A View of Linux From an Open Window

Dear Jerry,

I'm attempting to use only Linux tools to send mail exactly as you have requested. I'm in Applix Word (the older 4.3.7 version that happens to be installed on this machine), formatting the body in Helvetica 12 (sorry no Arial available here, and I don't want to traipse off on a font hunt) with the three blank lines in Times (without the New Roman, however) at the end. I'll export it as a Word 6 doc (for Word 97/98 support I would need the current Applix 4.4.1), and we'll see if that interoperates properly with your setup.

As one other poster mentioned previously, the German S.u.S.E. distribution (http://www.suse.de/) has a particularly well-engineered installer. And KDE 1.0 is included directly, which does give the best "out of box" experience for people accustomed to a modern GUI. SuSE has even created a product directed at office use: the S.u.S.E. Linux Office 99 package. This box contains a brief how-to type introductory manual for the ApplixWare 4.4.1 office suite, the SuSE Linux 5.3 manual, in readable English, and two CDs.

Installation is a snap if you can boot off your CD: insert the first CD and the system boots. You then get a screen to choose your language (currently German, English, French, or Italian) whether you have a color or monochrome screen, and your keyboard layout. You see, from the onset things are made easier for international users, but despite being a "German" product, it speaks English just fine to people born in the USA.

The installer is called Yast (like Yet Another Setup Tool) and runs in text mode. While it may not win a software beauty contest, it's reasonably easy to use. When asked for disk partitions, you don't have to wipe out all the partitions you made for your current Red Hat installation, just add a second disk if necessary, create a swap partition of 100 MB is you don't already have one, and another for your root partition (and everything else) of about 1.5 GB. Don't really worry about separate /usr and /opt partitions at this point--by the time you will feel the need for a separate partition setup, you'll know what you're doing. If you want to keep your documents accessible when booting from different partitions, you can create a separate /home partition, but again maybe you already did this for Red Hat. The installer will ask if you want to set up a user account, so just do it.

When the housework is done, the installer will load up a 'default' selection of packages to install. I'd suggest going into the KDE section and selecting all the packages, even the 'non-stable' ones. The worst you'll usually have is that one or another application won't work. Then go to the Commercial section and choose Adobe Acrobat, Netscape, along with ApplixWare in the languages you want. Check that you've chosen an X server for your video card in the X section, then start the install. There's also a selectable option to install example user settings, and that actually sets up some reasonably usable defaults. Swap out the first CD for the second when asked, and that's it. When the machine reboots, it will spend a few minutes updating configuration files, then it will be ready to run.

Now you can log in as root, and setup X Windows. First type sax. This is SuSE's X Windows configuration wizard. It doesn't work with all video cards, but when it does, it's great. If sax doesn't work, try XF86Setup (don't forget that commands are case sensitive). It's almost as easy as sax.

Once X is set up, log in as the user you created during the installation. Type startx and you'll be in the KDE environment, which should be pretty familiar after your years with Windows and the Mac. Choose the Kappfinder from the System menu item in the menu which appears when you click on the great big K in the lower left. A window will appear as the application finder script runs. When it's finished, you'll have a new menu choice in the K menu. Explore that new menu, and you'll find (among other items) ApplixWare, Netscape, and Acrobat.

And that's it, to have a Linux machine up and running with equivalent end-user client functionality as a Microsoft Windows machine running the MS Office suite. The KDE window manager environment with it's task bar and panel is a reasonably usable interface, and easy to adjust to for users coming from the Mac or Windows. Switching to ApplixWare for anyone used to the MS Office is no harder than switching between MS Office versions--from Office 4.2.1 to Office 97, for example. Setting up a PPP connection using the KPPP tool is at least as easy as using the equivalent dialup networking wizard in Windows. It doesn't set up a demand dialing network server in a single step, but you have equivalent functionality to what Windows offers when using graphic configuration tools, and you have the underlying horsepower of two decades of Unix development.

