moving between these different workspaces requires just a single click on the task bar at the bottom of the screen.
This may sound like switching between apps in Windows, but it isn't: Each desktop preserves its own arrangements of windows, so you don't have to do all that alt-tabbing, opening and closing of windows, or hunting around the task bar to find the apps you want.
I have not yet tried to sync a Palm OS device with the calendar that comes with KDE, though I have seen how it could be done. I am not expecting to sync a Pocket PC device, though I may try to find software for the purpose once I feel a bit more Linux-savvy.
WHICH IS NOT AT ALL how I feel right now. So far, all I've proven is that I can do a successful install and get up and running. And that I can make a word processor and e-mail work, which I guess counts for something.
But I've still got a lot to learn. I must say that, so far, if all I wanted was a Unix (or Unix-ish) OS I could actually use, I'd choose Mac OS X. With Mac G4 machines now down to $1,100, that option buys you not just a Unix-based OS but a mature commercial OS that's easy to use, something I don't think Linux--at least the version I am using--really is. Not that it's bad, it's just really geeky. People who have a hard time with MS Windows would eventually find that making Linux do what they want is somewhere between extremely frustrating and impossible.
If I were rating operating systems, Mac OS X would win on ease of use, but Windows XP would win overall usability (based solely on greater application support). Compared to either of these, and because OS X offers the same Unix benefits as Linux, I'd find desktop Linux hard to recommend except in very special circumstances.
What do you think? Am I missing something here? If you had to choose among Windows XP, Mac OS X, and some form of Linux for everyday computing tasks, which one would you choose and why? TalkBack to me below.
