Stuart Nick Mike

Bob

Crispin

Graham

Alex

Shevek

Mike Saunders and Graham Morrison ventureoutside LXFTowers to meet a few readers and discuss life, and the lack of cheap parking in Bath.

couple of months agoweannounced that we “When Iinstalled it, it came with an AU file saying ‘My name is wanted to arrangeaninformal gathering wherea Linus To rvalds and IpronounceLinux Linux’”.Sheveksaysthis with few of us could get to meet a few of you. We had what we all presume is a subtle Finnish accent. A no agenda, but we wanted to discusshow Linux “Linux is afairly close Anglicisation of Leinux though”,responds should grow,what its strengths and weaknesses are, and how Alex, who worksincomputer security. This seems to bring speech we can all do more to help promote its use. After an XFactor- synthesisers to the mind of Bob,our youngest participant and a style competition to whittle down the numbers, we arranged programming student: “I’ve been experimenting with Festival”, he to meet six of our readersinalocal hostelryonacold and says. Alex picks up the lead: “I did try Festival with the sentence‘I rainy evening in October. am reading in Reading’” he says, “Justtosee.But it wasfine with We met in a cosy room in a public house, a room with walls no hints.” coveredinthe typical paraphernalia of the English drinking “There’ssomething similar on Yo uTube nowinthe comments establishment. That meant mirrorswith whitewriting, blackboards section”,our Mikeadds,“it canspeak out what you’veposted. And without any, posters 90% of the comments on Yo uTube are rubbish, like ‘LOL U SUXOR’. and nostalgic Now you can actually type it and go “Mmm. Perhaps”. “Atablewassetasidefor flotsam. Asingle oval Crispin, a Java programmer,then says something sensible. table was set aside “The thing that irksmeabout Yo uTube is that avideo stream will us,andoverourfirstdrink for us,and over our alwaysbeslowerfor information than reading”,hesays. “You can wearrangedourselves.” first drink we sit through a10min video blog, and Icould have read that in about arranged ourselves. a minute.” It felt likeaclandestine gathering at the Prancing Pony,beforethe Bob chips in. “It’s a similar story with the BBC iPlayer in Linux. eight of us head east to tackle the shadow growing on the horizon. Yo useek ahead 10 seconds,and youend up waiting acouple of Shevek, the group’s agent provocateur,kicked offthe minutes for it to catch up.Seems to work well on Windows though, proceedings by explaining how Linux should be pronounced, funnily enough.” thankstoanaudio file that wasincluded on one of his first Now we’ve all got comfy and sated ourselves on fine food, let’s distributions from the early 1990s. see if we can put the world to rights…

48 Christmas 2008

LXF113.roundtab 48 28/10/08 2:13:1 pm Readers’ round table Distributions lexkicksthingsoff properly.“In away,Linux has arrived and some of the excitement has kind of gone. AIt’shere, it’sgoing to stay.And it justworks. There’s less of the ‘OhI’m trying to getSETI installed onto my machine’ any more,”he says. Shevekseems interested: “Linux versus Windows has always been awar whereonly one side is ever fighting,”hesays. “And the other side wassimply trying to getonwith the job.The people who were actually creating were never the ones creating the conflict. The oneswho were running around creating all the excitement were largely ignored by the people writing the software.” “I find I just use Ubuntu”,adds Crispin. “Because I just install it and it works. I’vebeen through all the Slackwaresand the Red Hatsand SUSEand whatever,and each time… Imean, it used to be fun editing my own xorg.conf.But after a while you tend to get, ‘I’ll install it and then I’ll get around to configuring it’.” Alexresponds: “No,Iexpect my distrotoset up all the hardware for me unless there’s a legal reason why they can’t.” But it lookslikeUbuntu might be toomuch of agood thing for Crispin. “I’ve got a ThinkPad, and I wanted to install my monitor on it, and the monitor wasadifferent resolution to the display,”he says. “And it wasaweirdATI driver thing, and Iactually had to edit the xorg.conf,and I’d forgotten how to do it!”

