Moving to Linux Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye

1
Moving to LinuxKiss the Blue Screen of Death
Goodbye!

• It's time!
• Say "Goodbye" to Windows
• crashes, viruses, hassles,
• and costs!

Based on the book by Marcel Gagné
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The Birth of Linux

• From torvalds_at_klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict
  Torvalds)
• Newsgroups comp.os.minix
• Subject What would you lik to see most in
  minix?
• Summary small poll for my new operating
  system
• Message-ID lt1991Aug25.205708.9541_at_klaava.H
  elsinki.FIgt
• Date 25 Aug 91 205708 GMT
• Organization University of Helsinki
• Hello everybody out there using minix -
• I'm doing a (free) operating system (just
  a hobby, wont be big and professional like gnu)
  for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing
  since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd
  like any feedback on things people like/dislike
  in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same
  physical layout of the file-system (due to
  practical reasons) among other things).
• I've currently ported bash(1.08) and
  gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies
  that I'll get something practical within a few
  months, and I'd like to know what features most
  people would want. Any suggestions are welcome,
  but I won't promise I'll implement them -)
• Linus (torvalds_at_kruuna.helsinki.fi)
• PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and
  it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT protable
  (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably
  never will support anything other than AT-hard
  disks, as that's all I have -(.

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Introduction

• What is Linux
• Linux is a kernel, the brains or control center a
  collection of software packages, usually referred
  to as a Linux distribution. Popular
  distributions include Mandrake, Red Hat, SuSE,
  Debian, and others.
• Is Linux really FREE?
• TANSTAAFL (Robert A. Heinlein)
• A free download will still cost you connection
  time on the Internet, disk space, time to burn
  the CDs, and so on.
• "Free as in speech"
• "Free as in beer"
• Distributed under the GPL

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The GNU GPL

• Linux is distributed under the GNU General Public
  License
• in essence, the GPL says that anyone may copy,
  distribute, and even sell the program, so long as
  changes to the source are reintroduced back to
  the community and the terms of the license remain
  unaltered. Free means that you are free to take
  Linux, modify it, and create your own version.
  Free means that you are not at the mercy of a
  single vendor who forces you into a kind of
  corporate servitude by making sure that it is
  extremely costly to convert to another
  environment. If you are unhappy with your Linux
  vendor or the support you are getting, you can
  move to the next vendor without forfeiting your
  investment in Linux.
• In other words, "free as in speech", or simply
  "freedom".

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What do you gain?

• No operating system will ever be perfect, but
  Linux is getting pretty close. With Linux,
  you'll gain
• Better Security
• Increased Stability
• Power from your OS
• Money (saved!)
• Freedom from legal hassles

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What do you lose?

• Hardware and peripheral support
• Some hardware is designed to run exclusively with
  Windows (eg Winmodems). Linux developers
  continue to work on drivers
• Shrink-wrapped software.
• Hot new games or popular packages may not be
  available at your local software store. Still,
  thousands of packages exist for Linux a click
  away.
• A step into the unknown. Learning curve.
• Even moving from 95 to XP will take some
  retraining.

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What about support?

• Corporate support through large vendors like Red
  Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, IBM, HP, and others.
• Worldwide community support IRC chats, Linux
  User Groups, mailing lists
• Linux Documentation Project
• http//www.tldp.org
• HOWTOs, man pages, books
• Linux technical support "among the best"

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Getting Linux

• Buy a boxed set of Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE,
  Xandros, Lindows, and others.
• Download ISOs (images) from the vendors or visit
  http//www.linuxiso.org
• Borrow disks from a friend, copy, and burn your
  own.
• Redistribute them yourself

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Linux with Windows?

• Set up a dual boot system
• Use VMWare and run multiple distributions
• http//www.vmware.com
• Win4Lin for Win 95, 98, or ME
• www.netraverse.com
• WINE or FREEDOS for simple applications
• CrossOver Office or CrossOver Plugin
• lets you run some of the more popular apps
  without requiring a copy of Windows.

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Installations

• Modern Linux distributions are even easier to
  install than Windows
• Most will repartition your drive automatically or
  resize it to allow for a Linux/Windows dual-boot
  system
• Answer a few questions, click Next a few times
  and you are running Linux

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Knoppix CDROM

• "Moving to Linux Kiss the Blue Screen of Death
  Goodbye!" comes with a customized version of
  Klaus Knopper's excellent Knoppix distribution
• Run Linux from the CD without installing it.
• Great for "getting your flippers wet"
• Note that running from the CD is substantially
  slower than running from an installed Linux
• Feel free to copy and redistribute the CD

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Desktop Options

• KDE (K Desktop Environment)
• mature, friendly, integrated, and slick
• east to use
• first choice for new desktop users
• GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment)
• also very nice with GNOME 2 releases
• IceWM, WindowMaker (dock apps!), XFCE

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Desktop Customization

• KDE is very customizable
• icons, fonts, colors, backgrounds, window
  decorations, themes, sounds, etc
• desktop can be themed to
• suit any personal tastes or to
• adhere within a corporate
• look and feel
• Visit http//www.kdelook.org for lots of ideas

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File Management

• KDE's file manager is Konqueror
• Konqueror is many things
• file manager
• web browser
• CVS browser
• image gallery and digital camera tool
• universal viewer

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Konqueror

• Konqueror
• showing off
• file manager,
• icon view,
• and shell
• access.

