Linux Works Even for Total Newbies

Really Linux.com ^ | 2006-03-07 | Rob Milner

[N3WBI3]

From our "Linux is for Total Newbies" series, courteousy of Robert Milner for reallylinux.com.

Still hesitant to try Linux? I'd like to share a revelation with you. See, for me, Linux adoption always seemed a bit of a battle to get out there on the desktop. No, I'm not talking about getting it installed. The major flavor providers have made stellar strides in set-up, making it a breeze.

Take a look for yourself at the powerful and useful features in Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, and SuSe.

There are easy to learn graphical interfaces like Gnome, KDE, or XFCE to name a few. Installation today is often simpler than any Windows full install. Therefore, no I'm not talking about installation and use. I'm talking about winning the hearts and minds of the Joe-average user.

Normally, when you mention Linux to them you get an expression on their faces as if you had asked them the square root of 232,543. They just don't know it's there. More importantly, they don't know they have a choice. Even though they are not necessarily tied to their operating system from one particular big, famous vendor.

It's with this in mind that I tackled an infected desktop PC and a laptop. In the interests of anonymity (and just to keep things exciting) I'll name the owner Jen.

Jen came to me with her desktop PC, that she had never been too happy with. She had described its erratic behaviour and instability and its growing problems. She had this machine built and installed by a self appointed expert. As 99% of you have probably guessed by now, it wasn't just infected, it was crawling with viruses and spyware. The laptop had been acquired from said expert and this time the advice was that Anti-Virus, Firewall, and Anti-Spyware measures were not necessary under Windows XP. What's that? Not necessary under XP?

If you have a similar idea, then please review a few articles like this and this to understand the dangers. And you may want to review this article to see the difference regarding Linux use.

It was at this point becoming a bit of bug-bear that I had to re-build yet another two machines that were so compromised and so infected. Besides, I had several major question marks regarding their licensing, making them pretty useless PCs. See, I'm the type of bloke that keeps my nose clean. I don't do piracy. When I told her the price of buying two replacement, properly licensed copies of Windows XP, she wasn't impressed, and suddenly much more aware of the true cost of ownership of proprietary software.

It is indeed expensive paying for your operating system in the hundreds. The point not to miss is that she did not desire to continue spending money on OS licensing and software replacements -- indefinitely.

So here was my chance to share an insight with her no one else had done. I told her about an operating system that was free, secure, and stable. One that would significantly reduce her fears of another infection and that would get the job done just as well as anything else. And she did not have to pay hundreds to own it.

I could see that I was challenging the MS comfort zone. To help reduce anxiety, I also mentioned that there was always the option to go back to what she was used to. And to her credit, she said yes, she'd try it.

For those who caution this approach, perhaps I should briefly explain. Jen is not losing access to essential files and software by making such a move. She will not lose access to her essential programs like Photoshop (Linux GiMP handles PSD files and with GimpShop you get an interface similar to Photoshop).

"Jen is not losing access to essential files and software by making such a move."

She will also have full access to all her Microsoft Office files (OpenOffice works without issue with ALL Office formats). Even if Jen were to use more extensive things like databases, OpenOffice.org includes database importing for ODBC and JDBC -- if she ever got into all that.

She doesn't throw away access to her DVD movies (a few great Linux players include MPlayer and Xine) and she doesn't lose out on access to things like her work PDF files. Moreover, there are plenty of well written beginner documents on nearly every Linux subject. Whew. Okay, hopefully the point is made. She can try it out and see whether she likes it.

So what happened? Now writing this some time after the event, I'm please to say: unabashed success! On both PCs, Jen has taken to Linux like a duck to water. Jen is now more productive, the machines are stable and have yet to let her down. She is spending more time on her computer. For me, what summed it up brilliantly was the unprompted praise as I got from her one night. She said, "That Linux thingy is much better than Windows."

The downside? I've created a Frozen Bubble addict. If you are not familiar with the game, you ought to try it. It's one of thousands (actually over 10,300) of exceptional programs that run on Linux.

