Linux, what's it good for?

I love new toys. My first computer was a Commodore 128 in 1986. It had
no hard drive and the disk drive was not included, so at first, all my
programs were laboriously typed in and recorded on a cassette in a
"datassette." The first program that Deb and I typed in took 9 hours and
was a solitaire program. When we finally got it typed in correctly and
ran it I was so thrilled that I knocked on my neighbor's door and drug
him over to look on in splendor. He watched how it worked and then said,
"how long did this take you to type in? Nine hours!? Do you know how
many games of Solitaire I could have played in nine hours?"

To this day, I'm still a technology junkie. Anyone that even remotely
knows me can tell you that. So when I started reading about Linux (to be
fair, I've heard about it a lot over the last few years) and Open Source
programming and then listened to "The Linux Link Tech Show" podcast, I
got interested enough in it to try it out.

Linux developers are doing everything they can to get folks interested,
their best effort being "Live CD" versions of their programs. A Live CD
is a complete Linux desktop contained on a Bootable CD. Which means that
you can run it from the CD without installing anything on your computer.
I found several versions of these programs at www.linuxiso.org (be sure
that what you are downloading is an "live" file). The first I downloaded
was ubuntu. 650 mb's burnt to disk as a "disk image" (it's important
that you read the documentation on how to burn disk images at the site).
I popped it in the disk drive, restarted the computer and low and
behold! Windows booted up?! I tried again and this time noted that a
menu right at startup allowed me to push F12 to alter where the computer
booted from. Since then I've found out that while many computers boot
first from CD, then floppy, then Harddrive, not all do. If not, It is
suggested that you alter your BIOS to let your CD boot first (but how
one does this, I do not yet know!) So anyway, this time the disk worked
and in a minute or two, the ubuntu desktop showed up.

There's not much on the ubuntu desktop at first glance. Instead of the
START menu that you are used to in Windows, the menu says APPLICATIONS
and pulls down from the top left side. Programs are broken down by type.
Now here's the amazing part! There are dozens of programs included!
There is a full Office suite, a Photshop type program, CD and DVD
players, low end games (and ubuntu's version of Mahjongg is my
favorite!) like solitaire and blackjack, tetris and reversi. There is a
program that will allow you to download and install lots more (but not
while you are using the Live CD), and wonder of wonders, a web browser
called Firefox that hooks up to your web connection with no problem. I
didn't have to do a thing!

There are several versions of Linux, my current favorite being Knoppix.
Knoppix is optimized to run from the CD drive and "installs" over 2 giga
bytes of programs to temporary RAM on your system. Besides everthing I
mentioned on the ubuntu disk, Knoppix even has a Windows emulator which
allows you to run Windows programs. Knoppix allows you to read files on
your computer, no matter Windows or not. Set up properly, Knoppix will
allow you to save setting and files to the hard drive as well without
installation.

So of course I raved about all this to a good friend and his first
question was, "so why would anyone want to use this Linux?" Sigh...
(Flashback to my Commodore story earlier.) I thought about it a lot and
then one day while listening to a computer tech help podcast, it hit me!
How often do you have hear someone complaining that their computer is
not working, working very slowly, or they feel they are infected with
spyware and/or virus's? Linux is the solution, temporary or otherwise.
If you have one of these Live CD disks on hand and know how to boot from
the CD, you can use your computer, unimpeded by infection, to get on the
internet, or access file that you might not be able to on your infected
Windows system.

While no system in invulnerable, Mac OS and Linux have fewer holes for
hackers to take advantage of. Add to that the fact that hackers are busy
hacking Windows.

If nothing else, Linux is good as a rescue system. So there!

Bruce