Many things to Many People. Review on Choosing a Linux Variant

I couldn't find a better title to describe this new OS(kernel).

Is it stable? Yes, it is(unless you specifically try out stuff which you wouldn't normally do in your normal daily work). Lots of Fortune 500 companies run their web servers which earn them their daily bread( or should I say million bucks) on Linux. IBM of all companies is not foolish to invest millions on an unstable OS.

It is highly stable if you run it in command line( SHELL) mode. But if you run  GUI like X Windows on top of Linux it is as stable as windows 95/98(i.e less stable).

The stability/security of Linux comes at a cost( There ain't no such thing as a Free meal).

Linux uses a totally legacy Unix User/group/others security which looks totally archaic compared to Windows security where you can specify which EXACT users can do what EXACT things on your files(for e.g.)

Linux has lesser support for hardware compared to Windows. You can buy any XYZ hardware on the grey market & connect it to windows & voila it works!.( I am talking about newer USB hardware here;). Can't say the same for Linux. Need to read the HCL given by Red Hat, Mandrake or which ever brand of Linux you own. The fact is Linux doesn't auto-detect hardware like windows does.

There is no standard GUI for Linux. It gives you a plethora of choices like Gnome, KDE, Motif etc. where as all you are interested in is running your applications.

The biggest(repeat a thousand times) hurdle to Linux acceptance on home computers is lack of'MS Office' killer app on Linux which also should be 100% MS Office compliant(as 90% of world uses it). Yeah, there are lots of wannabes like StarOfice, CorelOffice, KOffice etc.( again infinite choice), but they just aren't there yet.( Just search Google to read countless stories of unmet expectations).

There is also no IE(Internet Explorer) killer in site. Netscape is very much bloated & slower than IE(my personal experience). I don't want to comment on plethora of other browsers which donot allow me to browse countless web sites(which have been designed just for IE or Netscpae). I  believe these Linux browsers will never be IE compatible(given the contempt/hatred of MS) & hence will never be usable by non-technical end users(who form 95% of web surfers)

Moral of the story

Linux rocks on the server side. Cheap to get, easier to support. You don't even need a monitor to run your server('headless operation' for Geeks)!. There are not many things you need to monitor( or can monitor for that matter) on Linux server. Equivalent Solaris, Windows solution costs$.

Linux just sucks on the desktop.(as of today, my statements are never nor meant to be future-safe).

What use is a home OS if it doesn't allow you to browse a large number of web-sites? Doesn't allow you to type letters that you can take to your office & share with your relatives/colleagues?. You get the picture.

Most preferred Linux on the server side is'Red Hat' .'Debian' is more popular with the techies(totally open source, can replace kernel with'Hurd' and other kernels). For newbies & for home use most popular is'Mandrake'( with tight competition from'Lycoris')

-

FOR THE GEEKS ONLY

A little bit on history

Linux is a'Unix like'  Kernel & not Unix-based( unlike FreeBSD etc.) as it doesn't share any source code with original Unix kernel developed by AT & T. Linux did share code with MINIX kernel in the early stages of it's evolution, but now all the MINIX code has been replaced with Linux specific code.( MINIX is a micro-kernel OS according to Mr. Andy Tanenbaum father of MINIX & a stauch critic of Linux . Linux is not a mirco-kernel OS).

To run applications like GIMP, mySQL, PostgresQL, GCC etc. etc. you don't need Linux kernel. You can run these on top of any Unix OS like AT & T, SCO, Solaris, FreeBSD or even Mac OS X(which incidentally is based on FreeBSD 4.2 kernel). Infact you can install CygWin on top of any Windows OS & run most of these applications right on top of windows( Geeky stuff). That is the beauty of Free software(not limited to just Linux).

The biggest strength & weakness of Linux is it's licencing policy( GPL) which forces(almost) all code written to be Free/Open source software. Strength as it promotes code-sharing community of developers & companies. Weakness as it scares off companies who donot wish to share their trade secrets with others.