[Lincs] Articles From Members

[Grahame.Mulliss at ulh.nhs.uk]

Iain,

I tried posting my article to the website but it constantly failed
giving a "HTTP request too long" error so I've copied it below, could
you please post it to the site for me.

Everyone else,

The article below may not be of interest to everyone, it is aimed at new
users and visitors to the site who are interested in Linux and Open
Source but don't know too much about the subject. Have a read (I hope
you do) and I hope you find it informative and amusing (for the right
reasons).

Grahame

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-

Making the change: Part One

Call me a heretic but dare I say it (whisper it in fact) I use Windows
98 on my home PC.

A triumph of outdated technology in a world of 3-4ghz Pentium
processors, 256mb graphics cards and "gazillion-byte" hard disk drives,
it ambles along much as it has since the day I built it, happily
oblivious to the fact that it should have been upgraded long ago.

For the record it's a PIII 550mhz with a 20gb HHD, 512mb of RAM,
SoundBlaster 16 sound card, a Creative Labs Riva TNT graphics card (with
a whopping 16mb of onboard memory) internal ZIP 100 drive, trusty floppy
drive and a temperamental CDR/W.

Pretty much since the day it was first powered on it's ran Windows 98 SE
(second edition) as its operating system. Yes I've dipped my toes into
the Open Source pool more than once but that old stalwart Win 98 seems
to stay on the HHD when many Linux distributions have come and gone.
Why? Well let's look at the pros first of all...

1.	It's small: I've always been a fan of small operating systems. A
full Win98 install takes 200mb max on my HDD. Once I've loaded my
standard apps onto it (Office XP, Winzip, Photoshop and the latest
versions of the Nvidia graphics card drivers and Direct X it fills a
little under 1gb.

2.	It's fast: Win98 boots in little under 40 seconds, it flys
during everyday use, MSOffice and my other applications open and run at
a speed usually reserved for Olympic sprinters.

3.	It supports my hardware: All my hardware bar the Riva TNT works
"out of the box". The Nvidia drivers are a breeze to install as no
degree in software engineering needed to install them.

4.	It runs more software than you can shake a stick at: Yes it
does, like it or not it runs every single one of the 200 odd games I
own, including those that I cannot imagine computing life without;
Championship Manager 01-02, Halflife and Civilization 2 (I didn't
mention they where modern games, just those for once reason or another I
play over and over again).

5.	It's simple to use: Let's face facts, it's so simple a monkey
could operate a Windows desktop (ask any Sysadmin and he/she will
probably state categorically that monkeys can and regularly use (or is
that abuse?) Windows). Installation is a breeze and software
installation rarely amounts to more than a few mouse clicks.

The above 5 points are the reason why the antiquated Win98 still has not
been permanently evicted. Now don't get me wrong it most definitely has
its problems and after 6 years of use it needs replacing. For those of
you who have never experienced the "joys" of a Microsoft operating
system here's a quick rundown, it's not complete by any means but it
represents the problems that I have personally encountered on my home
PC.

1.	It is flakier than the singing detective: BSOD are a way life.
If one application crashes the whole OS crashes. Now I must admit this
has rarely happened to myself but one crash which results in not only
data loss but also a lost Civ 2 save is one too many.

2.	No support: A Microsoft staple. "Is your Operating system older
than 3 years old?" Then don't even whisper the "S" word and as the
operating system (and most of the software available) is "Closed Source"
you can forget about tinkering to modify it to suit your needs.

3.	 It's not very secure is it?: Ok since my modem went to the
great hardware graveyard in the sky this hasn't been much of a problem
but when I was online... well that was another story altogether. Zone
Alarm, Norton Internet security and Antivirus where just some of the
must have applications that I had to run. All consuming precious
processor cycles and RAM.

4.	It's not feature rich: Windows 98 is never going to win any
awards for its feature set. The search function is simple, the command
line is simple, file management is simple. It's easy to use because it's
simple... but when you are trying to find one document in about 1000
(because that's the one you noted your girlfriends birthday on) simple
is not what you need. You need a search tool that actually searches.
 
So my mission is to find an Open Source replacement for Windows 98. It
needs to run as quickly as Win98 currently does, be able to run the
software I rely on or have a comparable Open Source replacement
available, be low on HHD space consumption, be easy to setup and have a
reasonable feature set.

Not too much to ask I hope. So for the next 4 weeks I will test a number
of Open Source OS distributions on my PC (Linux, BSD and others) and
each week I'll be reporting back the pros and cons of each respective
OS.   

Time to buckle up... lets go!

[Next Week] Making the change: Part Two "Where I'll be choosing the
first two OS' to test and reporting back"