Welcome to Salad.

South African Linux Advocacy Document

1) What is Linux ?
2) Who is using it ?
3) High Quality Free Software
4) Absolute Control & freedom of choice
5) Want to learn ?
6) Where can I get Linux ?
7) When to Stay Away
8) Local Links
9) International Links

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1) What is Linux ?

Linux is an alternative operating system to Microsoft's Windows 2000 and Windows NT systems.
Linux is an Open Source clone of UNIX.

UNIX is the preferred operating system for running large powerful mainframe computer systems.
The foundations, protocols and workings of the internet is based on UNIX.
Open Source means that you can legally use, copy, modify and distribute Linux without paying license fees.
Have a look at the GPL for more information.

What others have to say about Linux:

(Hackers Guide to Internet Security - SAMS 1997):
"Linux is a true 32-bit, multi-user, multi-tasking, UNIX-like operating system. It is a powerful computing environment and, when installed on the average PC, grants the user an enormous amount of authority, particularly in the context of the Internet. "

(Mail & Guardian May 14-20 1999):
"Linux is a complete network ready multitasking operating system that can run anything from a supercomputer at the Pentagon to the PC on your desk. It is being developed by more than 10 000 professionals and enthusiast all over the world, using the internet as collaboration medium. It is incredibly robust: where a Windows NT machine probably has to be rebooted weekly, a Linux system can run for months without restarting."

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2) Who is using it ?

To name a few:

IBM and Dell ship mission critical servers pre-loaded with Linux.
Toyota USA use it to communicate with their nation wide dealer network.
More and more ISP's in SA are using it.
Business applications are implemented by people like the LPA (Linux Professional Association of South Africa) with companies like 4GL Systems, Datrix Solutions, Obsidian, Posix, Seven C, ...
Millions of programmers, web developers, system & network administrators and ordinary people like you and me all over the world.

For a list of references to commercial sites that make use of Linux to support their day-to-day business function please have a look at: http://www.m-tech.ab.ca/linux-biz/

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3) High Quality Free Software

Linux source code is published publicly under the Gnu Public License - enabling anyone to distribute and/or modify it freely. This means that you don't have to pay to use Linux or any of the GPL software bundled with it like:

Netscape, Konquerer, Opera and other Internet browsers;
The Star Office Suite from Sun Microsystems;
Apache and various other web servers;
Exim, Qmail or Sendmail mail servers;
MySQL or Postgresql SQL databases;
The Perl, Python, Tcl, C, C++, Objective C, Fortran, Lisp, ADA, Assembler, Ruby, Free Pascal and various other programming languages;
The GIMP graphical design package;
The GNUcash accounting package;
Various LAN administration tools;
Games like Quake, etc.

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4) Absolute Control & freedom of choice

Linux can be fully tailored to meet your individual needs and It gives you absolute control over what is running on your PC - realtime and during startup. If you like you can assemble your own Linux distribution. There are Linux distributions that fit on a single 1.44 MB stiffy and there are some distributions coming with 6 CD's of software. For a graphical user interfacing (GUI) you can choose (among others) between the German-developed KDE (kool desktop environment) or the Mexican GNOME desktop environment.

A Linux distribution consists out of a few elements:

The Linux kernel;
the Free Software Foundation's GNU-software like the file utils, bash, etc.;
the Xfree86 X-Window server with some window managers;
the KDE or GNOME desktop environments;
various servers, programming languages and network tools;
other GPL software like word processors, spreadsheets, image manipulation, etc;
the gcc compiler and the C-library;
all the other necessary libraries to make all this stuff work and work together;

All of this software are under constant development. When assembling a distribution you have to find stable releases of all these and you have to make sure that the libraries are available and compatible. This can be quite a task. Companies that do this are Redhat, SuSE, Caldera, Storm, Mandrake,Corel, Turbo Linux and various others. They make money by selling their support and not the software.

Popular distributions include:

Redhat Linux - the most popular distro in the US - http://www.redhat.com ;
Mandrake - based on Redhat - very newbie friendly - http://www.linux-mandrake.com ;
SuSE - German distro - very popular in Europe - http://www.suse.com ;
Debian - the purist's distro - they're not a company but a bunch of enthusiast - http://www.debian.org ;
Caldera with their eDesktop & eServer series - http://www.caldera.com ;
Storm Linux - uses Debian as base - http://www.stormlinux.com ;
Corel Linux - using Debian as base - still a newcomer to Linux - http://linux.corel.ca ;
Slackware Linux - one of the first distro's - http://www.slackware.com ;
Turbo Linux - very popular in the East - http://www.turbolinux.com ;
Red Flag Linux - a Chinese version - http://www.redflaglinux.com ;
and then you get stuff like Yellow Dog Linux, Linuxppc, Mklinux, One Floppy Linux, Monkey Linux, Best Linux, etc.