I've installed SuSE Linux Office 99 on about a dozen different architectures, including Intel Pentium, AMD K6, Centaur Winchip, old Dell 486s and 1st generation Pentiums, notebooks including Dell Lattitude, Toshiba Satellite, and a no-name clone, and various clone motherboards with and without built-in sound chips and video chips. It seems the easiest to install of all the distributions I've used since my first SLS distribution with kernel 0.96 in 1994.

I've honestly got to admit I prefer Word 98 on a Mac for writing text, because its got real-time spelling and grammar checking in both French and English, and I find the Mac interface the most usable for my daily work, but that's really a matter of individual taste. I use Linux for most of my Internet work (but my main mail is still in Eudora on the Mac). This will probably change over time, because under Linux, the ease with which I can dedicate CPUs to separate tasks and seamlessly integrate them all on a "Main Machine" which displays X applications running on any machine on my network just seems like such an amazingly cool thing to do in my geeky heart.

Practically speaking, though, I've been installing Linux Internet access servers for my clients for four years now, and they've worked very well, offering full Internet services like mail and Web access, along with file sharing for Mac and Windows. I've made them text-based, because until I saw the K Desktop environment this summer, I didn't think X was worth the hassle to run. It doesn't make a server better to have a GUI, it just increases the hardware requirements.

Now I've started making Linux client machines, using the SuSE Linux Office 99. I think that if I can setup and administer Linux based computers for my clients who just want to get their work done, I can offer a viable alternative to Windows workstations. I'll see now as these Linux client boxes leave my labs to go to work with end-users. I've already donated and installed a network of 4 SuSE Linux clients connected to a homebrew Slackware-based Internet access and NFS server for my kids' school. The clients are old 486s and one 1st generation Pentium, the server is a 166 MHz pentium with SCSI. I can now use these children as my unwitting test lab...

There's one last note I'd like to share, concerning configuration. There's a configuration tool named Webmin (http://www.webmin.com/webmin) which runs as a specialized Web server with administrative privileges.Written entirely in Perl (and thus very portable), Webmin serves up a Web based interface for most aspects of running a Unix system, and can work with many different flavors of Unix, including Slackware, Debian, Redhat, and SuSE Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, BSD and others. It is very easy to install, and if you set up SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) on your machine with the appropriate libraries, can provide secure connections between your Web browser and the Webmin configuration server.

Webmin has tools for configuring many aspects of a Unix machine, including Samba, NFS, Apache, Bind, Squid, Sendmail, and makes user account management easy. It even takes a credible stab at helping you manage the startup files used in a System V init system like RedHat or SuSE. So when I prepare a Linux client or server, I install the SuSE office, then Webmin. I install the SSL libraries since I can come in over the public Internet to configure clients' machines, but for a normal machine on a small office or home network with an intermittent PPP connection, this shouldn't really be a big issue.

It does, however, suggest one possible option to handle the system administrator / end-user dichotomy in Linux. Installing SuSE is no harder than installing Windows for a systems integrator or consultant. The Webmin interface offers about the same level of organization and presentation of a fairly complex task (i.e. configuring a complex computer) as does Windows 95, 98, or NT, with the added bonus that it works just as well on the local machine as from a thousand miles away. The skill level required is about the same as for a competent NT consultant. Imagine pre-installed Linux boxes, pre-configured for Internet access. Then end users with no inclination to learn the details of a complex OS can just call the person who handles his system administration, and give him his current IP address, and the remote sysadmin could configure the user's machine.

Then non-geek people can then just use the computer for the tasks which most people seem to think that computers are actually for, instead of computers as an end in themselves.

John Seifarth

Words and Wires sprl

Brussels, Belgium

john@waw.be

I’ve been reading BYTE and your columns since, gosh 1980, when I was all of 10 years old. It’s good to see you’re giving Linux a whirl. At this point, it’s my home OS of choice, and in my job I’ve been deploying it on servers for more than two years now.

