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>The State of Linux &#8211; What to Expect</TITLE
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><H1
CLASS="SECT1"
><A
NAME="AEN514"
>15. The State of Linux &#8211; What to Expect</A
></H1
><P
>Programmers and Enthusiasts &#8211; For programmers Linux is already a
near perfect solution. No other system gives so offers you a wider array of
tools and platforms for development. The flexibility is simply amazing and
it doesn't carry a price tag. An added benefit is the sense of community and
that's priceless.</P
><P
>Enthusiasts never had it so good. There is aways something new to
discover and since the system is totally transparent your chances of
understanding computing and programming in general &#8211; you will be
interested if you aren't already &#8211; are infinitely higher than in
Windows. Tinkering will never be the same again.</P
><P
>For the home user &#8211; There are <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>5</TT
> separate
areas here, the internet,
gaming, basic word processing, administration and multimedia. We aren't
going to talk about ease of use here because the days of an ugly and
unwieldy interface are long gone, at the moment as far as usability and
sheer visual pizazz is concerned <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Gnome</SPAN
> has
taken the pants off Windows so
there is nothing to worry about there. File management, installing and
uninstalling software and basic administration are more streamlined and
centralized and as you use Linux more you probably will get over any
prejudice toward the command line which is nothing like the impotent
<SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>DOS</SPAN
> prompt. This is an outrageously powerful shell that
will accomplish anything
you can think off faster than it takes you to select a button. You might be
intimidated at first but its the heart of Linux the control centre, the
headquarters, your direct line to the kernel. Hardware configuration is not
as simple as in Windows mostly because plug and play has complicated things
not eased them but it's not difficult either, the best thing to do is set
your <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>BIOS</SPAN
> to <EM
>non pnp</EM
> so that it
can configure things especially the sound
card, but <EM
>read read read</EM
>. There is a lot
of documentation on your system and with that behind you everything
becomes simple. There is no excuse for ignorance.</P
><DIV
CLASS="SECT2"
><H2
CLASS="SECT2"
><A
NAME="AEN525"
>15.1. The Specifics &#8211; Wordprocessing</A
></H2
><P
><SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Corel WordPerfect</SPAN
> is good but for the
simplest solution try <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Abiword</SPAN
> &#8211;
<A
HREF="http://www.abisource.com/"
TARGET="_top"
>http://www.abisource.com/</A
>. It's good
and bears an uncanny resemblance to <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>MSWord</SPAN
>
&#8211; now now. Both are free and
widely available &#8211; I don't know about
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Wordperfect 9</SPAN
> , <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>8</SPAN
>
is free, good and available. Other options are
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Applixware</SPAN
> and <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Star
Office</SPAN
>. I haven't used <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Applix</SPAN
>
but <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Star Office</SPAN
> is really ugly and slow and
just the sort of software that could put you off Linux and its just as
bad in Windows. Version 5.1 was tolerable but after Sun took it over its
deteriorated and version 5.2 is the pits. Plain text and html editors are
sprouting by the day. Most distribution carry a lot of software so
look. I'm not much of a spreadsheet person but there is
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>GNUmeric</SPAN
> which is
not unlike <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Excel</SPAN
> and a glaring inadequacy in
printing is now rectified. It looks good. Corel have ported nearly all
their apps and they are not as expensive as their Windows counterparts
and with the same functionality.</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECT2"
><H2
CLASS="SECT2"
><A
NAME="AEN540"
>15.2. Multimedia</A
></H2
><P
>This is one area where Linux will not be found wanting. There are
as many if not more <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>mp3</SPAN
> players than Windows. The
most common is <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>XMMS</SPAN
>, is somewhat like
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Winamp</SPAN
> and just as good &#8211; has some
great visualization plugins. Other <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>mp3</SPAN
> players are
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Gqmpeg</SPAN
>, <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Freeamp</SPAN
>,
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Alsaplayer</SPAN
>. That's enough
for me. <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>Mpeg1</SPAN
> <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>vcd</SPAN
> players are a
bit scarce, <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>MTV</SPAN
> is good and available &#8211;
<A
HREF="hteztp://www.mtvplayer.com/"
TARGET="_top"
>hteztp://www.mtvplayer.com/</A
> free for personal
use &#8211; a totally free solution is available from lokigames &#8211;
<A
HREF="http://www.lokigames.com/"
TARGET="_top"
>http://www.lokigames.com/</A
> There are
more. There are a few <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>mp2</SPAN
> players
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>movie</SPAN
> is good. I' don't have a <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>dvd</SPAN
>
player so I don't know but <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Xmovie</SPAN
