[Linux Inside]

Linux Inside: Introduction

by Gene Wilburn

(The Computer Paper, August 1999. Copyright © Wilburn Communications Ltd. All rights reserved)

Welcome to Linux Inside, a monthly column devoted to tracking what's new and interesting in the Linux world. Unlike the companion series, Linux for Newbies, Linux Inside is for those of you who already have Linux up and running. Whether you're newly-landed refugee from another operating system, or an experienced Linux vet, let's check out what's new and cool in Penguin land.

Linux 2.2 Kernel

The most important Linux event of the year has been the release of the Linux 2.2 kernel. The kernel is the engine, or heart, of Linux and is the part that Linus Torvalds created and continues to work on with his merry band of developers. As you probably know, Linux was named after Linus, who is something of a folk hero to us Linux users.

Kernel releases come in big jumps and little jumps. The changes from Linux 2.0.28 to 2.0.32, for instance, were minor. They cleared up a few problems or added a small number of new features. They were mainly update releases.

While most of us were using the stable 2.0 series, the kernel development team was developing the 2.1 experimental kernel series. In the spirit of Linux, anyone was free to download the experimental kernel at any stage of its development to try it out, knowing that it would be buggy in spots.

The jump from 2.0 to 2.2, the latest stable series, is a major leap. As Linux has moved from being an underground success to becoming deployed in corporations, it has acquired features that allow it to compete head to head with some well-known commercial operating systems. There are new features in 2.2 that will also tickle the fancy of home users, hobbyists and gamers.

Here are some of the highlights of Linux 2.2:

Disappointments? One big one: USB support did not quite make it into the 2.2 kernel. It's still being worked on and will be released in the near future in a 2.2 update. There is still no ability to read OS/2 file systems, though Linux 2.2 can read Microsoft NTFS and FAT32 partitions.

The Linux 2.2 kernel was released officially in January 1999, but it wasn't until the May/June timeframe before the major distributions could integrate it and start offering it to customers. You can either manually install the new kernel yourself into your existing Linux setup or you can update your system with a commercial upgrade. New distros based on 2.2 include Red Hat Linux 6.0, Caldera OpenLinux 2.2, SuSE Linux 6.1 and Slackware Linux 4.0. At the time of this writing Debian GNU/Linux is still 2.0-based with work progressing towards a 2.2 release.

As always with new kernel releases, there are a few cautions. While major new levels of kernels bring improvements, they invariably break things that were previously working. Because Linux is sourced from so many different places, it takes awhile for all the parts to settle in. If you have an important production server running on the 2.0 kernel series, you should probably wait a few months before even thinking of upgrading.

For your personal desktop machine, however, you usually have less to worry about and can jump on the new release as soon as you like.

Hats off to Linus and the development team for taking Linux to the next level of sophistication!

Linux on the Desktop

In addition to the new Linux kernel, the past year has witnessed extraordinary developments designed to bring a Windows- and Mac-like environment to the Linux desktop. Although Linux has had X Window graphical managers for a long time, the X environments available have tended to be less well-integrated as those for Windows and Macintosh. That's rapidly changing.

There are now two competing leading-edge graphical environments for Linux: KDE and GNOME. Both have taken attractive features from Windows, Macintosh, OS/2 and NextStep, plus some new ideas, and combined them into desktop environments that even your parents would enjoy using.

KDE, which stands for K Desktop Environment, is the more mature of the two, having had a headstart in development. KDE is now the default GUI for Caldera, SuSE and Slackware and is offered as an option by Red Hat. It is easily installed into Debian. Last March KDE received the Ziff-Davis "Software Innovation of the Year" award at CeBIT, the world's largest computer trade fair held in Hanover.

KDE uses the C++ based Qt graphics library from Troll Tech. This has been a cause of philosophical concern for some members of the Linux development community because Qt is a commercial product and there were licensing implications that potentially affected distribution. For this reason Red Hat originally refrained from distributing KDE, preferring to support the totally open-source GNOME project.

Troll Tech subsequently adjusted its licensing for Qt. It is now legal to make KDE and Qt available on CD free of charge. Beginning with release 6.0, Red Hat, the leading Linux distributor, has begun distributing KDE as an option.