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Installing Packages

• Many options starting with KDE's Kpackage tool
• Command line rpm, urpmi, or apt-get
• Synaptic for apt-get
• apt-get for RPM
• Yum (http//linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/)
• Compiling from source (easier than it sounds)
• extract and build five-step

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Working with Hardware

• When purchasing hardware in a store, always ask
  whether it runs with Linux -- even if you already
  know. It lets retailers know that there is
  indeed a Linux market out there.
• Use the "kinfocenter" command to check out your
  system's hardware.
• lspci and lsusb can be used at the command line
  to identify PCI and USB hardware

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KDE Info Center

• kinfocenter
• knows all about
• your system's
• hardware!

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Printers and Printing

• Linux has excellent printer support through CUPS
  (http//www.cups.org)
• Buying a printer?
• visit http//www.linuxprinting.org
• Add new printers using KDE's control center, the
  "kcontrol" program. Look under the control
  center's Peripherals menu and use "Administrator
  Mode" to create and add printers.

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Add Printer Wizard

• Just point
• and click
• your way to
• adding a new
• printer.

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Internet Access

• Linux supports pretty much every form of network
  access
• Dial-up through Kppp or wvdial
• Cable modem connections through dhcp
• ADSL
• Modern distributions provide wizards for getting
  you connected, like Mandrake's Drakconf tool or
  SuSE's YaST2.

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Dial Up Configuration

• Kppp makes it
• easy to set up a
• dial up Internet
• connection.

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Instant Messaging

• Linux Instant Messaging clients support many
  protocols and networks Yahoo!, MSN, Jabber,
  ICQ, AOL, etc.
• Popular clients
• include
• GAIM
• Kopete

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Electronic Mail

• Linux provides many different packages for
  electronic mail. From a variety of text-only
  clients to full featured graphical programs, you
  won't lack for anything.
• Text only
• mutt, pine, elm are among the more popular
• Graphical
• Kmail, Evolution, Sylpheed, Mozilla, and more

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Kmail Features

• Integrates beautifully into KDE desktop
• Supports IMAP, POP3, multiple accounts
• Includes privacy features like PGP/GnuPG
  encryption, user defined filters, and SSL/TLS.
• PGP/MIME and S/MIME attachments
• Fully configurable interface (colors/fonts)
• Multi-level folders, drag and drop, spell
  checking, multiple identities, and more . . .

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KDE's Kmail

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Evolution Features

• Integrates email, calendaring, scheduling,
  contact management in one place
• Users coming from Outlook will feel right at home
  with the interface design.
• With "Ximian Connector", Evolution can easily
  integrate into an MS Exchange environment.
• Supports IMAP/POP and secure connects
• Multiple identities

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Evolution Email more

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Other Email Options

• Web-based email applications like Squirrelmail
  are an excellent choice for remote access.
• Linux also provides a number of text email
  clients that are very popular.
• mutt, pine, elm
• There are other graphical clients as well
• Aethera, Sylpheed, Balsa

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Web Browsing

• As with Email, Linux has a number of options for
  web browsing, in both text-only and full
  graphical mode.
• Text-only browsers include
• links, lynx, w3m (limited graphics capability),
  more
• Graphical browsers
• Konqueror, Mozilla, Galeon, Opera, more

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Konqueror Features

• Aside from being a great browser, Konqueror is
  also a powerful file manager.
• Supports Java, JavaScript, Netscape and Mozilla
  plugins (Flash, RealAudio, etc)
• HTML 4.0, SSL, CSS 1 and 2
• Tabbed browsing, multi-pane, multi-featured!
• Use it to block pop-up ads, cookies
• Will impersonate many other browsers

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Browsing with Konqueror

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Mozilla Features

• Mozilla is a combination web browser, email
  client, HTML editor, IRC chat client, and more!
• Standards compliant, SLL,
• Also stop popup ads, cookies, etc.
• Features tabbed browsing
• Available for Linux, Windows, Mac OS/X
• For Mozilla's lightweight 'browser only', check
  out Mozilla Firebird.

