Linux is usually installed from a distribution, so that everything a working system needs comes from a single DVD. An installed distribution contains applications, such as word processors and web browsers, and all that is needed under the hood from them to work such as operating system and drivers (Illustration 3). In this chapter we’ll examine the choice of distributions and applications for common purposes.

Illustration 3. A working Linux system consists of an operating system and applications.

Linux distribution is an installable Linux system. A distribution usually contains the Linux kernel and operating system, an installer and software. There are more than a hundred Linux distributions being actively developed. Because of the Free license, anyone can create a new distribution and publish it. However, creating and maintaining a quality distribution is a huge effort. (Wikipedia 2003)

We are looking for a distribution for workstations in Helia. If the same distribution is suitable for servers, we could consider it a benefit. Thus, we can exclude all embedded, floppy, router and other special distributions. As Helia is running almost exclusively on “normal PC” Intel x86 architecture computers, we can exclude distributions that do not work on Intel architecture, such as those made for Alpha-processors and Mackintoshes. Most, maybe all students of Helia speak Finnish or English, so we can exclude distributions aimed for other language groups. To reach all the benefits of open source (peer review, fast development, lot of contributed software), we want to select a distribution that is both popular and has an open development and distribution policy. As we aim to save licensing costs, there would be no point selecting a distribution that required license fees.

Selecting a distribution is a strategic decision, as it is a long term economically significant decision that affects many daily choices. Because of the level of commitment made here, it is important to select a distribution that is both well supported and expected to stand the test of time. On the other hand, despite a different logo, all distributions are just Linux in another package. They can be made to run the same software, and produce the same document formats. Open Source programs are completely documented by their source code (by definition), which prevents lock-in caused by secret protocols and file formats.

Similarities are unimportant to comparison, so to lay down a selection criteria we must concentrate to what is different in the distributions. When we have found the best distribution for Helia, decided possible modifications, settings and additional software, we can then compare it to the existing closed source (Windows based) solution. Based on experience in teaching and administering most of the popular distributions, the main differences are easily pointed out.

On the technical side, distributions differ in software installation tools and its back end, package format. Different software is installed by default and provided by vendor. Availability of contributed software differs. Technical stability, the ability to run long and under load without crashes and errors, is highly different. In addition to design and quality assurance, stability is greatly affected by how new the software is – the latest and greatest “bleeding edge” software is less stable than older, more tested software. Hardware support differs, even though all distributions run the same kernel. Most distributions only run on intel architecture (i386, “normal PC”), but for example Debian supports 11 processor architectures. On device support, newer distributions usually support newer peripheral devices, and distributions with more loose licensing policy sometimes support devices that don’t have Free drivers available.

Immaterial differences in distributions are at least as important as technical ones. Even smaller users can immediately benefit from popularity, especially if the larger installed base is also active. Popularity usually results in more Free support material and contributed software being available. Openness of development makes it easier to forecast future changes in distribution, and also help integrating own changes upstream to distribution. Because platform choice, such as distribution, is a strategical one for organization, the software should be available five years from now too. In practice, this is affected by vendor reliability, distribution history and popularity. Distribution image should be good to help harvesting all the image benefits available to those who move to Free software. As the goal of moving to Linux is usually to have all the benefits of Free software, the licenses used by the distribution are highly important. Even though all distributions are mostly compiled of Free software, some distributions are not really useful without non-free parts. Thus, distributions that avoid non-free parts make it a lot easier to get all the benefits of Free software. For companies, the availability of third party support is at least said to be very important, even though evaluation of the value of third party support should be based on how much it has really be used before. Previous experiences in organization can immediately save money by reducing the need for education, but it is also likely to reduce resistance to change when rolling out new distribution.

Currently, Helia is using Red Hat in most of its servers, including myy.helia.fi. It handles shell accounts, some of Helia’s email and web access to email with IMP. Helia’s proxy server is also running Linux. Helia’s two Linux courses (which I am responsible of) are using mostly Red Hat, even though one of them used Debian in the past. Slackware is used on some test servers (Pakkanen 2003). Knoppix, a live-cd Debian derivative, has been used in some demonstrations.