KDE is a thoroughly contemporary, attractive desktop environment with drag-and-drop features, customizable toolbars and taskbars, themes, wallpaper, screen savers, desktop shortcuts and built-in mini-apps such as a file manager, floppy disk manager, CD player, and customization dialogue boxes.

One utility, kppp, provides a graphical interface to help users master the dreaded Linux ppp connect to their Internet providers. There is an assortment of useful items: a calculator, yellow sticky notes, simple text editor, organizer, address book, fax viewer and, of course, games. There is even a kpilot utility for synchronizing Palm computers with korganizer.

KDE has developed strong momentum in the development community and O'Reilly & Associates, the publishers of high-quality books on Unix, have recently released Programming with Qt to help programmers learn the environment.

GNOME, which stands for GNU Network Object Model Environment, is part of the GNU project (Free Software Foundation). Rather than Qt, it uses the GTK+ software library. Officially, GNOME is pronounced guh-NOME and GNU is pronounced guh-NEW.

Conceptually, GNOME and KDE are similar, but GNOME is designed to work with a wider range of window managers. It is currently best integrated with a manager called Enlightenment, which provides, arguably, the nicest-looking desktop you can find. Red Hat 6.0 installs GNOME as its default GUI. SuSE 6.1 and Slackware 4.0 offer it as an option. It is readily available for Debian.

GNOME calls itself language agnostic, meaning that there are wrappers for programming in GTK+ for several programming languages, though the main language is C. In general, the mini-apps that come with GNOME have a somewhat more attractive appearance than the ones that come with KDE, but overall KDE is faster and more stable. GNOME is only just reaching maturity while KDE has been in general use for several releases.

Both environments will be instrumental in bringing Linux to the desktops of folks who are new to Unix. With KDE or GNOME as an environment, Linux will begin attracting users who previously considered Unix too complicated. Soon there will be a whole generation of Linux end users who do not know, or care, how to use the traditional Unix vi editor.

For additional info on KDE, GNOME and Troll Tech, visit www.kde.org, www.gnome.org and www.troll.no.

Bring on the Apps!

While there is no denying that Microsoft Windows and Macintosh offer the greatest number of office-style applications, it's becoming easier for Linux users to stay in Linux and not have to reboot to another operating system just to run a modern, graphical word processor or spreadsheet.

There are now two well-established commercial office suites, plus a "big-name" word processor, available for Linux. All offer MS Office97 document conversion, allowing you exchange documents with the Microsoft world. They even have the look of Windows products. What's really impressive is that you can download and try them out for yourself. If you have a recent Linux distribution, there's a good chance these are on the CDs that came with your Linux.

ApplixWare (www.applix.com), is an office suite offering word processing, spreadsheet, presentations, graphics, HTML authoring, built-in email, and a data client that will connect to certain SQL databases with ODBC drivers. ApplixWare Deluxe for Linux retails for $99US. An ApplixWare demo is installed by default by SuSE Linux 6.1 and is available for downloading from the Applix site.

StarOffice (www.stardivision.com), which bears a striking screen resemblance to Microsoft Office97 products, is a similar suite, offering word processing, spreadsheet, presentations, organizer (with Palm synchronization), HTML authoring, email and newsgroup reader. StarOffice retails for $39.95US. StarOffice offers a non-expiring "personal edition" available free to Linux users. If it is not on your Linux distribution CD, you can download it from their website.

Corel Corporation has released a free "personal use" edition of WordPerfect 8 for Linux that is downloadable from the Corel Linux website (linux.corel.com). It is also included with many Linux distributions. By May 1999, Corel had registered over one million downloads of WordPerfect 8. The real McCoy, with Reveal Codes and all, WordPerfect is the first of the big-name office desktop products to appear for Linux. A fully-featured Personal Edition of WordPerfect 8, with additional graphics and fonts, retails for $69.95US. Corel is working on porting its entire office suite to Linux.

With products like this running in an environment such as KDE, you could take any Mac or Windows user, plunk them down at your workstation, and they would know immediately how to use the programs and what to do. Linux as a desktop alternative has arrived!

Gene Wilburn (gene@wilburn.ca) is a Toronto-based IT manager, musician and writer who operates a small farm of Linux servers.

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