What’s really exciting these days, the initial Unix learning curve notwithstanding, is the startling progress made this year toward usability. To wit:

• I’m sending this email from Netscape Communicator.
• I’m chatting with a friend via AOL Instant Messenger.
• I haven’t typed a single Unix command all night, since all the apps I’ve used are launched from pretty little icons from my KDE desktop. Lord knows I had to type plenty of Unix commands to get to this state under RedHat 5.1. But it was much less than I had to with RedHat 4.x. And orders of magnitude less than just getting X to run under earlier Linuxes. They say Caldera 1.3 is even easier. By this time next year, it’s likely a dead cat will be able to install Linux.
• I have an office suite (StarOffice 5) that can (usually, as long as the file isn’t too complex and it wasn’t fast-saved) deal with all the Office 95 and 97 files I get in company email, or from the NT file shares I mount when I dial into the LAN.
• I sync my Pilot to a reasonably good calendar app.
• The OS doesn’t crash. Ever. Apps crash from time to time. KDE crashes once every few weeks. Lord knows StarOffice crashes. But the OS doesn’t crash. My PPP connection doesn’t get cut. Other running apps don’t crash. Whewn I get back to that command line, I type "startx" and all is happy. And when I install new software, short of a new version of the kernel, I never have to reboot, not ever. Installing new internationalization kits, updated system libraries, new audio and video drivers? No problem. Install. Drop out of X. Start X again. Done. Have I mentioned that the OS doesn’t crash? Okay, if I tried really hard, maybe filled up the whole hard drive past capacity (which I can block myself from doing by setting quotas), I could.

Linux and Unix are modular, not monolithic. All of its components run separately from one another and communicate with each other, rather than lock together into one big program. Any piece can be stopped, modified and restarted. One thing this means is more supportability. It may be cryptic, but it’s also transparent. Any Linux (or Unix) installation can be troubleshot and repaired. There is never a point where the only technically viable remedy is to reformat one’s system and start over.

The other thing it means, of course, is more complexity, since these parts are interchangeable and often replaceable with alternative programs to do the same thing. Hence the current push toward easy installers and consumer usability.

• Fewer consumer apps exist only as standalone software every month.

Maps? On the web. Encarta? On the web. Online banking? Moving to the web: BankAmerica and Citibank already have it there. Big Insight: Even for home use, the OS you run matters less and less these days.

The fact is, now that I know Unix, I can say with certainty that Linux is orders of magnitude more stable than Win95, NT 4, or Mac OS. I can also use it for everything I need, and for most of the things I don’t need but want.

What makes it exciting is that even this spring I scoffed at the idea of Linux (or any Unix derivative) ever being tamed sufficiently to compete on the mainstream desktop. Servers, sure. But the desktop? Then I watched Red Hat’s installers get easier and do better hardware detection with every point release. Then I installed KDE. The rate of progress has been astonishing. Michael Cowpland, the idiot who runs Corel, was probably more right than he’s ever been in his career when he said last month that Linux will be suitable for installation and sale on consumer-level PCs in 9 months. It’s going to get there, and fast.

It’s like 1978 all over again. Anything’s possible!

-

Jim Purcell [james.e.purcell@saic.com]

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

First, let me just briefly chime in with regards to your Byte columns - they were the first thing I turned to whenever my new issue came, and a constant source of enjoyment (and even, occasionally, enlightenment:-). I stopped getting Byte several years ago when money became unbelievably tight - but when I saw Zeke at the Smithsonian exhibit a number of years ago, the Byte’s in the stack "supporting" him were newer than the earlier part of my collection. I admit - it was a thrill.

Second, let me also say that I have enjoyed your books tremendously over the years, and have always looked forward to your new releases (and yes, I’m going to buy Starswarm :-). The IFGS book series has led to my having trouble dealing with reality, and may actually someday soon result in my trying LARP for myself <grin>

Ok, now on to the subject of this message - a useful Linux tool for you.

