WinLinux 2000
Linux is receiving increasing
coverage in the on-line press lately. The vast majority of people out there
are still happy enough to run some version of Microsoft's Windows operating
system. So why all the interest and hype with Linux? We'll cover a brief history
in order to explain the differences between the Windows operating systems
and Linux, and then cover WinLinux 2000,
which is a distribution of Linux designed to be the most user friendly to
Windows owners.
|
Min
Requirements
|
The
product
|
- 16 MB RAM
- Pentium class
processor
- VGA video card
- Windows 95 or
Windows 98
- An IDE disk drive
with approximately 500MB free space on a FAT32 system (Windows 98)
or near 1GB free space on a FAT16 system (most Windows 95), for a
full setup.
|
|
Who is this Linux guy?
First things first. Linux
is not named after its creator, Linus Torvalds. It is a blending of his name
with the UNIX operating system. And since Linus is Scandinavian he pronounces
it differently than us American types. For those of you who live in Texas,
as I do, it rhymes with pick-up. The rest of you would rhyme it after lint-sucks.
Linus was working
with an operating system called Minix, which is based on UNIX. He decided
he wasn't satisfied and began development of an improved operating system
in 1991 and by 1994 had released his first version of the Linux Kernel. Here's
where it gets better. He gave the source code to anyone who wanted it so that
they could help develop and improve it. It has been through this open source
of programmers that Linux has continued to develop into the operating system
it is today. The only agreement a developer has to follow is that they must
release their improved code to the community so that everyone can benefit
from their work.
What's a distribution?
Linux is an operating
system that features multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand
loading, proper memory management, TCP/IP networking, and other features consistent
with Unix-type systems. So if you had experience working with a UNIX system
once you could easily work from a Linux terminal. The big improvement came
with the realization that in order to be acceptable to the general public
Linux had to have a GUI -graphical user interface. Once a GUI was incorporated
the ability of the average person to use Linux grew, and now we are at the
point where there are several distributions available.
Because Linux is open
source software anyone can take the basic core kernel of Linux and by adding
a GUI and other programs of their choosing, derive a distribution. There are
quite a few available. Some, such as Redhat or Mandrake are designed to be
easy to install and work with. Others are geared at the hardcore enthusiast.
It is the distinct personalities of these different Linux distributions that
make Linux so appealing to its users. Imagine if Windows came custom engineered
to your needs?
Somewhere along the line
people began to see that not everyone was up to the task of installing Linux.
While Linux and Windows can survive on the same hard drive they each require
their own partition since they use different file structures. Another problem
was that, until recently, few manufacturers provided drivers for their components
designed to work with Linux. One of the main problems with Linux in general
was that a person had to have a certain amount of expertise to setup their
hardware. Enter WinLinux. WinLinux takes care of many of the setup headaches
that intimidate the average Windows user who wants to try Linux. For example,
WinLinux is designed to be installed in the same partition as Windows and
is equipped to setup most of the common components available. WinLinux even
includes Samba, a program that allows you to browse your Windows folders.
This strange fusion of Windows usability with Linux's inherent advantages
may be the ticket for those who are not prepared to run a regular Linux distribution.