There is no way to exactly tell which distribution is the most popular, because there is no way of even counting how many Linux machines exist (Linux Counter Project 2003). However, there are many estimates on distribution popularity, based on page load statistics and user registrations. The most popular Linux distributions (in descending order) are Mandrake, Yoper, Red Hat, Gentoo, Debian, Knoppix, SuSe, Slackware, Lycoris, Morphix (Distrowatch 2003) Red Hat, Debian, Mandrake, SuSe, Slackware, Gentoo, Conectiva (Linux Counter Project) Linux Counter Project’s list is much nearer of my assumptions. Yoper’s ranking is artificially high because Distrowatch ran a huge advertisement for it before and during the time this paper was written, so it will be excluded. Yoper is also in too early development phase for production use.

To sort the list, we can divide the distributions to Red Hat based (rpm) and Debian based (deb) distributions. Gentoo (emerge) and Slackware (.tar.gz based) are independent distributions (Illustration 4).

Illustration 4. Family tree of some Linux distributions. Distributions with their own package management system have been circled.

Gentoo and Slackware are aimed at advanced, single users (Gentoo FAQ). They are both made to be easily customized and optimized. Gentoo requires compiling the entire system from source code, even though great tools for this are provided. Gentoo lacks software to manage updates of several workstations, and Slackware’s tools for updates (and tar.gz package format) are very limited. Helia is using Slackware on a course about routing (Pakkanen 2003), but the teacher is considering moving to Red Hat. As both the implementation and development goals are very different to Helia’s need for stability, ease of use, popularity, minimization of support need and easy updates, Gentoo and Slackware are not suitable for Helia. Logo for Gentoo and the de-facto logo for Slackware are shown in illustration.

Debian has been one of the most popular distributions for years. Main goals for Debian are stability, quality, Free licenses in all software and easy updates. Except for finalizing of software installation packages, it meets these goals quite well. It is developed not by a single company, but by its users around the world, mostly Europe and the USA. Many commercial companies have chosen Debian as the bases for their distribution. I have taught one course using Debian 3.0 and been one of the administrators of a commercial server running an older version of Debian. Debian has huge benefits: versions are supported for a very long time, update system is great and the system is stable. Version support means that security updates for a version published years ago are still available, and updating from major version to another can be done with standard update tools. Neither Red Hat nor Microsoft Windows support for old versions come even close to Debian. Old versions end up getting a lot of real life testing, and are thus very secure and stable. Backwards incompatible changes in system foundations are rare. Debian update system, apt-get, enables updating operating system, vendor released and contributed software with a single command. Apt-get has been an ported to other distributions, and has been an example to other update systems.

The worst downsides of Debian are lousy packages, difficult installation and hardware configuration. Even though most Debian users consider the package format an advantage, it has many problems. Interactive installation, where the installer asks questions from user, is annoying when each of the three hundred programs to be installed wants to ask two questions. Also, packages don’t contain all the settings needed to get things running. For example, installing PHP dynamic scripting to Apache web server requires reading manuals and adding lines to web server configuration files. Manual tweaking is error prone, and may lower security. Installation is widely agreed to be the weakest part of Debian. Easier installation for this great distribution has created a need answered by more commercial Debian derivatives. None of these commercial derivatives is currently very popular. Installer asks questions that are very hard to answer, such as selecting suitable kernel modules from hundreds of possibilities. This question is also unnecessary, because Debian has a great hardware detection system called discover. If you are not careful, system is installed in an insecure way with firewall open, just like Microsoft Windows. Official Debian manuals are not of very high quality, but a lot of other good support is available for free. Despite some downsides, Debian has many unique benefits and qualifies for further testing. (Karvinen 2003)

Knoppix is a live-CD – you just boot from the single cdrom, and two minutes later you have a graphical desktop, with network and other hardware working. Pre-installed software includes OpenOffice, kOffice, web browsers, games, c++ compiler, Java, Flash… Knoppix has the best automated hardware detection of any platform, architecture or operating system that I have ever seen. Knoppix and its derivatives are probably the best live-CDs at the moment. It has worked in every Intel-based computer I have tried, including an ancient 166 MHz Pentium, five years old laptop and a state of the art desktop workstation. As it does not install anything to a hard disk, it works well as a Linux demo or a repair disk. Morphix is a more easily modifiable Knoppix derivative, but in my experience it is not as polished. Forensic Incident Response Environment (F.I.R.E) is a more security and repair oriented live-CD, which has a great deal of security related tools, but showed out to be completely unsuitable for normal workstation use. While Knoppix is more a demo CD than a workstation distribution, it could be useful in Helia as Installation tool as a Debian Demo CD to be given in presentations, as backup system for computer crashes, as a repair tool, for hardware support testing when buying new hardware and an example for own modifications for another distribution.