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5) Want to learn ?

The 'author' of this document has over 400 MB of freely available online documentation. You will find information, tutorials and manuals for programming languages, the setup and admin of networks, ftp-, web- mail- servers, web programming, kernel programming, serial communications, TCP/IP, and the internal workings of hardware like modems, network cards, etc. Every command in Linux has a 'man' page describing its working and the command line options available for that command.

I've consistently found these freely available resources of information of much more value than most of the MCSE - documentation. The Linux related documentation tends to lay a good generic foundation of the underlying technology. Because the inner workings of the Unix type of OS is non-propriety the implementation can be grasped more clearly. Well if you look at the difference in price ...

Last but not the least - nothing is stopping you from having a look at the source code (which is usually rather well documented.)

Please feel welcome to have a look at the Linux Documentation Project as well as the HOWTO documents.
They are available in html-, pdf- or ps-format.
Have a look at this excellent mirror of the LDP: http://www.linux.org.za/LDP
or alternatively for ftp servers:
The Internet Solution's LDP mirror - ftp://ftp.is.co.za/linux/sunsite/docs/linux-doc-project/
The Internet Solution's HOWTO mirror - ftp://ftp.is.co.za/linux/sunsite/docs/howto/
Posix's LDP mirror - ftp://ftp.linux.co.za/pub/sunsite/docs/LDP/
Posix's HOWTO mirror - ftp://ftp.linux.co.za/pub/sunsite/docs/HOWTO/

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6) Where do I get it ?

Linux can be downloaded from local sites like the Internet Solutions FTP-server
ftp://ftp.is.co.za
or Posix's site
"ftp://ftp.linux.co.za

but because it will be at least 650MB, I recommend that you mail-order your CD from one of the following:

Linuxwarehouse - http://www.linuxwarehouse.co.za ... you can email them at: sales@linuxwarehouse.co.za
Leading Edge - http://www.ledge.co.za - for SuSE ... you can email them at: sales@ledge.co.za
Tangent - http://www.tangent.co.za ... you can email them at: info@tangent.co.za
Obsidian - http://www.obsidian.co.za ... you can email them at: sales@obsidian.co.za

You can also get a pal that would burn you a copy.

Before you install I would recommend reading an install guide and a getting started guide. The Redhat guides are quite good.

7) When to stay away from Linux

Presently Linux is not suitable for everyone. If you are not prepared to read and to learn about Linux - it will only frustrate you.

If you want to use Linux you'll have to configure a lot of things yourself. In this process you'll learn a lot about how your PC works and how Linux works. It is going to take some time, some patience, some reading and some experimentation - leading to high levels of satisfaction every time you get something right.

If you are the kind of user who only type a letter once in a blue moon or play a game occasionally - then please stay with the Windows OS's. Microsoft Windows was designed to be ... and still is ... the best idiot-friendly operating system available. Moreover, there are not yet Linux equivalent software for all Windows programs/applications.

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8) Local links:

Gauteng Linux Users Group - http://www.glug.org.za
Pretoria Linux Users Group - http://www.plug.za.org
Western Cape Linux User Group - http://www.clug.org.za
Linux Enthusiasts Association of Durban (LEAD-LUG) - http://lead-lug.hl.org.za
UCT Linux Enthusiasts Group - http://www.leg.uct.ac.za
The Linux Professional Association of South Africa - http://www.lpa.org.za
Linux.org.za - http://www.linux.org.za
Linux.co.za - ftp://www.linux.co.za

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9) International Links:

The mothers of Linux sites - http://www.linux.org and http://www.li.org
Linux news - http://www.linuxworld.com
Linux news - http://www.linuxtoday.com
Linux news - http://www.linuxgazette.com
The Linux Documentation Project - http://www.ldp.org
For those starting out on linux, wanting to learn more - http://www.linuxnewbie.org
Opendocs.org - http://www.opendocs.org
Linuxdocs.org - http://www.linuxdocs.org
Linuxports.com - http://www.linuxports.com
Commandprompt.com - http://www.commandprompt.com
Informit.com - http://infobase.informit.com/linux
IBM developer pages - http://www.ibm.com/developer/linux

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