By Lou Dolinar
First in a series
Updated Feb. 14, 2006

Imagine an alternate universe where there’s no Microsoft. In this alternate universe, software is free, and you only pay for product support and various conveniences of use to beginners. Those banes of home computer users, viruses, adware, and spyware are virtually unknown in the alternate universe. Oh, and while the software looks and runs pretty much like Windows, the computers that run it hardly ever crash.

That’s not quite the whole story, but welcome to Linux, the alternate operating system universe where I’ve been living for the last few months. We’re going to spend a few weeks there together, beginning this Sunday, to see if there’s anything there for normal people.

What is Linux? First off, its an operating system, just like Windows. You can install it with Windows, and start your computer with one or the other OS, but not both. Or you can just install Linux, and forgo Windows.

Programs have to be compatible with Linux, in other words, written specifically to go with the operating system, just as you needed Macintosh compatible programs to run on the Mac OS. There is some compatibility with Windows programs, through various emulators you can add.

By and large, when you install a commercial Linux distribution, you’ll get with it a complete suite of programs akin to what you get with a new PC, e.g. word processing, spreadsheet, database, web browser, email and various multimedia utilities. Even if you can’t convince Linux to run a particular Windows program, it may well be able to work with the data, like a word processing document, that it generates. The downside: You may eventually run into something you want to run that works with Windows, but has no Linux equivalent.

The biggest downside to Linux is support for external devices. It may not work at all with your printer, your scanner, your fax, your camera, and if it does, it may not support all the features. There are workarounds that let you use Windows drivers, but this is a tricky, non-automatic install that's not for everyone.

Where does Linux come from? Lots of really smart people hate the Microsoft monopoly. The black hats in this crowd write the computer viruses that you read about and that attempt to infect your computer about once a week. The White Hats write Linux modules and programs, using the Internet to organize and coordinate their activities. Linux has turned into a mass movement unlike anything the world has ever seen, where thousands of people doing their darndest to overthrow the reigning monarchy. All the stuff these guys create, buy and large, is free. If you’re a computer hobbyist (and pretty much every home computer user of Windows is forced to be a hobbyist) there are worse ways to kill off a couple of weekends than by playing with a “free” Linux download.

But you can pay for Linux, and for beginners, that’s not a bad idea. Companies like Lindows, SUSE, and Xandros, for $100 or less, take a free distribution of Linux, add a collection of software, and polish off the rough edges to make sure everything works with everything else. They also provide one-stop shopping for upgrades and bug fixes, and various forms of phone support. The resulting packages, in my experience, install about as painlessly as Windows. Policies at these firms do change from time to time, but often they issue “free” versions you can try, but with no tech support or advanced features.

Is Linux “better” than Windows? Depends on what you mean by better. From a user’s standpoint, they’re more alike than different, so if you’re looking for a transcendent improvement in the user experience, try a Macintosh, assuming you have the dough to experiment. Though I have to say, since the introduction of Mac OSX, the once friendly computer is now running a bastardized version of UNIX, upon which Linux is based.

The case for Linux in businesses goes like this: It is cheaper and more stable than Windows, and with paid tech support and training for MIS staffers, just as easy to administer. Businesses not only get the programs they need, but the underlying code, which they can customize and tweak as they wish. No wonder IBM, Novell, and other major vendors are jumping on the bandwagon that small firms like Red Hat started rolling.

Linux in the home is more problematic. True, you can get it for free, but then, Windows is “free” more or less, with new computers. And the new computer generally comes with tech support, and free Linux does not.

Still, in the multi-computer household, it makes sense for at least one of them to be running Linux, and it is probably worth paying a few bucks to get it. While security issues are theoretically possible, the legions of Microsoft hating black hats simply don’t target Linux boxes. That means when your other systems are infested and down with the latest cyber critter, your Linux computer will roll merrily along. Yes, there are regular bug fixes, but its not as critical to install them as it is with Windows. Compared to Windows, one reviewer remarked, Linux is boring.

Boring is good. We like boring.

Linux can also rehabilitate older computers. I’ve run the Xandros release successfully and usefully on an old 450 MHZ Celeron with 256 megabytes of RAM, It absolutely flies on my old 800 megahertz Athlon. Normally you’d have Windows 98 on my older system, but Windows 98 is a good deal slower, and a lot more crash prone than Linux. Linux is also far more suitable as a file server than Windows 98. If you have a household full of computers to administer, sheer convenience might dictate making a couple of them Linux. Cost too, since in most cases you only pay for one copy.

I switched my daughter over to Linux for about a year. Before that, I had to kill a half day cleaning up all the viruses, worms, spy ware etc. she’s managed to collect. Once she was up and running, however, I didn't touch her computer again for over a year. She was delighted to give up some of some of the cutesy pie stuff just to have a computer she could count on to get her homework done. I suspect someone who downloads a lot of bootleg music would find a dedicated Linux a safer vehicle too.

Next week, we’ll give you some details on Xandros Linux.

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So you don’t want to take the plunge on Linux, but you’re looking for a cheap way to duck those digital nasties?

I have Windows XP box that hasn’t seen a virus, worm, or a spyware popup in six months. And I haven’t spent a penny on security software, either.

It’s simple, actually, I don’t have an email program on it. It is a system that sits on my kitchen counter that’s dedicated to streaming audio from its hard drive and across the Internet via MusicMatch Jukebox. My router, like most, is a hardware firewall, and thus keeps out most worms. I don’t share out the drives locally, either, and I have Microsoft’s built-in firewall turned on too. Popups? I use the Google Toolbar’s anti-popup stopper. While I do a fair amount of web browsing with it, I only occasionally send an outbound mail via a very private account on yahoo. Incoming? Forget it, all those are redirected to Fortress Vaio.

For other security freebies, take a look at http://www.freebyte.com/. Read the user agreement carefully on any free stuff you download--this kind of material may be bundles with adware and spy ware.