GNU/Linux
As you have probably read or heard about or is already in love with
GNU/Linux, it is a completely free OS. Linux, copyrighted by Linus
Torvalds is the free kernel. Mr.Torvalds started writing the kernel
when he was a student in Finland and with lot of developers around
the world contributing code and bug fixes, Linux
kernel
is remarkably stable, fast
and provides true POSIX compliance. It is a true multitasking environment.
The free in Linux license implies more on the freedom you have
with the source code. This kernel when combined with
GNU
software can give you a complete
OS. Check the GNU
site to learn more
about their software and the philosophy. GNU project was
started by Richard Stallman, without whose software I doubt whether Linux
kernel would've been possible at all.
At Home
How can Linux help you at home? I have two machines at home, one runs as a server, which runs Apache, MySQL, IP forwarding, Squid etc. The second PC is used as a workstation which has most software I need, and dual boots into Windows 98 and Mandrake Linux 8.0. I rarely boot Windows98 - our banking software was the only application that I use there. This year, even that is not necessary since our bank now has a web based interface and they are throwing out the old program. My wife uses Windows98 because she uses mainly Encarta and Encyclopedia Britannica.
At Work
- Early 2002
- Oracle 8 on Linux is rock stable. It is a really goof alternative to expensive non-Intel architecture based machines. Even Gartner Group recommends Apache over IIS, thanks to Nimda and Code Worm viruses. And Zope works beautifully on Linux.
- Early 2001
- I regularly use Mandrake Linux as my desktop machine at work. StarOffice 5.2 is good enough for office needs and can read most Microsoft Office documents.
- Early 2000
- I used Apache running on RedHat 6.1 with PHP support compiled in to access an Oracle database. A development Zope site also runs in that machine. A small P166 Dell PC with 32MB RAM supporting Apache, Zope and Oracle 8 with a database containing millions of records (sized is around 12GB) and reasonably good hits for querying the database. Has been up since November 1999 (when it went down when there was a power failure. Before that it was up since August 1999) - compare this with an NT4.0 server with Quad P450MHz Compaq server with 600MB RAM and 40G RAID II array, running IIS and FileMaker Pro; which has to be re-booted every week!