And this takes me to the revelation. No, not the Frozen bubble bit. The fact that a home user who was only ever a through and through proprietary addict, so seamlessly migrated to Linux -- and enjoyed it. What does she get? Reliability. Cost saving. Security. And what do I get in return for sharing this? Less call back. Less fear of another clean-up operation. Warm cosy feeling. Linux works, even for a total newbie.

Linux. Try it. You might like it.

AUTHOR BIO: When he's not making a noise on the drums, indulging in surreal multi-media urges or helping on reallylinux.com, Manfromthezoo (Rob Milner) pays the bills by working in technical support for a U.K. Hospital, supporting thousands of users on different sites. This article comes courtesy of Robert Milner, published by reallylinux.com with permission.

This brief opinion piece should not be construed as factual information, and only contains the opinions and personal experiences of the author at the time of publication. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Microsoft, Microsoft Windows and WindowsXP are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation both in the United States and Internationally. Notations MS and XP are included and refer to Microsoft Corporation and Windows XP. All other trademarks or registered trademarks in this opinion piece belong to their respective owners.

[FLAMING DEATH]

"XMMS? Why in the world would I want to slow my computer down with that junk? "

^^giant cop out^^
And why would I want to slow down my computer with games? Especially that stupid Silent Hunter 3, which apparently barely runs!

http://edseek.com/archives/2005/05/04/silent-hunter-iii-survival-guide/ http://edseek.com/archives/2005/03/31/silent-hunter-iii/

BTW,

XMMS download size = 2.3 mb.

Installed size = 7.1 mb.

What kind of craptacular turdbox are you running that XMMS would slow down so much? For heaven's sake, I've run it on a 119 Mhz Pentium in 24 mb of RAM! Maybe it's time to get a computer that doesn't run on coal, Turkey.

"Quit hiding from the discussion, that being your claim Linux is easy to use, while I continue to prove it's not.."

Wait, let me see if I get this straight...you challenged me to prove Linux was easy by showing that I could install applications from another OS. I did that, and challenged you to do the same. You failed. And you conclude that you were right all along. Hil-freakin-larious.

" "Linux" is all one big confusing mess."

Not really, except to the willfully ignorant like yourself. Congratulations on that, by the way...the streak remains unbroken.

[FLAMING DEATH]

"Here are some Benchmark results between Wine and Windows XP, Your mileage will vary depending on your Linux config, Wine version and Hardware.
I plan to do a follow up roughly each six months to see what are rate of progression is and post the results here with +/- %'s.

For past results: [WWW] Wine: 20050419 vs XP

Wine has the current lead on 67 tests"

http://wiki.winehq.org/BenchMark-0.9.5

[FLAMING DEATH]

Above links, parsed correctly.

http://edseek.com/archives/2005/05/04/silent-hunter-iii-survival-guide/ http://edseek.com/archives/2005/03/31/silent-hunter-iii/

[youngtechster]

It's easier than that if you'd tried.

emerge quake4-bin

Gentoo

[parsifal]

What are your axes????

parsy, who can do an A minor chord.

[relictele]

1998 Fender Custom Shop 1951 reissue Relic "No-Caster"
1995 Fender Vintage Reissue 1957 Stratocaster
1997 Fender American Standard Swamp Ash Stratocaster

[parsifal]

They are beautiful.I have a couple of G&L's. A special Fernandes, too. Trying to learn how to play them.

parsy, the inept.

[rzeznikj at stout]

Yep, it'd work.

I have the image in my home directory--anyone wants it, let me know.

[rzeznikj at stout]

Before you guys flame me, let me just say I use this method on my Suse partition almost purely out of laziness...

But perhaps our friend here can see yet another way on how you don't have to go through all this trouble.

I don't have Quake, and I'm not putting it on my system. Though I used more or less the same process for MPlayer.

