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

I like Linux because it is stable, secure and cheap. About the only viable objection to running it on your home computer is that it lags behind Windows in available software, and that drivers aren't always available for external hardware like printers.

In general, the simpler your computer needs, the more likely you are to find all the programs you need under Linux. The more exotic your application, the more likely Linux won’t work for you, or will require so much massaging that you’d wish you’d stuck with Windows.

Let’s start with the most common application, the web browser. You’ll generally get the superb Firefox with mainstream Linux distributions like Xandros, which is the one we‘re looking at in detail. Firefox is the lineal descendant of Netscape, now following the open source development model. Though I gave up on the Windows version a couple of years ago because it was too crash prone, Firefox plus Linux is actually more stable than Windows plus Internet Explorer. There are fewer security holes (it does not run so-called Active-X applications), a popup stopper and a built in editor for web pages. The email component is comparable to Outlook Express, though it fall far short of the full Outlook program. Overall, it is a better browser than IE.

Accessories and utilities are pretty similar to Windows XP . You can get the usual calculator, Wordpad-like text editor, a paint program, image viewers and so on. In Xandros release, you get other utilities, like a screen grabber, that you’d have to download and pay for separately.

Office-style applications are the first potential sore spot. The usual free applications suite for Linux, OpenOffice.org, is a good deal more powerful than Microsoft Works, the program that’s usually given away with low and mid-priced home PCs. Conversely, it is somewhat shy of the features of the latest versions of Microsoft Office. Nor does it have a built in database like Mircrosoft Access.

For most folks, and me, OO will do just fine, since it can read and write most popular formats for word processing, spreadsheets and graphics. Thus in theory you can email yourself a Word document from the office, work on it at home in OO, then mail it back to yourself at the office and resume work in Word. I haven’t been able to choke the translators, but other reviewers have found that complex formatting isn’t always translated correctly. The pay-for version of OO, Sun’s Star Office, is said to be somewhat better at handling these chores, and also includes support.

But that won’t do, you say. You need real live Microsoft Word or some other Windows applications. To get it, you have to spend a few bucks and buy Codeweaver Crossover products. (Office, $39.95; both are free with some commercial version of Linux, including Xandros).

Crossover, and its open source counterpart, WINE, (www.winehq.com/) take an unusual approach to Windows compatibility. The common way to deal with a situation like this by using an emulator--a program that creates a complete computer in software, then run an authorized version of Windows on it. Crossover and WINE instead work with the Windows API (applications programming interface) and in effect writes a specific Linux driver for each supported program. The good thing about this is that programs run roughly as fast as they would under Windows; the bad part is that code has to be written and hand-tuned for every application. Right now, Crossover supports most significant Windows programs, including Lotus Notes, Office 2000, Office XP, Quicken, and Visio 2000, Quicktime, Windows Media Player, Shockwave and more. Check the website, (www.codeweavers.com) for details.

Another alternative, with somewhat broader compatibility and less performance, is a true emulator, NeTraverse Win4Lin 5.0. (www.win4lin.com/) Once you install it, you have to dig up a a licensed copy of Windows 95 or the various flavors of 98, and install that, at which point you can run Windows programs. Note that neither Windows 2000 nor Windows XP work with it.

For the ultimate in compatibility, you can install a dual boot system. The basic idea here to format your hard drive into two partitions, one with Linux, one with Windows. You boot up to whichever you want to use, and share documents, the disadvantage being, of course, that you don’t have access to both sets of programs.

My own inclination, at least for your initial experiments, is to forget about Windows compatibility and your current programs, and use Linux applications as much as possible. You’ll find Linux equivalents for most; for example, even though you can’t run Kazaa, you’ll find Limewire a more than adequate substitute. One of the more useful lists you’ll find is at Tucows.com. Also note that games, while available, are fairly hopeless and dated.

Next week we’ll look at sources for free Linux.