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Browsing with Mozilla

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Keeping Up To Date

• Bugs are discovered and fixed all the time.
  Programs are in a constant state of fine tuning
  and improvement. For security reasons, or simply
  from a functionality standpoint, it makes sense
  to keep up to date and Linux provides many
  opportunities to do so.
• Keep in mind that a high-speed connection is
  desirable if not essential. While updates can be
  easy, packages can be large and downloads over a
  modem connections may take a long time.

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Updates by Distribution

• Red Hat Linux
• up2date
• Mandrake
• urpmi / Mandrake Update (or through drakconf)
• SuSE
• Online Update through YaST2
• Debian
• apt-get

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Word Processors

• As with so many things in the Linux world, there
  are a lot of word processor choices. The most
  powerful is Writer, part of the OpenOffice.org
  suite (and its commercial cousin, StarOffice).
• Microsoft Word users find themselves very
  comfortable with OpenOffice.
• More than 99 Microsoft Word compatible.
• "Moving to Linux" was written with OO Writer.
• Other options include Abiword, Kword, etc.

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Working with OO Writer

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Spreadsheets

• OpenOffice Calc, part of the OpenOffice.org suite
  provides near perfect compatibility with Excel.
• Features will be familiar to Excel users.
• Other options include the very capable Gnumeric
  spreadsheet and Koffice's Kspread.
• Gnumeric is particularly excellent at recreating
  Excel's features and format.

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Working with OO Calc

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Presentation Graphics

• OpenOffice's Impress is the presentation graphics
  suite of choice in the Linux world, and my
  personal recommendation. This "PowerPoint"
  presentation was done with Impress.
• Nearly perfect PowerPoint compatibility
• Format and functionality will also be quite
  familiar to Powerpoint users.
• There are many other presentation packages, but
  you might consider trying KDE's KPresenter

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Working with Impress

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Scanning Images

• Most popular scanning tools are XSane and Kooka
  (the GIMP also features scanner plugins)
• Kooka is KDE's scanning tool. It is friendly and
  easy to use. With gocr, Kooka does optical
  character recognition (OCR)
• XSane, while powerful, may not be quite as
  polished looking. On the other hand, it also
  makes a great fax machine and photocopier.

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Scanning Images and Text

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Working with a Digital Camera

• The magic of interfacing with digital cameras is
  done using the gphoto2 libraries which currently
  support more than 300 popular cameras.
• Konqueror is a great tool for accessing you
  camera and manipulating images.
• Have a look at DigiKam as well. This is a slick,
  powerful, easy to use, digital camera and photo
  album maintenance tool.
• http//digikam.sourceforge.net

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Image Manipulation

• The GIMP is an amazingly powerful image
  manipulation package (similar to Adobe PhotoShop)
• Create professional looking logos in seconds.
• Easily manipulate digital camera images, adjust
  light levels, get rid of red eyes, and add
  special effects.
• ripples, metallic embossing, borders, flares,
  shadows, canvas and cloth effects, distorts,
  blurs, and more!

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Working with the GIMP

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Multimedia

• Modern Linux distributions offer an impressive
  selection of programs to satisfy your cravings
  for the multimedia experience. These include
• Mixers
• Audio players
• CD players, rippers, and burning tools
• Video conferencing
• Video and DVD players

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Playing Music

• For CD's, look at KsCD
• For MP3 and OGG files, XMMS and NoAtun.
• XMMS and NoAtun are slick, skinnable, and feature
  many visual and audio plugins.

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Watching Movies

• Many options including Mplayer, xine, and Ogle.
• Watch video
• clips, DVDs, etc.
• Mplayerplugin
• and Kmplayer lets
• you integrate
• mplayer into your
• browser.

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Playing Games

• There are tons of games available for Linux.
  Several will be installed as part of your KDE
  setup. More again with GNOME.
• They include single and multiplayer, networked
  games, board, adventure, and arcade games.
• At this time, most 'boxed' commercial Windows
  games will not play under Linux. You can,
  however, use WineX to play many of the most
  popular games without resorting to Windows.

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Card Games

• Play poker, Solitaire, and many patience-type
  games.

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Board Games

• Board games are still cool! Cooler if you
  consider
• that you can
• now play
• games like
• battleship and
• monopoly
• over the
• Internet.

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Educational Games

• Learn about the stars and planets. Learn to
  type. Or just make faces with the Potato Guy.

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Arcade Action

• You'll find a lot of your old favorites as well
  as some new ones.

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The Future

• I hope you've enjoyed this little tour of Linux
  and the Linux destkop. With all the power,
  stability, security, fun, and flexibility at your
  command . . .
• Linux is the future of computing!

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Thank you!

• This presentation was created using
  OpenOffice.org's Impress application.
• Text and ideas are based on Marcel Gagné,s new
  book, "Moving to Linux Kiss the Blue Screen of
  Death Goodbye!".
• Make sure you pick up a copy at
• your local retailer or e-tailer.
• Visit http//www.marcelgagne.com