• Start YaST. You'll be prompted for root (KDE su).
• Select "Change Source of Installation.
• You'll need to add the ftp addresses as installation directories. Scroll to the bottom. Select "Add"
• Put the ftp address (e.g. mirror.mcs.anl.gov) server in the first box, the actual directory where the files are (/pub/suse/...) in the second. Click OK.
• Give it a few seconds to add it as an installation source.
• Once it shows up on the list, Click Finish. You'll be sent to the original YaST window
• Open Software management,
• Select search from the dropdown,
• Type in quake II in the text bar.
• When Quake II shows up on the top right, click on the box to select it.
• Click Accept. YaST will list any and all dependencies--if they're available, they'll automatically be added to the install queue.
• When the install finishes, it will autoconfigure the system--when it finishes, it'll ask you if you want to install more packages. Click finish.
• Click the X in the top right corner (or hit ^Q) to quit YaST
• Select Quake from the menu and open it.
• Thank you and have a Good Day.

Assuming you put other sites (e.g. Packman, Guru, official SuSE mirrors, etc.) on YaST, YaST will automatically find the dependencies and install them.

[rzeznikj at stout]

Not sure how well it'd work, but Crossover Office or Wine might be able to run it.

I don't use Cedega--long story short, the politics of it is a turnoff.

[Golden Eagle]

emerge quake4-bin

Yet ANOTHER command, different too.

[Golden Eagle]

ignorant like yourself

Whatever Flamer. Since all you can do is call names and boast irrelevant statistics you're pretty much tuned out.

[Golden Eagle]

WOW, you better be CAREFUL! There's a known vulnerability just out about using YaST, you could be trojaned if you're not real careful about where you're getting your updates.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/121777/112/

Problem Description and Brief Discussion

This is a reissue of SUSE-SA:2006:009, after we found out that also
gpg version < 1.4.x are affected by the signature checking problem
of CVE-2006-0455.

With certain handcraft-able signatures GPG was returning a 0 (valid
signature) when used on command-line with option --verify.

This could make automated checkers, like for instance the patch file
verification checker of the YaST Online Update, pass malicious patch
files as correct and allow remote code execution.

Also, the YaST Online Update script signature verification had used a
feature which was not meant to be used for signature verification,
making it possible to supply any kind of script which would be
considered correct. This would also allow code execution.

[Golden Eagle]

I don't use Cedega--long story short, the politics of it is a turnoff.

Let me guess. They dare to charge for it, instead of giving it away for free.

[relictele]

They are beautiful.I have a couple of G&L's. A special Fernandes, too. Trying to learn how to play them.

Keep at it. Everyone's got their own theories and preferences but playing along to CDs (or recordings in general) is a great learning tool. If you duck out or take a break the music keeps going...if you can keep up through a song or even a passage you can measure your progress both in terms of duration and accuracy. It has the added benefit of developing ensemble musicianship and rhythm since you're playing along to a drummer (who was probably using a click track when recording).

[FLAMING DEATH]

Yeah, but you only have to learn the one for the distro you choose. Just like Windows.

You're "I'm so confused" act is totally out of place for someone who claims to know something about computers. We're not buying it, and you're looking more like a moron each minute.

[FLAMING DEATH]

Yeah, right. We've proven you wrong at every turn, and now you start whining about name calling again, missy.

[FLAMING DEATH]

Wait a minute...so you're saying we should be CAREFUL about where we install software from? Wow. What a revelation. Thanks for telling me this. Up to this point, I've been browsing around, clicking willy-nilly on whatever I want and installing it to my system like a crazy person, automatically answering yes to all dialogues that came up. Guess I better cut that out.

Man, it's a good thing we don't have to worry about such things in Windows, huh?

/sarcasm

[When_Penguins_Attack]

TOO FUNNY!!!!

[rzeznikj at stout]

No, it's that they took advantage of WINE's code without giving back anything--they technically could use it for proprietary software under the BSD license.

I don't mind paying for something, but when it comes from something that was free and then someone repackages it and tries to sell it without giving back to the free source--then it's at best unethical, if not outrightly wrong.

Even if they would have released the source in an unusable form (much like RH does with its Enterprise Linux source), I wouldn't have had a gripe, and I'd have paid for a copy.

This single incident prompted the Wine project to shove aside the BSD and adopt the LGPL for distribution.