Turning a live-CD like Knoppix into a workstation distribution installer was tested during this project. Many technical choices in Knoppix are not suitable for normal workstation, such as running X Window System for single user only. The standard installer removed most hardware detection, which makes it pointless to duplicate installed Knoppix images. Remastering the installer to contain new software required using alpha and beta quality tools that were badly documented and required tweaking a host system to work. Currently, turning Knoppix into a Debian installer is currently too big effort, but outside efforts in this direction should be followed. This kind of advances are likely reported on Knoppix community website knoppix.net (2003).

Red Hat has pioneered ease of Linux installation and hardware detection. It has steadily gained market share as an easily installed company server, but with Red Hat 9 and Bluecurve desktop theme it officially started competing as a company desktop. It is estimated to be the worlds most popular Linux distribution (Linux Counter Project 2003) and the most popular distribution in USA and Finland. Its installer is very similar to MS Windows installer, and in every course I have given it’s user friendliness has surprised students. Being the most popular means wide availability of third party software, support by commercial software and hardware vendors (such as IBM and Sun) and availability of commercial support. Companies that I have taught Linux preferred some version of Red Hat.

Lately there have been efforts to bring the many benefits of Debian into Red Hat. The great apt-get update and installation tool has been ported to Red Hat and other Red Hat Package Manger, RPM based distributions. Free software repositories for automatic install and update have emerged, including freshrpms.net (the first big and popular one), my own (http://iki.fi/karvinen/apt) and fedora.us (new, but has big developer base). Fedora attempts to bring Debian like policies, development status definitions and quality assurances to contributed RPM packages.

Downsides of Red Hat Linux are the just the other side of its benefits. Being up to date with the latest and greatest software means shorter testing periods for stability and security. Being backed up by a profitable public company means there has to be a more closed part that costs something. Red Hat has its own non-free update system, up2date, but luckily there are better Free alternative updaters (apt, yum). Being the leading distribution, Red Hat has kept up surprisingly high ethics. Sometimes it tries to use its position to push open standards to replace older, proprietary ones. Despite a good purpose, moving to Unicode utf-8 charset caused many compatibility problems, as did dropping default mp3 support in favor of technically more advanced Ogg Vorbis. Despite these minor annoyances, Red Hat is definitely a strong candidate for a distribution of choice.

During the writing of this paper, in the late 2003, Red Hat published a Linux distribution called Fedora Core, and discontinued free Red Hat Linux distribution. In practice, Fedora Core is just like a newer, improved version of Red Hat. Some third party software to be added by this project, such as yum (Yellowdog Updater, modified) were officially added to the distribution. The trademark policy was made more liberal and more clear. It seems that this change of name and project organization is beneficial, in case Red Hat / Fedora Core becomes the distribution of choice.

Mandrake is a French Red Hat based distribution. It has wide user base (Linux Counter Project 2003, Distrowatch 2003) in Europe. It aims to be an easy home desktop distribution. The company developing Mandrake Linux has had serious financial problems, and as I forecasted in a Linux course on 2002, is now near to bankruptcy. Even though the Free license makes it possible for Mandrake Linuxes development to continue even after Mandrake software, there are more reliable options available. Mandrake has tried to profile as “the Macintosh of Linux”, the easy system with funny animations. This means that it may have too few advanced users so that it’s development could continue without MandrakeSoft. I tested Mandrake in 2001-2002. At the time, it was very similar to Red Hat, with all the changes just glued on. This has partially changed during 2002-2003. It promotes graphical tools for managing system settings, which may seem nice at first, but quickly becomes annoying for an advanced user. Mandrake is very well featured, for example, it is already (in 2004) running the latest 2.6 kernel, and supports easy loop encryption of hard disks. Keeping up with the latest features (in the expense of stability) seems to be a new direction for Mandrake. Many published versions of Mandrake are only available for cost, or their downloading has been made somehow difficult. Mandrake has very little more to offer than Red Hat, and it’s future seems uncertain.

