Don't Be Afraid To Find Out If Linux Is An Alternative to Windows For You. Install It. Try It. Have Fun!

Three of the oldest (surviving) Linux distributions are Slackware, Debian, and Red Hat. Not oldest because of when it was last updated, but oldest as in elder, as in some of the first on the scene, like a community of old-line families. Red Hat and Debian are first-generation Linux distros, whereas Slackware descends from the now defunct SLS. You might call them pillars of the community.

Yes, they are stable, rock-solid! And just about every modern-day distro has been brought forth from them, since the early 1990s. In Linux lingo, they've been derived, or are derivatives. This image (and the one above) is from the GNU/Linux Distro Timeline, which chronicles the comings, goings, and branches of Linux from the beginning and beyond.

In this lens, I'll share a bit about three of the Linux distros I use for both personal and business computing: PCLinuxOS, Linux Mint, and Mepis Linux. Where are they on the timeline?

Redhat Linux is the grandfather of the Linux distro I'm using as I write this lens. Looking at the image above, you can see that PCLinuxOS (green line) is a derivative of the former Mandrake (blue line).

Both Linux Mint and Simply Mepis are Debian Linux derivatives.

Two of my favorite distros, VectorLinux and the Zenwalk LiveCD, are direct derivatives of Slackware.

I've never used the actual Slackware, Red Hat, or Debian distributions. (Like I said, I'm a Linux desktop user, not a guru!)

Yep, the Linux operating system is stable, rooted-and-grounded, and actively maintained by faithful users around the world. :)

Mountain Climbing. Swimming Upstream. Rocky Road. River Without Paddle.

• I didn't know what I was doing.


• The language, terminology, and commands were different than Windows.


• The KDE desktop interface was too cluttered for my tastes.


• Because I didn't know the choices I had, I couldn't "choose."


• Things that could have been clearer, were covered in geek-speak.

Check this out! I've set up 1-Click Access To Some of My Favorite Programs on My PCLinuxOS Desktop.

Linux Mint Installing Popular Application Google Earth

Today we have an example of an Austrian Band who uses the Linux operating system for the business end of their very pleasurable musical endeavors.

XBloome is an Austrian band, joining electronic drum and synthesizer sounds with classical instruments like violin, trumpet and bass, into a smooth blend of ambient disco trip-hop. They run a professional shop and wanted to prove to the world that their tradition of excellence both onstage and off could be undergirded with entirely free software driving the business end.

They set out to prove not that Linux worked fine for their business computing needs (they already knew that), but that they could produce their next CD recording with free, open source software (which almost always runs on the Linux platform).

They put this to the test with their third album, X Marks The Spot, which they released November 1, 2010.

"A proof of concept or a proof of principle is realization of a certain method or idea(s) to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle, whose purpose is to verify that some concept or theory is probably capable of being useful." ---Wikipedia

They're a band, right? Making good music is a challenge, regardless! Lots of musicians use Mac or Windows for the computer-related portion of music-making. XBloome's challenge here was to do their thing without the benefit of Mac, or Windows, or a studio, or any pay-to-play software . . .

This included:

• Find a free-to-use-and-modify professional-grade Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)


• Digitally master superb-sounding audio files outside a studio


• Maintain excellent audio quality


• Find a multi-channel soundcard that would work under Linux


• Do the do without proprietary audio plugins

"Ardour is an awesome DAW that offers all the features required from a professional audio recording tool - and thanks to JACK, connecting it internally with other audio applications is easier and more seamlessly possible than with proprietary solutions ..."

XBloome used Scribus, an open-source desktop publishing software, on Linux to create their CD/DVD cover and business materials for their latest album, X Marks The Spot.

The challenge here was to create all the business materials related to marketing and distributing their new CD. This included:

* Use entirely Free Fonts (because free fonts are not always "free")
* No layout templates for non-proprietary applications
* Professional quality
* Printwork quality

They found the answer in Scribus, an open-source program that brings professional page layout and sports the industry-standard desktop publishing features you expect your business applications to have built-in.

From personal experience, I know Scribus is pretty robust. I've used the low-end Microsoft Publisher (which I actually like), Adobe PageMaker (seriously robust!), and a few others on the Windows platform. Comparatively speaking, Scribus definitely holds its own. (Scribus is available for Linux/Unix, MacOS X, OS/2 and Windows at scribus.net.)

You can see XBloome's final CD/DVD cover above. They also created the CD inserts, back panels, and brochure using the freely available Scribus desktop publishing software.

XBloome did a wonderfully professional job using free software to create their business materials.

You're looking at the OpenOffice.org Productivity Suite. This image is from the Word Processor. The Suite can read and write to the .DOC format used by MS Word. It has a spreadsheet, a database, a presentation module, a drawing component. All like the MS Suite of products. It runs under Linux but there is also a Windows version, which I've used for years.

What about those fonts we know and love? On my Linux systems, they are installed! This is the same collection of high quality TrueType fonts that are default in any MS Windows installation. These are also the main webfonts as specified in microsoft.com / typography. The fonts are Andale Mono, Arial, Arial Black, Comic, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Lucida Sans, Lucida Console, Microsoft Sans Serif, Symbol, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Trebuchet, Verdana, Webdings, Wingdings.

I also use free fonts, but I like the freedom of using these, too, if I choose to do so. Of course, there are some Linux distros that do not include these fonts but still make them available for you to install yourself via the package manager. (Easy!) On the flip side, there are open-source-software-only (OSS) Linux distros that do not use any proprietary fonts, utilities, tools, and DO NOT make them available via their package manager. (Still, you can take a do-it-yourself approach and do it yourself.)

GNU Cash is a personal finance management software very similar to Quicken. It even imports .QIF files along with a few other personal money manager formats. While it can be used for accounting, I don't think it is as robust as QuickBooks or Peachtree. But for personal finances it works well. Created for Linux, it doesn't work on Microsoft Windows.

Many of the Applications you know and love have a Linux counterpart, or may have been created to run on Linux first, then ported over to Windows. Firefox works on Linux and Windows.