Hooray for Linux!

[altivo]

I've just completed configuration on the last profile we needed for our Linux conversion. Four different setups were needed: Adult internet, Children's internet, Library catalogs, and Business Applications. The Business Applications is the most complicated, as it has to allow use of word processing, spreadsheeting, photo editing, presentation software, etc. without letting the user mess up the machine or do things we don't want, like gaining access to our servers. I saved it for last, and fortunately, our software vendor was still making improvements at the same time so the latest installation image made it much easier than it might have been.

Some final tweaking, and we will be ready for our complete rollout. Sixteen workstations going Linux. I really enjoy watching the installation routines format Windows right out of existence on these. Some of these machines are going on five years old, and the performance boost once Linux goes on is very noticeable. The number of things I will NOT have to worry about any more also goes up substantially.

In other news, The Clydesdale Librarian just finished its first week with a new review every single day. I had no idea I was so productive. ;p

Comments

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Linux is good if you have a specific purpose to use it form, e.g., limiting functions and specific tasks (internet and word processing)

I'm not sure it can be classified as "higher security" as a linux buff will probably know how to work around things like with any OS.

However as OS's go, its light, fast and has a great deal of customisation, however it can be a sharp learning curve when installing one of the many versions of linux and trying to get all drivers and things. Plus does wine actually run any quicker than a windows machine or is it slower, its not an emulator I believe?

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

If you tweak XP right, and shut off all unnecessary services plus change various settings (which you can do if you learn all the little tricks and things) XP can be a very stable, fast platform even for Pentium III machines :) Some of our testbeds at work are P3 machines, but whack a newer drive in and minimum 500mb ram and they go like a bomb. They fall down if you do intensive graphics and CPU intensive tasks, but the internet and basic "office" applications do fine.

[duskwuff.livejournal.com]

WINE Is Not an Emulator - it's a compatibility layer. As such, speed is entirely dependent on what the hosted application is doing. Some OpenGL applications actually run a bit faster under WINE than they do under Windows; however, some applications that use code paths that Windows has optimized better than WINE may run slower under WINE, or not at all if WINE's implementation doesn't do exactly what the application expects.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It's higher security against viruses, spyware, and so forth, since those are all created with Windows as their target.

It also has better ability to customize the things that a given user can do. So I can lock them away from access to all sorts of things. The Windows paradigm has begun to shift, but it was still originally based on the "anything the user wants to do, let him do" philosophy. Linux and other 'NIX environments work the other way, on the "anything not explicitly allowed is forbidden" premise. In order to secure Windows, we have traditionally had to add several third party packages to protect the hard disk from modification, lock out certain menu selections, etc. With Linux, I don't need any of those licenses any more. ;)

There is an inherent (but not entirely reliable, as you point out) advantage too that most of the general public know nothing about 'NIX environments. So the tricks they learn from their friends for getting around Windows security and lockdowns are mostly going to outright fail on a Linux or FreeBSD environment.

I use wine on my home PC to run a couple of applications that have no Linux equivalent. The performance seems to be as good as or perhaps a hair better than under Windows, probably because Linux does a better job of multitasking so background stuff isn't eating as much CPU time. Fortunately, the library applications do not need emulation. We are substituting OpenOffice for MS-Office. It uses the same file formats and looks so similar to the Microsoft products that most of our users will never even know the difference.

Our typical user here is not particularly computer-wise. These are folks who have no computer at home. The geeky ones who know Linux and all the ways to get around security are, for the most part, at home playing with their own equipment.

[typographer.livejournal.com]

It's higher security against viruses, spyware, and so forth, since those are all created with Windows as their target.

For a fuzzy value of "all" yes. :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

All right, "mostly" with a great deal of emphasis on the "most".

I'm not aware of a virus that infects Linux yet. There have been worms that passed through e-mail and infected 'NIX environments, but I haven't heard of a new one in a long time and the old ones no longer work. I'm sure spyware could be created, but the folks who generate that trash are interested in getting the most infection for their effort, which means it doesn't pay for them to bother with Linux yet.

The key difference with 'NIX is the fact that the user normally runs with limited authorization. Installing something that will run every time the machine is booted is going to require the ability to get root privileges. So a task that runs because of a crappy Java script launched from the web browser isn't able to modify fstab or inittab, or install privileged code anywhere. No doubt there are chinks in the armor, but they are much harder to find.