Purp requires the "ncurses3-1.9.9e-5" or higher package to be installed first - this package is on your RedHat CDROM (which you already know how to mount:-), in the:

/mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS

directory. So to install that, type:

rpm -i /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/ncurses-1.*.rpm

cd to the directory where you saved it, and run:

rpm -i purp-0.4.1-2.i386.rpm

Once it installed, just type:

purp <directory_where_the_RPM_files_are>

e.g. purp /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS

and it will read all of the packages there, and that are already installed on the system. Navigation is TAB to switch between the "installed" and "available" windows, ARROW keys move you up and down between categories of software and individual packages, ENTER selects a category, then highlight the package that you wish to install (or upgrade) and press "I" or "U". You will be asked to confirm your choice - and then away you go!

(Okay, so looking back on this - maybe it’s not so easy; but it’s worth it!)

Happy Linuxing - we’re obviously excited to have you interested in joining us here in LinuxLand.

Jim Burnash

===

Jerry,

-- Randy Powell

"Reality is just a convienent level of complexity"

mtaht@picketwyre.com

Dear Dr. Pournelle:

I believe I’ve read every word you’ve ever written outside of your columns, and indeed most of your columns up until 1989 or so. All I ever wanted when I was a kid was an S100 bus computer, and it was all your fault!! :) I still want one, for hack value.

But we went our separate ways. You started to become completely enamoured of the ream of Microsoft based applications. Your column reflected the tons of cool stuff you got for free every month. Any given one of your columns touted more stuff than I could afford to buy in a year.

I stuck with Unix, first SCO, now Linux. I still checked in at Byte once in a while, but it too had lost it’s luster, it’s coverage of beyond the bleeding edge issues, and I let my subscription lapse. In the year and a half before it ceased publication, the magazine, although far, far thinner than I remembered it, started to have "blue-sky" ideas in it, concepts for things that were years and years out, and I started to read it again.

I was saddened by Byte’s disappearance - all those nights in the late 70s and early 80s when I stayed up at night with a flashlight under the covers, plotting just how I would put together my first 68000 box with a couple of Z80s, watching the prices in the back of the book go down, monthly. Gone. Poof. :sigh:

And, Oh! the cover Art back then! I miss that terribly.

I’m glad you’ve discovered Linux. As you point out in your November column, the aura surrounding this phenomenon is much like the one that surrounded the CP/M hackers, and for that matter, the S100, and early Mac hackers.

Linux appeals to those that are long on talent but short on money.

I’ve watched your daybook go from frustration to fascination over the past few months, and I predict, that maybe, just maybe, you may start to move more of your life over to Linux. The support for mobile users is unparalleled, and you seem to be doing a lot of travel...

there’s something you haven’t written about in your daybook, so far as I can tell...

... on the magic of the DISPLAY variable ...

Just now, only a few hours after the download became available, I installed Wordperfect 8 on both my machine at home, and at work, without leaving my house... through the magic of the X11 DISPLAY variable.

I haven’t been keeping up on your daybook for a month or so, perhaps you’ve already learnt about this.

Unlike PCs, Unix has always had a client/server approach towards graphics. Unlike a PC, in general no additional tools (such as PC Anywhere) need to be installed. It "Just works". Not only does it just work, it works right after you install the operating system. So, if you’re in a noisy machine room, you can go back to your office, and install all your applications and tools from the comfort of your favorite chair. If you are at someone elses desk, and you need access to your applications, it’s only a DISPLAY variable away. If you need to install something on multiple machines at the same time, while working on a spreadsheet or doing development, no problem.

It’s easy to use. Say you want to run the new wordperfect on your Linux box and display it on your client machine. Your client machine, if running a Unix or linux, needs to have:

xhost +yourservermachinesip

executed once (you can just do an xhost + if you aren’t worried about security - and there is not a command line utility for a PC based Xwindow program, but I’ll get to that in a sec)

telnet to your server machine with wordperfect 8 on it:

at the $ prompt, set your DISPLAY=thehostnameoripaddress:0.0 of the machine you are on, and export it. for the "Bash" shell, this is:

export DISPLAY=yourmachinehere:0.0

(note, many telnet clients, ssh, and other tools automatically set this variable for you)

At this point you could run netscape, xemacs, xterm, gimp (wonderful product), wordperfect, staroffice, whatever, without getting up from your desk (assuming your binary paths are correct). On a fast (100Mbit) network, even seriously graphical applications like the gimp are a joy to use. I can’t say the same for Photoshop and PC Anywhere.