> should
tackle <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>mpeg2</SPAN
> streams. Most of my
<SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>mpeg1</SPAN
> players are <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>GL</SPAN
> accelerated
and perhaps my vcd playsback as well as
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Windows Media Player</SPAN
>. Ripping is a reality
with a lot of options <20> no more <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>ASPI</SPAN
> headaches
&#8211; most of the Linux apps read digital data directly from
the discs and all the popular codecs are available;
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Xing</SPAN
>, <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Fraunhofer</SPAN
> but I
use <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Blade</SPAN
> and <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Lame</SPAN
>
&#8211; two excellent freeware encoders avalible for all
platforms. There are also a couple of tools for cdwriting. Check some of
the Linux archives.</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECT2"
><H2
CLASS="SECT2"
><A
NAME="AEN568"
>15.3. Internet</A
></H2
><P
>Again things are really happening here though one wishes there
were a few more browsers other than <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Netscape</SPAN
>
but then <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Netcape</SPAN
> is adequate. There are all
the other stuff you will find for Windows, chat utils, instant
messaging, ftp, downLoaders etc.</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECT2"
><H2
CLASS="SECT2"
><A
NAME="AEN573"
>15.4. Games</A
></H2
><P
>The problem area is games, there is a project on to port
popular games to Linux by Lokigames and they have a number of titles
ready &#8211;
<A
HREF="http://www.lokigames.com/"
TARGET="_top"
>http://www.lokigames.com/</A
> &#8211;
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Quake</SPAN
>
2&#38;3 are out, <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>System Shock</SPAN
>,
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Heavygear</SPAN
> etc. The thing here is to make
sure you have at least <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Xfree 4.01</SPAN
> and support
for your video card.</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECT2"
><H2
CLASS="SECT2"
><A
NAME="AEN581"
>15.5. Desktop Publishing</A
></H2
><P
>That leaves us with <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>DTP</SPAN
> and this is one area
where Linux could pound Windows but the thrust has been missing. Linux could
really be optimized for
<SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>DTP</SPAN
>. <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Ghostscript</SPAN
> - a
PostScript RIP &#8211; already
offers a professional (if you know how) solution for printing and your
printer is probably supported. If you already have a postscript
printer there is no problem to start with. For image editing there is
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Gimp</SPAN
>. It is nearly as good as
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Photoshop</SPAN
> &#8211; and
that's some compliment &#8211;
but for lack of <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>CMYK</SPAN
> and colour management support
ruling it out of
serious print work but it can be a good semi-professional solution and
for web work perfect and it's fun to
use. <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Gimp</SPAN
> also has a couple of
good drivers for Epson printers. <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Ghostscript</SPAN
>
has a problem with bitmaps &#8211; not all bitmaps but photographs, you
could eventually get some good output but it will take some amount of
tweaking. As far as text and vector graphics is concerned it's good
enough to replace my Epson driver in Windows (it has a Windows
version) <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>GhostScript</SPAN
> is available at its
homepage <A
HREF="http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/"
TARGET="_top"
>http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/</A
>
</P
><P
>Word processing is already covered. The problem areas are
vector editing and page layout. <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Framemaker</SPAN
>
for Linux is a solution and <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>CorelDraw</SPAN
> is
available but they are both commercial offerings. There are
vector editors but all are at a nascent stage.
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Sketch</SPAN
>,
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Killustrator</SPAN
> and
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Impress</SPAN
> are coming along but far away from
professional solutions like
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Draw</SPAN
> and
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Adobe Illustrator</SPAN
>. For page layout there is
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Tex</SPAN
> but those used
to <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Pagemaker</SPAN
>,
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Quark</SPAN
> or <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>InDesign</SPAN
>
are not going to be amused, its tough to
learn and difficult to control and there are way too many issues with
things like fonts and its not <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>wysiwyg</SPAN
> &#8211; we
can't live without that.</P
><P
>On a last note at the moment the only difference in
productivity for me is in vector graphics, page layout and games. They
are perhaps a year away at which point Linux would have over taken
Windows &#8211; at least as far as I'm concerned &#8211; and I would
have little reason to dual boot but I think having Windows is in a odd
way comforting as is having Linux, perhaps I will always use them
both.</P
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