I believe the majority of the "viruses" (mostly trojans, technically) that are a problem on Windows today are spread either through e-mail which targets weaknesses in Outlook and Outlook Express or through Word documents that are actually disguised templates with macro code in them. By simply getting rid of those applications, you cut down on the infection risk substantially.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I think spyware is the main scurge these days, I haven't had a proper virus for years now and trojans are picked up right away. As long as linux isn't effected by spyware and trojans it has a lot going for it :), and its "cheap" like the budgie, though downloading it is hell on bandwidth. Still one shouldn't complain about gift horses....uh no offense Altivo O.O

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Because it's freely copiable and redistributable, the download bandwidth doesn't hurt much if you know other people who are using it. :)

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I just worry that since a few governments are starting to use linux and other associated open source 'nix OS's the trend for people to try and hack linux systems is going to increase, and I have a nasty feeling that linux is not as secure as people think it is.

I mean to really hack past windows you really need to know what you're doing, and most windows users wouldn't have a clue how to do that. I know on a basic level how to get around windows security but no where near what some people can do.

I really must build a linux box, I've got a spare computer here, and I want to run it for games :D The performance boost that linux gives would make a great lan box ^.^ Any version of linux that's particularily good for games? That reminds me I have a version of Fedora Core about...I wish they'd kind of settle on a couple of versions rather than the plethora they have now. I never have any idea which to use.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The different Linux distributions for the most part are not different versions of Linux. The OS is the same. Distributions are about packaging. How it is installed, configured, and updated. In a few cases, notably Fedora, the user interface is significantly changed. I generally don't care for Fedora or the RedHat product line for that reason.

I'm not a gamer so I can't advise at all about games on Linux. I thought most games were distributed only in Windows and sometimes Mac forms. You can probably get some good answers on linuxfurs though.

Speaking as someone who has years of mainframe experience, as well as VAXen, and as much time on UNIX variants and Linux as I have on Windows (I've been in various aspects of IT since at least 1980) I would still say that Linux is inherently more secure than Windows. The basic design paradigm of UNIX is intended to promote security and make it easy to fix weaknesses once they are found. Windows is making strides in that direction, but it started in the wrong place and with the wrong philosophy, so it is playing catch up.

When/if Linux is widespread as an out of the box home system, the way Windows is today, yes, I agree, there will be a lot of issues. The problem will not be the OS though. It will be the user, who will be no better at configuring a Linux system appropriately than he/she is at configuring Windows. Most Linux distributions do come with a built in class for the end user that is secured from making terrible errors (like reformatting the hard drive or erasing it) but home users being what they are, they will not create limited accounts for day to day use. They will just run everything as "root", effectively disabling most of the safeguards that are built into the environment.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I had an inkling you were a mainframe pony :) You know we still get the odd vax tapes to convert where I work, the guy I work with used to deal with mainframes at Sun Micro here in Australia so he deals with that :)

Actually I hear that there's a shortage of Mainframe techs as people thought the mainframe would die out so everyone left the ship, but the ship didn't sink and now they don't have anyone to run the things as no younguns learnt the skills.

Do you still have your uber mainframe skilz? ;)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I last had direct contact with IBM mainframes in 1994, so I'm probably a bit behind, though I suspect they haven't been changing as rapidly in the last decade as they did during the time I was an active user. When I last had a job that required me to work on the mainframe, my younger colleagues were astonished that I knew how to do tasks with simple tools, like the line editor, or write scripts or JCL from scratch. Hey folks, where I came from you HAD to do that.

I enjoyed the VAX when I managed those systems, but that was farther back. I saw my last VAX in 1988. I don't think there are so many of them around anymore, in any case.

Probably my favorite system was the IBM RS/6000 running AIX. I'd love to have one of those at home even today, though for sheer performance you really can't beat today's desktop PCs. The Dell I bought for $500 (no installed O/S cuts the price substantially) last summer is like a fuel injected missile compared to some of the huge clunkers of the past.

I don't doubt that the mainframe skills are dying out. It's easy to find retired COBOL programmers though. The problem is that only a few ever knew the configuration and systems stuff. Most were end users or application programmers, and those skills are not much needed any more. Systems skills are always needed as long as you keep running the hardware, and you're right, no one new will be learning because it is viewed as a dead end. I worked in systems from 1983 to 1988, so I know a good chunk of it but certainly not all the details. Network management and administration is the big job these days.

[favouritewindow.livejournal.com]

I think you might be surprised at how many places are still running mainframes and older minicomputers for critical systems - in most cases, because it would be too expensive to switch over to something more modern...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I know there are a lot of them still out there, though I think the count has dwindled quite a bit. Usually, that notion that it would be too expensive to switch is based on either faulty analysis or serious financial problems that herald a decline in the owning company's fortunes anyway.

I'm sure IBM and other makers of the big iron have been cranking up the maintenance charges at a steady rate, just to drive people into other solutions.