Happy Birthday
Today is, as some reckon, the 17th birthday of Linux, the open-source UNIX-like operating system which has become increasingly popular in recent years. I adopted Linux about 2 years ago, first dual-booting (having 2 operating systems installed on the same machine and choosing at startup) Fedora, and then Ubuntu. Then I got brave and removed Windows from my last laptop. Then I got a new laptop and nuked the drive the moment I got it with a fresh Linux install. Then I installed 64 bit. Then I started compiling my own kernel. After that, it was all downhill, or uphill, depending on which way you were looking.
I became a Linux enthusiast, then an evangelical. “There is this operating system that is freely available, you can download it, and then you can install software by searching for it and selecting it (if you are in a package-managed distro, that is),” I would say. “Why does one become evangelical for an operating system,” you ask? Here is why:
Now, I am running my own Debian server: a tiny little ARM-processor-based wonder-device, 4 watts/10 under load. That is less than most energy efficient lightbulbs. Right now it just houses my digital media, my backups (which is makes without my ever having to know), and acts as a print server on our network so that I don’t have to plug the computer in, print, etc. It just works. I just added audio to it via a hardware-hack, USB in-line, jack-spliced audio card cannibalized from an old USB headset. I now have a command-line stereo with music library. Streaming internet radio too. And I can serve my own radio stream, in case the end comes and we have to rebuild the internet with string and tin cans.
I have grand plans for this little guy, the Linksys/Cisco NSLU2, or SLUG as we call the firmware-modded versions. I want about 15 more of them to just do little tasks and coordinate with each other. There is a Mic-in jack that I spliced onto the aforementioned audio card, so I am working now on adding voice-command support. Just simple stuff: “Radio on” or “Backup laptop now.” I have these sci-fi-esque visions of a fully automated house where these little guys talk to me as I walk through, turn lights on and off, report the weather, stock prices, news headlines if asked. I have also been working on a project (currently on hold, too much hardware to move to the Middle-East) to create a group of thin-client picture frames and touch screen interfaces that will be placed around the house. These would display photos, art, whatever. When asked, they could show you websites, play music on the stereo, etc. I dream of an alarm clock which is set by saying, “Jeeves, wake me up at 6:45, NPR on the radio.” “Very well then, good-night Sir.”
I dream of these things, and I will have them. I already am far closer to having these things than I ever was using computers the way that we are taught to do so in out modern age. Even the best average user today really uses their computer no differently than they might use a typewriter and an 8-track. Why is this the case?
It is the case because we are not encouraged to be curious about what is inside of our computers anymore. That, and we have been conditioned to believe that you must pay for software for your computer, which is simply not the case.
I’m not talking about software piracy either, a practice that I am rather ambivalent about these days. I don’t think it should be illegal, because I don’t think that it should be an issue. The best software out there is being developed by the curious, hobbyist, academic interests of developers with a machine and a little know-how. It’s mass peer-review. When the software is not human readable and the source is closed, bugs and weaknesses aren’t found until they are exploited. Enter FOSS: Free/Open Source Software.
Back to my point, these things interest me because they have enabled me, as a hobbyist, to make some really cool things happen. Soon my server will be talking to me, and I to it. Then it will be a server farm, then an integrated system that commands a house, or at least some of the functions in it. It’s cool. I can do it. And it is freely available to me. Sold.
This is why I am a Linux evangelical. I will walk down the street wearing a Linux t-shirt if it gets people to ask me what it is. I also just realized that I am wearing a Linux t-shirt.
Help celebrate this Linux birthday by taking Linux for a spin. There are a number of distributions that allow you to run the operating system from a CD (called a “Live-disk”). Live-disks are slower, because they have to run off of a CD. But try it. If you have an old computer laying around, dig it out, and install Linux on it. In my opinion, Ubuntu is probably going to be the best for first-time users. Here is a list of live-disk distributions which will allow you to install if you would like to:
Ubuntu
Gentoo
Debian
Knoppix
Damn Small Linux
Try it out. Linux has come a long way from its roots in the command-line. Sometimes when I am sitting in public using my laptop people come up wondering what kind of laptop it is and what my “Windows” is. I invite them to sit down for a cup of coffee, and I say “Have you ever heard of something called Linux?”