Of course it’s only this easy if you’re going from a Unix to a Unix.

Configuring starnet it is a little more complex than PC-Anywhere (but I, like others, would be glad to help you), notably dealing with xhost, and the choice of window managers and screen modes, but it won’t take long to grok, I hope.

At this point, you can have your desktop effectively running both operating systems with the best features of both.

But now your desktop is not only "running" both operating systems, but it’s one capable of working on dozens of Linux/Unix boxes at the same time, using the computing resources of your household to the fullest.

As I think you used to say: 1 User, at least one processor. :)

You don’t have to sit in front of any given machine, you don’t have to install the product more than once unless you want to, you don’t have to pay extra licensing fees. It just works, anywhere you are, even through a firewall (using ssh, but I’m not going to get into that today).

Hope this was enlightening,

"What can Microsoft do? They certainly can’t program around us. And the only other thing they can do is marketing, and sure—let them try. But, we’ll see."

Subject: Additional LINUX Reference 11f

From: Walt Meservey [walt1@verio.com]

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I was partly inspired by your example and have installed SuSE LINUX on my

PC. I have not yet been able to get my sound card or my ISDN card working.

I did however purchase a useful book—The Complete Idiot’s Guide to LINUX.

The book devotes the first 100 pages or so to directions for using the KDE

Windows manager. In particular, the book gives explicit directions for installing a graphical CDROM icon for the LINUX Mount command and for linking various programs to desktop icons of your choice. Once you do this, KDE becomes a lot more like WIN95/98/NT. This in itself is worth the price of the book!

Regards,

Subject: Getting Rid of Linux

From: Matt Beland (belandm@enteract.com)

Hi Jerry,

This question is one I haven’t seen on your site yet; having loaded Linux on a machine, or more specifically on a hard drive, HOW IN THE BLOODY HELL DOES ONE REMOVE IT?!?

Before anyone with the inclination to spell "Windows" as Windoze emails me, let me say that I am a fan of Linux; I think it shows great promise. It’s not quite ready for prime time, but hey, it’s getting there.

In any event, the story is this; several months ago, here at my place of business we installed Red Hat Linux 5.1 on a Pentium 200. Intel chip, American Megatrends BIOS, 64 MB of Kingston EDO RAM, standard motherboard, etc. Serial mouse, no sound, 8x IDE CD-ROM, two 1 GB IDE hard drives. Installation was not flawless, but was acceptable. This was all done as an experiment; we are an NT shop, but we’re always willing to try new things. Shortly after the installation was completed, we set the machine aside and moved on to other things. Due to a hiring spree, we find ourselves in desperate need of a new Primary Domain Controller, and this box is the only one available. So, bye-bye Linux, hello NT Server.

Wiped the partition table on both drives. Created an NTFS partition on the boot drive. Leave the other alone for the moment. Reboot, and…. LILO!

OK, try again. Forget NTFS. Use a Windows 95B diskette, fdisk the drive again, delete all partitions, create a FAT32 partition and make it active. Reboot. LILO!

One more thing to try, Use MicroHouse Software’s ImageCast Client diskette to completely wipe the partition table and rewrite the boot sector. Reboot. LILO!

OK, as long as we’re using ImageCast (similar to your DriveImage, but used across the network) let’s just restore an NT image to the machine. Spend twenty minutes loading the image. Reboot. LILO!

I give up. This is worse than Microsoft’s nastiest tricks. For the time being, we are simply using a different hard drive, but it annoys me that I have this hard drive I can no longer use for anything but NT. How do I get rid of LILO? (I’m really beginning to hate those four letters…)

LILO - getting rid of

I am just a newbie about Linux, but this one I know the answer for:

boot DOS &; use DOS fdisk:

fdisk /mbr

This tells fdisk to restore the Master Boot Record to DOS, so LILO will be overwritten.