Exploring "un-Windows" alternatives

In the early days of the PC, IBM was the business machine of choice, weighing in at about $10,000 a pop, using DOS as the OS, with software by - IBM, of course.

IBM and Microsoft were friends then, developing OS/2, which would have been Windows '95. But the 'new' Windows 3.0 caught on like wildfire. (It was pretty, you got color, and so what if it crashed a lot!)

IBM and Microsoft fell out with each other over how much time and money would be put into OS/2. IBM continued development on its own, and Microsoft pushed win3.

Then, IBM rolled out the PS/2, with it's lovely multitasking software. Businesses were interested until they heard the 'gotcha.'

"None of that expensive hardware you have now will work. And by the way, you'll need new apps, too."

The industry rebelled over the proprietary bus of the PS/2, and ISA - Industry Standard Architecture - was born. It effectively reduced IBM to "just a PC manufacturer." (There was even a period in there when IBM wasn't IBM compatible!)

Anyway, Bill Gates seems not to have noticed all that, as it seems Micro$oft is/has cornered the market, and seems intent to control it all through it's proprietary $stuff.

Enter the Open Source folks.

There are "free" Unix distributions, and "free" Linux distributions, all of which are completely rock solid, more secure, and much more reliable.

(Free means you get the source code to do with what you will. Documentation is available, but you gotta hunt it down. The paid versions are bundled nicely with applications, spiffy manuals, AND the source code, and those are selling quite well.)

The only barrier remaining to a "Microsoft Takedown" is, IMHO, ignorance, and the constant propagation of myths, the biggest of which is that Linux is too difficult.

Mandrake Linux has a very nice, user-level interface that sets up easily, and is ready to use. (And I want Kudos for not saying 'idiot-level!') Getting it going for the basic stuff most people do was a breeze.

(The problems I've had have resulted from my wanting to go from semi-literate user to serving-user hosting my own site, in one whop! At that, it's not been hard, just time-consuming. If I'd bought my distribution, I'd have had fingertip documentation.)

Another myth is that Windows programs won't run on Linux. Many will, because there are emulation programs that function nicely, and I believe there is either an API available (or coming) in some distributions.

And, of course, maybe the biggest thing in favor of the Open Source folks is the fact that there are thousands of talented people across the globe working on making things better and easier - and more secure!

On June 18th, a security flaw was discovered in Apache. On June 22nd (same year), a patch was ready and available to everybody.

Microsoft had 40+ security holes in Windows 2000 this year, alone, but the first major upgrade/service pack to win2k was just released. (Their first response is always that these things aren't security violations at all. Then, well we'll have a patch soon maybe, if we determine . . .)

Gotta tell you guys one more thing before I get busy.

I had my Apache server running, and I kept getting these requests for pages. (I'm not officially up - it was just 'ready to be up.') I found out that it was the Nimda worm looking for a Windows Box to infect. It got really annoying, since my server is small, bandwith good, but certainly not enough for a constant assault.

What I did was to redirect the requests the worm makes to Microsoft's servers!

(Yeah, it's evil, but it feels so good!)

Marye