That browndistro Shevek Which bringsBob back intothe conversation: “The only problem Occupation: My current job title is “Chief Scientist” which I kind of like. I’vehad with Ubuntu is the sound driver,whereit’sgot Realtec HD FavouriteDistribution: If I have to run it,Gentoo,for maximum flexibility, probably on the or Intel HD audio,becausetheyhaven’tquitefinalised the binary base for speed. specification forityet. And of course,ALSAisplaying catchup on Quote: Linux versus Windows has always been a war where only one side is ever fighting. that one.So it’s a case of hacking it.” “I think really there’salot less differentiation in terms of the mainstreamdistributions these days,” saysAlex. “Theyall provide command that says‘install boost’and so on. On Ubuntu, youcould support forbroadly the same hardware–ornot. Theyall have say ‘apt-get install boost’, on Gentoo you can say ‘emerge boost’. largely the same level of components, such as a C library, Firefox, So the traditional distributions,SUSEand RedHat very much have that sort of thing.” dropped the ball.” This seems to bring Shevektothe boil. “I contest that Alexisobviously something of aRed Hat fan: “I think we do statement most strongly,” he says. “Ubuntu has stormed the entire have boost,I’m pretty sure, in Red Hat and CentOS”,he says. part of the market that SUSE has been trying to target for years. “What version?” counters Shevek. And theydid it becausetheyhavethis ideathat it doeshaveto “But Red Hat Linux is quite old”,says Mike. work. Whereasit’sactually very difficult to makeaRed Hat system But Shevekwas expecting that. “It’saversion that nothing do anything meaningful. workswith,”hesays. “You’revery luckyifyou canfind anything “You cannot type from any Red Hat system, ‘some-install- that will install with boost 1.34.Almost everything uses command java ant’ and all the local utilities. Yo ucannot type any Asynchronous IO these days,which is only in 1.35.”

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Crispin leapstoRed Hat’sdefence: “It’sgoing to be old by its excellent policyofpatching bugs. When youstart adding all this very nature. It needs to be stable.” stuff together,it makes a very stable distribution that just works. But Shevekcan’tbedissuaded, and lays his distribution cards It’s all very well having a (Red Hat) support policy, but they can’t on the table.“Anything that lagsbehind stable is frankly patchanything in. If Icall these guysand ask them to install the stone-age, becauseDebian stable is two yearsbehind. Anything latest version of Firefox they’re going to tell me to get stuffed.” behind Debian stable shouldn’tbeattempting to hold anypart of the market place. I’veonly had to deal with RedHat in parts, and Old vs stable the reason RedHat has the marketplaceithas is becauseit Crispin and Alex rally: “That depends on whether it’s enhancing satisfiesthe corporatetick listbyproviding commercial support. It what’sthereorit’sfixing what’sbroken,”saysCrispin, Followedby has nothing to do with what they provide.And what they provide Alexsaying “A lot of people don’tneed that extreme levelof as a is useless.” support. They just want answers when their Postfix server is no Crispin doesn’tagree.“Idon’tthink it is useless. Ithink it fills a longer taking connections. gap. It fills the corporatedata centrething wheretheyneed the “I’dprobably go with CentOS,”Alexcontinues. “If Iwereusing it support. They need something that is stable.” out the box, for say something like Postfix or something likethat Alexagrees: “Thereisalot of usefor even an old version of Red and we’requitehappythat we have the experrtsinhousethat can Hat Enterprise–justout of the boxifyou want an SMTP server,if resolve any problems. you want MySQL or PostgreSQL.It’s there. There are still an awful “I’d pick Red Hat Enterprise if I were using a third-party lot of servers out there. If it’s a database server,or it’s a print application that required support,”headds.“If Iwerebuilding server,aSamba something extensive myself,and building my own special-purpose server,or an SMTP appliance, whereout of necessityI’d need to replacepartsofthe “Anythingthatlags server.” distribution, then I’duse whatever Iwas most familiar with. In my “It just sits in a case that would be CentOS/Fedora.” behindDebianstableis corner,adds Crispin. “Is that what you use at home?” asks Graham. franklystone-age.” Shevek “But it’sthe support “Yep”,responds Alex. “Fedora at home,and CentOS at work. It’s thing that’svital to a justthat I’vegot yearsofexperienceonRed Hat now. Iknowits big corporatebody.Theyfeel the need forthat persononthe end gotchas,and Ican work around them. Ialsoknowthat no of the phone.You buy something likeWindows, and you’ve distribution is perfect.” allegedly got support. And you pay for the support.” Crispin adds: “I would probably useRHEL, but it depends on To calm thingsdown, we ask Shevekwhich distribution he the sizeofthe company,”hesays. “If youcan getasmall company would choose. whereyou knowsomeone in-houseisaLinux sysadmin, then “For commercial servers, Debian every single time,” he says. CentOSwould be cheaper becauseyou don’thavetopay forthe “Without support?” asks Graham. support, but you’vestill gotthe RHEL updates. But when I’m “Without support.” sitting at home,Iuse Ubuntu because it just works.” Graham goes on: “I think youhavetohavesupport. Yo uhaveto “A lot of people just want to install Linux where there’s clear have the cover. Not for for you at the coalface who’s doing the documentation and something of a standard,”Mike says. work, but for people higher up.They need the insurance policy.” “I think that’sfine,Alexsays, Forsomebody who’s “People higher up are never going to touch it”,Shevek states. inexperienced with Linux, then targeting one distribution is “The insurancepolicyistohireaguy with aclue.Iwould probably fine.For anyone else, Icould probably takeanarticle reasonably bet that theremoreDebian serversinstalled doing jobs published forUbuntu, forsome special-purpose application, and I than Red Hat installs.” could see what I’d need to do on Red Hat or Fedora.” Crispin asksaquestion: “The guy with aclue goes tomorrow.What are you going to do?” Shevekseems to sidestepthis: “Debian has an excellent long-term support policy. It has an