SuSe is German based Linux. It is the most popular Linux in Central Europe. The German government is very involved with Linux and its support to Linux projects may prove valuable in the future. SuSe has had many advanced features before Red Hat, such as decent font smoothing (xft) and support for some hardware. SuSe is not very open. Cd-rom images ready for burning are not available from SuSe homepage, even though they do provide free installation trough network. Official SuSe distribution is bundled with non-free software. Even though Helia has enough IT resources so it could build a SuSe installer of its own, closedness may reduce the benefits of free software image, reduce free support from advanced users and limit Helia’s possibilities for tailoring software. It has been tested in a minor scale in Helia IT services along with Red Hat and Mandrake.

SOT Linux is a Finnish Red Hat derivative. Its share of the world market is minimal, versions are often older than official Red Hat releases, and development is quite closed. Website does not provide cd-rom iso images. System installation will be done in English, so SOT’s specific benefits do not match with Helia’s needs. SOT is thus excluded from further testing.

Red Hat / Fedora Core has the best popularity among companies near Helia, IT staff has prior experience on Red Hat, it has a suitable combination of programs and their development model is very open. Fedora Core is Free, except for the trademark, which can be removed if Helia wishes to redistribute the distribution. Red Hat / Fedora Core has the best administrative tools of all distributions. Helia should use Red Hat / Fedora Core as its distribution.

Software is not an end to itself, but rather a means to an end. Because of this, it was suggested in a FreeHelia meeting that there should be a committee defining needs for software. From personal experience consulting many computer projects I know that defining abstract needs in a committee with people from many organizational levels and business units ends up being expensive and time consuming. If this kind of committee would be necessary, it should be founded to research software needs for current closed source, Microsoft based solution too. Workstations used by hundreds of persons for their daily chores is not a place for wild experimentation. Because of this, the software selection tends to be on the safe side. Most software on a typical workstation contains programs that have become the cost of doing business in any school or firm, like web browser or office suite.

In six courses teaching Linux, I asked what programs (or program types) the class considered most important. Those same programs were then the ones taught in the class. Two of these classes were for external companies, four were normal courses for Helia’s students. In addition to this, 15 persons were shortly interviewed in very free form around the question “what software is most important for your daily work”.

It was found out that most users expect certain basic software from a workstation, most important being a word processor. Everyone implied that a workstation has a window manager. Many also implied a browser and considered it very important when asked. The most important programs in descending order

• Window manager
• A web browser
• Word processor
• Spreadsheet
• Winha, a proprietary tailored course information software
• Presentation slides (such as Impress or PowerPoint)
• Programmers editors and an IDE

Many random programs were mentioned as being important, but not related directly to work, such as music player, video (dvd, divX…) player, image manipulation program, instant messaging program.

Unlike the tedious task of finding hidden or unmet software needs, list of filled software needs is rather easy to find. The list of currently installed software provides a practical view of filled software needs. Currently installed software as listed by Helia IT services (2003) and observed by writer is listed in detail in appendix “Currently Installed Software in Helia”.

Even though many programs differ on Linux and Windows, it is usually easy to find a program that performs the same function. I have added examples of Linux alternatives to programs based on my experience as a Linux user, administrator and teacher.

Linux distributions usually have all drivers with them. Exotic hardware can be difficult to find. Red Hat, Debian and Knoppix have been tested in many workstations in Helia and hardware support has been good. This text is partly written on Helia’s laptop running Linux.

Using Windows file sharing (Server Message Block, SMB) from Linux requires manual tweaking, but this only needs to be done once for the network. Linux has many native file sharing systems too, such as Network File System (NFS). Linux also has filesystems that implement more advanced concepts in the areas of encryption, key exchange, disconnected operation and scalability, such as FUSE based systems, AFS and Intermezzo. Due to maturity, easier installation and bigger installed base, NFS and SMB remain more popular than those advanced systems. (Karvinen 2003).

