Imagine a computer operating system (OS) that will turn a modest Pentium 100 into a fast Web server; that will allow multiple users to log on and each run several programs at the same time; that is reliable enough to leave running for months on end if necessary.
Networking is built into the kernel of the operating system, so it will be at home and work blindingly fast on a local area network, or the Internet. It is powerful enough to provide performance comparable with expensive Unix workstations on a standard PC costing a fraction of the price. Oh, and it's free.
This operating system exists and it's called Linux. It is the result of one man's bright idea and the voluntary work of thousands of programmers in a world-wide collaboration that takes place mainly over the Internet. This background alone makes it interesting as an example of large-scale international technical co-operation - a complex artifact brought about by the Internet.
A standard copy of this OS comes with a raft of applications - real programs, not cut-down applets - for a wide range of tasks. These include the Perl, C and C++ programming languages, a Web server, FTP (file transfer protocol) client and server programs, several text-editors, a windowing system, games, PostScript type formatting, and much more. The Internet also provides unique support for Linux. There is a huge amount of documentation on the Web, hints, how-tos and add-on programs. The people who wrote it are still out there, joining in discussion groups and helping to resolve users' problems. The circumstances of its creation and the devotion it inspires in users have created a community around Linux.
In the beginning, or back in the 1970s at least, there was Unix, developed as a mainframe and minicomputer OS in the days before personal computers were dreamt of. There were multiple versions of Unix, some free (at least for academic use) but most were proprietary and expensive. One variant was Minix, for small computer systems.
"Do you pine for the nice days of Minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote their own device drivers?" wrote Linus Torvalds of the University of Helsinki in the Internet discussion group comp.os.minix back in 1991. "Are you without a nice project and just dying to cut your teeth on a OS you can try to modify for your needs?".
"As I mentioned a month ago, I'm working a free version of a Minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers. It has finally reached the stage where it's even usable," he continued, " . . . and I am willing to put out the sources for wider distribution."
This initiative meshed with the work of the Free Software Foundation. Its GNU programming tools complemented the new free operating system and made it useful to thousands of programmers who wanted to run Unix at home but couldn't afford a fancy computer and an expensive copy of a proprietary Unix.
Many utilities were added from the Berkeley university version of Unix (BSD), and then the volunteer programmers got to work, creating device drivers, rewriting standard Unix programs for Linux (often done so well that the program ran better and faster on the new OS than on its original one). A graphical windowing desktop came from the XFree consortium, and a slew of graphical programs to use under it followed.
Which brings us to where Linux is today: a free Unix clone running on the hardware of a typical home PC. It will co-exist with Windows, allowing you to choose which one to start each time you boot the machine. It is often favoured for certain tasks: running a Web server, or a dial-in server on a network, some graphics tasks such as large-scale rendering and special effects.
In some situations it is almost an inevitable choice. That's the case where skills are more plentiful than money, especially when the project involves communications or the Internet.
Linux, and its supporting programs are out there on the Net, free for the taking. If you know what you're at - really know - you can download everything you need to get a system up and running. The only cost is the connection time. Most people, however, and certainly most beginners, buy a "distribution" of Linux. That means that they pay from £15 to £60 for CDRom(s) with the software, and supporting documentation, plus utilities to make installation easier. Among the best-known distributions are Red Hat, Slackware and Caldera.
The software is "freely distributable" rather than totally free of restrictions like a public domain program. It is distributed under the GNU public licence (see www.gnu.org) which means that those who add value to it can charge for the value they add, but not for the core GNUlicence software.
Typically, a CD-Rom set of Linux, with a mountain of software to run on it, costs less than a copy of Windows 98 (even an upgrade copy). To buy the Windows equivalent of the programs on the $59 Caldera Open Linux Base disk, for example, could cost well over a thousand pounds. So what's the catch? Read on next week as we set about installing Linux.
Fiachra O Marcaigh: fomarcaigh@irish-times.ie