Nick Robinson Occupation: IT (about as narrow as Ican makemy job description) Favourite Distribution: OpenSUSE Favourite Desktop: KDE Quote: Iguess the idea is to just not run as root!

Alex Butcher Occupation: Computer Security Specialist FavouriteDistribution: Red Hat family; RHEL, CentOS and Fedora FavouriteDesktop: Gnome Quote: There haven’t really been that many Linux worms.If you can count them on the fingers of two hands,I’d be surprised.

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LXF113.roundtab 50 28/10/08 2:13:13 pm Readers’ round table Advocacy fter afew moreminutesdiscussing the ins and outs of Gentoo,Mikefinally reachesthe end of his A patienceand triestopull the conversation back in line.“Do you think we should have a united front for Linux?”, he asks. “Should we put all our efforts behind one distroand Crispin Veall say this is the standard? If you’ve got loads and loads of Occupation: Java distros, and someone calls to say ‘I’m having problem A’,you Programmer have to go through this spider’s web of requirements.” Favourite Nick, who has justsat down, wasthe lasttoarrive, having been Distribution: stuck behind heavytraffic on the wayovertoBath. “When Ubuntu someone,an experienced user,hits a problem,”he explains, FavouriteDesktop: “they’ve got to fix the problem so that it becomes automated. Hmm, probably a nice oak one with a Insteadofposting ablog entry saying ‘This is howIfixed it’,rather leather inset -failing theyshould submit their changes to an RPM, or something forthe that,Gnome people to download. So that it becomes more automatic.” Quote: I’ve been Shrevek, who seems to place Gentoo in the same category as through a strange Debian, offers his opinion. “Gentoo has nailed this one firmly, Slackware period. becausethis is whythe HOWTOs work. Every single personwho It’s sort of like goth reads that HOWTO also corrects it, so they’ve got that one nailed.” music really,and Then Stuart pontsout the biggest problem with Gentoo: “But you have to go then you’ve got to get dirty on the command line to do anything.” through that. “Is the command line bad?” Shevek responds. “My mum doesn’t want to use the command line,” Graham chips in. “She just wants to avoid viruses.” Microsoftinthese things. Some tasksare better met with appliances, and some things are better met with general-purpose Linux for the mums and dads machines. Ithink forend-userslikemum and dad, an appliance There’snow afamily vibe to the conversation, as Alextells us about gadget is going to be right for them. It’s like the CentOS that I’ve his experience. “Well, my dad’sbeen using CentOSfor acouple of set up for them, where I’ve put a button for Firefox,abutton forCD yearsnow,” he says. “It wasabit of work forthe first two or three copying etc.” months while Iset thingsupfor him. I’vegot an SSHprompt and I “My parentstoo have all theywant,”adds Crispin, “apart from can do that over a telephone line – he’s still on dialup.” my mum wanting an easy cross stitch program that needed me to “That’saproblem I’vehad, in that my parentsare still install Wine.” resolutely saying ‘until we canhavebroadband forthreepence This seems to bring Shevekaround to thinking about our ha’penny, we’renot having it’.” Crispin says. “I installed Ubuntu on magazine and the art of communication. “I think what we’vegot my mum’slaptop,and it all installed correctly until she wanted to intowith the kind of articlesyou’recovering is that you’rewriting usethe dialup,and in that case Ineeded to install the thing. I’dgot about Ubuntu as an application,”hetells Mikeand Graham. “That’s no access to the internet, so I needed to find another way.” not Linux, you’re Nick sees two ways for Linux to grow.“There are two paths that writing about Linux cantake,”heannounces. “It cangoUnix-style,oryou have Ubuntu. Yo u’re “TheMicrosoftmodelis qualified expertswho getpaid to run big servers–oryou have the writing about the Microsoft-style whereeveryone has root accessand it’sadime a whole thing as an aboutusersbeingtheir dollar for a Microsoft Expert.” appliance. Then ownsysadmins.” Nick “But the Microsoftmodel is all very much about usersbeing you’vegot the LSB their ownsysadmins,” Alexsays. The Unix model is you’reeither a and the command prompt level where you’re writing about Linux, user or asysadmin user.I’m my dad’ssysadmin, and that works and the two arecompletely separate.I’venever used Linux as an OK for us.But it doesn’t scale terribly well.” appliance. Istarted in 1992, back when that wasthe only waytodo Nick is obviously interestedinthe bigger picture, and how it. When you wanted X to work, you had to write a graphics driver. people without a particularly technical background perceive Linux. And I’venever gotintousing Linux as an appliance, which is partly “What do we want people to know about Linux?” he directs at the why I’ve had difficulty with some distros – especially Red Hat.” group,“Thinking about KDE and all its bugs.” This seems to bring about an alternativeOSdiscussion, and Split standards suprisingly it’snot Mikewho’satthe forefront. It’sAlex. “I think “In responsetoMike’squestion about whether we should have a Mac OS is an interesting compromisebetween the immediacyand united front,”saysNick, “the answeris‘no’.Weshould have one the usability of Windows with the stability of Unix.”he says. that’suserinterfacing, and one that’sserver interfacing. Different There’snow ahum of dissent, which Shevekbringstoafocus: distributions can take on different niches in the market.” “Apple arenow so obsessedwith being avertical market they “It all boils down to what do we want Linux to become,” Mike actually make their systems useless,”he says. says. “If we don’twant Linux to become amainstreamOS, then But Alexdoesn’tsee the situation as that cut and dried. “Apple you’re right, we can get our hands dirty with the command line. will forceyou down their wayofdoing things,”hesays, “but But if we want it to be successful, if we want to generally,that’snot terrible.Imean, theyhavebetter taste than spread, then we have to cater for a wider audience.”

