My Experiment With Linux
I was fed up. My Windows laptop locked up almost every time I rebooted, my Pocket PC refused to synchronize with any computer, and my XP desktop randomly dropped in and out of my home network. I scoured Slashdot threads about the promise of Linux on the desktop, and Apple was running those seductive “Switch” commercials. So, I decided it was time to wash my hands of Microsoft, Windows, and its half-baked PDA spawn. I was going to become an open-source man.

I returned my iPaq to Best Buy and got a Palm Pilot. I sold my Dell laptop on eBay and bought a PowerBook, and I spent three days downloading Red Hat Linux 8.0 to install on my desktop. I felt like a new man. I was ready to make the big move.

The Linux install went surprisingly well given all the horror stories I had read on the message boards. Red Hat put a lot of work into its newest release to make it less daunting to people who think a kernel is what’s left in the bottom of a popcorn bucket. I sailed through the installation process by choosing all the default options, and after thirty minutes I was checking basketball scores with Mozilla.

I’m not intimidated by learning a new operating system. I work with computers for a living. I’ve been tinkering with them since I got my first 386 machine in the 7th grade. I can rebuild a system in my sleep, and I’m certainly not afraid of partitions, boot sectors, and device drivers. I diligently back up my data, so I had nothing to lose.

I’m a computer geek, but I’m not a hacker. I don’t consider myself a programmer, and I don’t know much about the inner workings of an OS. However I was encouraged by how easily I had installed the Red Hat, and feeling enlightened by open-source ideals, I thought for sure I could make my new arrangement work.

I don’t ask much from my computers at home. I need the basics: web, email, word processing, printing, etc. I’m a music fan, so I need to be able to rip CD’s and connect my portable MP3 player. I have a digital camera, and every now and then I scan a photograph or two. I assumed that Linux was just as capable of doing these things as Windows or Mac OS X, and felt confident I could figure out everything in no time.

I made quick progress. I didn’t have to do anything to configure my network connection. OpenOffice, the open-source office suite that comes bundled with many Linux distributions, was able to open all my saved Microsoft Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. And I was even able to set up my fairly old HP printer, the usual boogeyman of system configuration.

Trouble
Then the trouble started. Soon after rebooting the Linux system for the first time, I was informed that the system couldn’t find any suitable sound modules. I headed off to the message boards to find a solution. The open-source geeks eat this stuff up right? Apparently not for three year-old Turtle Beach sound cards. I spent two days searching the discussion forums at Sourceforge before I finally found an answer from an equally frazzled Turtle Beach owner:

1. Download the latest driver source code from the version control repository at Sourceforge by using a 92-character shell command.
2. Compile the code on your machine. If you don’t know how to do this, install the 10 kernel development packages from Red Hat and read the system customization manual.
3. Once you have successfully compiled the software, log in as administrator and open your system configuration file. Add two cryptic entries to force the system to load your custom sound modules.
4. Type another long shell command to restart the sound services.
5. Voila! Sound. Easy huh?

Figuring out how to rip MP3s and play them was no different, nor was connecting my camera or scanner, neither of which I got to work. Each time I wanted to connect a new device or perform some function that I always took for granted on Windows or Mac, I had to install new packages, compile code, edit configuration settings, and issue shell commands. I know I probably did some things wrong, and I’m sure a Linux guru could have configured everything in no time. But that’s not my point. Setting up a desktop environment should not be that difficult. And I shouldn’t have to live and breathe OS code to do it.

There is no question Linux is an attractive alternative to Windows as a server operating system. It has all the rock-solid stability and security of Unix, and better yet, it’s free. I would tell any CIO considering Linux for his company’s backbone operations that he’s made the right move. The open-source community is a brilliant and dedicated group of enthusiasts who have shown that they can build superior software. But they have missed their mark thus far in bringing the power of Linux to the desktop.

The Average Joe
The average computer user wants things to be simple. Mom and Dad want to turn on the machine and have everything work right away. They want to record music, scan pictures, watch movies, and play games. They want to download screen savers and trade slideshows with their friends. I know Windows doesn’t always do everything well right out of the box, but even a Linux geek would grudgingly admit that it’s easier to get started on Windows. Make a similar comparison to doing these things on OS X, and the geek throws up the white flag.

If the Linux community ever wants to make a dent in the Microsoft desktop hegemony, they have to pay attention to the simple things. Mom and Dad don’t care about multi-user environments; they don’t need three different window mangers and 14 different text editors. And even though they would love to get their software for free, they’re willing to shell out some cash every couple of years to have a computer system the looks and works the same way their neighbor’s does.

Linux is not easy to configure. In fact it’s downright scary. It took me three weeks before I got it to the point where I felt I could do everything I needed, and even then some things were still a hassle. I was comfortable getting my hands dirty typing command lines and hacking configuration files, but unfortunately most computer users aren’t.

One could argue that Linux isn’t designed to be an everyman desktop system. Using a scanner isn’t easy in Linux because anyone using Linux shouldn’t care that. Linux is meant for developers and system administrators. So then why does every discussion thread on Slashdot talk about desktop Linux so passionately? Because the Linux community does wans to build a viable open-source alternative to Windows and Mac, and justifiably so. Competition drives innovation, and a community effort will always produce more reliable and trustworthy code.

Don’t get me wrong here; I’m rooting for Linux. I wish all software were free, and I believe computer users have everything to gain by having more choices. Windows and Microsoft Office are expensive, and Apple products are even more so. Bill Gates has pulled some dirty tricks to stifle competition, and Macs certainly aren’t getting any cheaper.

But the fact remains that whether we like it or not, proprietary systems like Windows and Mac dominate the personal computer market. The common user expects their computer to do a set number of tasks fairly easily. Windows delivers on this expectation most of the time, and OS X does all of the time. If Linux can’t provide this same ease of use it will never gain a foothold on the desktop, no matter how elegant its code or how progressive its distribution model. Linux is a step in the right direction toward giving us a better alternative on the desktop, but right now it has a long way to go.

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Matt Wood is a collaborator and contributing blogger for webraw.com. He also spends his time writing and blogging at his site wood-tang.com.

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