Web browser and document processor are likely the most important applications in a workstation. Web browser is probably the most important piece of application software on a modern workstation. After publishing an earlier version of this paper, Helia installed Free Mozilla browser in many workstations. Both Mozilla Suite and Mozilla Firefox installed by default in many distributions. Web browsers are discussed in detail later in this paper. Office software includes document processor, spreadsheet and slides based presentation programs. Like most organizations, Helia uses Microsoft Office package. Free office suites on Linux are discussed in detail later in this paper.

Multimedia players play music and videos in many file formats, such as mp3, dvd, real, quicktime, flash and shockwave. Currently, workstations have Windows Media Player, Flash player, Winamp, and the notorious Realplayer installed. Mplayer can play most of these formats, even Realmedia and Windows media proprietary formats if the required codecs are installed. However, it is not clear if those extra codecs have licensing issues sorted out. Other generic media players for Linux include Xine and VideoLan. Proprietary versions of Flash and Realplayer are available. Realplayer has had allegiations of violating its users privacy (See for example Gibson 2003), so its exclusion from the distribution should be considered.

Utilities for compression, viewing some document formats, remote logins, file transfer and advanced text editing are used, and well supported in Linux. During the course of writing this paper, Helia IT Center started to officially support multiple Free utilities on Windows platform as recommended in an earlier version of this paper. For example, Helia now uses free software for secure remote control and file transfer.

Web pages are currently created with Microsoft Frontpage and text editors. Frontpage is quite inadequate for its purpose, as it usually fails to follow any standards when saving documents. Some workstations have Adobe PageMaker desktop publishing software installed. Free desktop publishing software Scribus exists, but is not yet as good as PageMaker. Some workstations have Photoshop image manipulation program. GIMP, the GNU image manipulation program is a Free alternative for that.

Miscellaneous software for eduction and legacy purposes is installed. Most users read their email using web mail client IMP. However, some teachers still use Tiimiposti. Databases are used in teaching. Some courses use databases, such as Solid. Database support in Linux excellent, and MySQL databases are already used in Helia (Karvinen 2005). There are various educational programs, such as typing tutors and dictionaries. Some of the must be run under emulation, but for some, a Free alternative exist. Some courses use Rational Rose for drawing UML models. Free Dia could be used instead, and during the writing of this paper some courses started to use Dia. Software for network analyses, such as network sniffers, have been already changed to Free alternatives. SAP has for cost Linux client, which could be used instead of Windows client. Virus protection programs are not needed in Linux, because more generic security methods to protect from virii (Bartolich 2002). Course management is done with legacy software Winha. Current version of Winha is very difficult to run in emulation on Linux. Winha will likely have a web interface soon, so that it can be used from Free workstations.

Workstations management is done by installing images with Ghost, remote controlling by desktop sharing with a VNC based proprietary program, and updates with a logon script. Workstations management could be improved a lot when moving to a Free solution, as described in chapter “Managing workstations”.

To give a compact view of how a Free workstation could fill the software needs that Helia has currently filled, the above list of software can be listed by the level of support on Linux. Some software is readily available for free on Linux, but not for Windows: servers, compilers, distributed compilers, network security tools. Such software is not discussed here in detail.

Good Support on Linux

• Office Suite: Word processor, spreadsheet, slides
• Web browser, email
• Multimedia players
• Device drivers
• Ssh and secure file transfer
• Compression (zip, tar.gz…)
• Text and code editing
• Relational databases (but with different software)
• Image manipulation
• Visual modeling
• Workstations management

No native support on Linux – Requires emulation, changes in backend systems or search for an alternative

• Desktop publishing (PageMaker, Scribus)
• Winha student and course management, Otso
• Language learning

Should be dropped

• TiimiPosti, move users to IMP.

The most popular office suites for Linux are OpenOffice.org and kOffice, OpenOffice.org being the most popular free Office suite in the world. Other office suites include desktop environment Gnome’s office suite consisting of Abiword document processor and Gnumeric spreadsheet.

In my opinion, a good document processor would let user concentrate on writing content, instead of fiddling with layout. Some editors, especially LaTex based, share my view. They explicitly force user to handle layout separately from the writing process. Many word processors are filled with useless features, making them complex and slow to use, unstable, slow and expensive to computing resources. However, when teaching people to move over from one office suite to another, the question always seems to be: does it have this or that feature, such as label printing, funny bullets, pie charts with gradients… To buy user satisfaction, this feature addiction must be taken into account when selecting an office suite.