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Alex agrees, and thinks that despite things appearing difficult, when youupdate, it’sincluded in your systemupdate, and that’s we might be on the cusp of ausabilitybreakthrough. “The the way it should work. I’d encourage more third-party vendors, Windows model is very distributed”,hesays. “Microsoftisan individuals or Adobe,to create a repository,package your environment, and you have this very diverse ecosystem of third- application up,and put it in there along with any dependencies.” partydevelopers. The standardway those developersget their This idea seems to bring further enthusiasm from Crispin, packages out there is to bundle them up into EXEs and ship them “Perhapsitwould be easier if youcould go to awebsiteand click out. WhereasLinux only workswell if your packageisprovided in on something that then adds aline to your repository listand the version youwant by your distribution vendor.The moment you shows you the list of things you can install,”he explained. step outside that, it starts getting a bit tricky.” And that’swhen Alexsums it up: “One of the problems my employerhas is people keeping thingsliketheir browserplugins Third-party repositories up to datewhen theydon’thaveadmin rightsontheir own Alexgoesontoexplain agreat ideafor easy installation. “One of machines. And every plugin manufacturer has their ownupdate the thingsIdothink is positiveisAdobe providing arepository for mechanism. It’sacompleterat’snest.Itwould be farbetter if were Fedora/Debian. The nicething is that onceyou’veadded this unified under a single system. I don’t care which, and the potential repository,you can go to Yum and install the Flash plugin. And is there for Linux to really knock Windows on the head with that.” Linuxtestimonials iketurns the topic to howweall gotstarted with when Isent it back to them, and theyopened it, it wasslightly Linux. “It would be interesting to seeexactly what different. And that was about six or seven years ago. Mwe all use,”hesays, “before giving alittle Everyone agreesthat officeapplications at the time were background information on his conversion. “For me it was generally a bad thing. “I was still using StarOffice in 98 or 99”, 1998 and RedHat 5.2. It wassomething different and wason explains Alex, “but I’d started with StarOffice 3 or something.” the cover of an old computing magazine.” Alexisn’tsosure. “It depends”,hesays. “If you’redoing no Stuart is the first to respond. “For me it wasRed Hat 5 more that editing config information before typing ‘emerge’, something or other,” he says. “And it wasjusttofind out howto watching packages compile won’tnecessarily teach youhow the playwith this thing on an old system’s working.” computer.It was a 286 Compaq “Iwantedtolearnmore Nick is next to take up the that I’d got second hand from baton. “I started in 2002,” he someone.Igotittothe point aboutUnix,becauseit explains.“Ineeded it forwork, so where it was running graphical X Ihad to learn it forwork. Our Alex Windows,and I was using it for wasavaluableskill.” servers ran SUSE Linux. Our email. Ihad an officesuite technical expert who we worked installed, and it died adeath after Igot anew job.But in the with wasone of these guyswho used to program punched cards interviewfor the newjob,theysent me afile whereIneeded to and assembler and all the rest,and he said that Iwould have to write a report, and in the format they had done it it. Of course,it learn this at some stage. He gave me an account and he said ‘Use was in Word format. Icould open it and makethe changes, but this Putty thing’.This is your login. Phone me when you get stuck’.” My experiencewas similar,” adds Alex. “It was1995 formeand Stuart Ward I’djustgraduated. Alot of my course wasonSunOSmachinesand Occupation: I wanted to carry on learning more about Unix, because it was a GSM security valuable career skill – very valuable,and something I was Favourite interestedin. And of course,I’d neverhad root on anyofthe Distro: Gentoo, machinesatuniversity. Iwent with Slackware 2.2.0and within though Imostly about nine months,Iswitched to RedHat 2.1 and I’vestuck with use Ubuntu Red Hat and work-a-likes since because I’ve build up a stock of Favourite knowing how to bash Red Hat around.” Desktop: Gnome – it’s just something to Temptedbyshiny things start up the But the ugly spectreofanalternativeoperating systemishaunting Bash console in. Alex. “I must admit that I’m tempted by Mac OS Xpurely to gain Quote: My accesstosome of the special-purpose commercial applications grandmother-in- likemusic and photos,”hesays. “You candoalot of that stuff on law first got a Linux, but it would be interesting to seewhether the commercial computer in her tools can really make life easier.Are you less focused on the tools eighties, and I and more on the act of creation?” said there’s no Bob’s happy to share his first Linux experience too. “The first way she’s going to be able to distro I used was Mandriva 2005.Iused that as a Live CD on my cope with parents’ machine,Iwasaged13or14. Sincethen, I’veinstalled Windows. Ubuntu Dapper and neverlooked back, and slowly upgraded. I’m currently looking at Ubuntu server as I’dliketorun afile server,or maybe even Novell. I’ve only just started to investigate that area.”

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LXF113.roundtab 52 28/10/08 2:13:17 pm Readers’ round table Thefuture ikejumpsstraight in with anew question: “Sowhat Bob Moss do we think is the biggest challengecurrently Occupation: M facing Linux?” Programming Nick is the first to respond. “Personally,Ithink the biggest issue Student is schools,” he says. “Atthe moment our school systems arepurely Favourite Windows shops. The sonofafriend of mine is currently doing Distribution: A-LevelICT,and when Ihad achat with him to seewhat he was Ubuntu 8.04.1 doing, he was writing a game in Visual Basic.But it’s not just that, LTS“Hardy when my kids come home and say they’ve got to do some work, Heron” but I’ve got to do it in Word.” Favourite Desktop: Gnome “What about advertising?” Nick asks. “Microsoftand Apple Quote: My both advertise, and while most of us knowwhat Linux is,does brother walked everyone know about Linux?” intothe room But Stuart has his ownplan: “If youwant the magic thing that as Iwas redresses the balance, therewas an EU proposalthat no experimenting manufacturer should forcepeople intohaving anyparticular with Festival,and software.You have to buy the computer separately from the it said ‘If I said I . Yo ucould alwaystick the boxand say ‘I’ll have had abeautiful Windows installed’,or you could say ‘I don’t want an operating body,would you system’.If people have the choice…” hold it against me’. Get the message Nick is still thinking through his advertising campaign. “Maybe Canonical should makeanadvert that says‘Here’sMac,here’s Windows. Here’s a Linux desktop and they all look the same’.” “I spotted the recent MicrosoftresponsetoApple’s‘Iama Mac’,advert the other week,”saysAlex, “and it basically revolved around the ideathat Mac userswereagroup of snobs–ifyou want to get real work done,you want to be using Windows, which is quite a clever argument. And I wonder what we would do.” “Well, therewas an IBM advert afew yearsago that had Linux as a child,”responds Mike.

The conversation continues like this for some time.Mike’s trusty tape recorder gives up the ghost and clicks to a halt. Graham’sdigital recorder continuesintothe night, eating up megabytes of his memory stick, while the landlordserversanother round of drinks. It seems that Linux users can talk forever. LXF

Thanks!

Many thanks to The New Inn pub on Monmouth Place in Bath fordoing such afantastic job of keeping us all fedand watered while at the same time catering foralarge group of Civil War enthusiasts in the opposite bar. We’d also like to thank Alex, Bob,Crispin, Nick, Shevekand Stuart fortaking the time and trouble to attend. Thanks guys!

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