I will first prescreen suitable office candidates with a criteria based on my experiences as a teacher, user and administrator of systems using word processors. Another project will do a more detailed analyses of office suite. Later, these suitability of these office suites is put on review by Helia’s office suite teachers and users.

Requirements for Office Suite

• Stable, not crashing or losing data
• Structured: headings h1, h2, h3…, paragraphs p, numbered and bulleted lists with nesting, program code preformated. Styles should be easy to modify.
• Fast
• Multilingual. Support for charsets to display national characters, such as Finnish åäö. UTF-8 is an international standard for this. Spell checking for Finnish, English, other languages used in Helia are a plus
• Possibility to embed bitmap images
• Save formats are fully documented and standardized, including the native format of the program. Saving as html and plain text.
• Printing
• Selected distribution is an officially supported platform by program developers
• Microsoft Office compatibility, mostly ability to open MS Word doc. This is required for interoperability with other organizations and own legacy systems. In practice, this requires the office suite to have a huge number of features.

Nice to have features would include large user base, so that its worth learning and teaching, ability to format text without styles, possibility to define new structured styles, embedded object support, PDF and XHTML export, document templates and outline view. The license should be free for the program to be part of the Free workstation. As Helia will likely be running at least Linux and Windows in the near future, the program should be multiplatform. Support for BSD and Apple OSX would be nice.

Based on the criteria set above, I will first limit the scope of office suites to be compared, and then compare a few free solutions to currently used office suite, Microsoft Office 2000. The office suites to be tested were chosen by user base and inclusion to major distributions. Especially, the chosen office suite should be officially supported by chosen Linux distribution. At this point, office suite should be part of Red Hat / Fedora Core, or otherwise the selection of distribution should be reconsidered. Despite their quality and popularity among older Linux and unix users, Vi, Emacs and Latex based systems were not considered because of steep learning curve.

The results were obtained by using each office suite for two days to edit a document of 10-50 pages. In addition to this, I have used (an earlier version before this project) these office suites for at least four months daily in my work. The assumed native environment for each office suite was used: Red Hat Linux and KDE for Kword, Red Hat Linux and Gnome for OpenOffice.org Writer and Windows 2000 for MS Word. For some questions, such as multiplatform compatibility, direct testing was not practical within available time. In these questions I have used information provided by program vendors’ web site.

Interoperability from kWord showed out to be the worst of the three, as it was not easy to exchange data between kWord and any other office suite.

OpenOffice.org interoperability showed out to be amazingly good, as it made very few mistakes and even supported templates. However, it was noticed that in some cases Scandinavian special characters were sometimes broken as a result of conversation. Also, different fonts in Windows and Linux sometimes caused layout to change. Font problems could be fixed by installing freely available fonts from Linux to Windows or vice versa. OpenOffice could be installed to Windows machines too without any licensing costs.

Comparing major word processors, I recommend OpenOffice writer is the primary choice. Kword should be tested further, if K desktop environment becomes the chosen desktop environment.

In testing, kSpread showed out to have very limited features compared to OpenOffice.org Calc. The version used in testing had some serious bugs, even though it was announced to be a stable release version.

Gnumeric is light, working fast in slower computers than the other mentioned spreadsheets. The version tested required a lot of basic settings made manually. For example, fonts were not readable by default. Some of these bugs seem to be corrected in the version of Gnumeric included in Fedora Core 1, published after the tests were done.

OpenOffice.org Calc seems to be an obvious replacement for MS Excel. In the six courses tested, none of the student could point out important features lacking. The only downsides compared to MS Excel that were found out were different macro language and minor differences in user interface and some obscure features. MS Excel Visual Basic Macros are not supported. This protects against viruses, but macros are currently in use in some companies. Some buttons are not on same places (this was seen as a problem by less than five persons). Solver, the linear optimization add-on, is not available in OpenOffice.org Calc.

OpenOffice.org Calc is the recommended spreadsheet application.

Having observed people using office suites, I have recognized that the problem of simple maths remains unsolved by office suites. Typically, calculations are made in a spreadsheet application, which is overkill if you want to know how much is 26*1,7 or sin(30), and not practical if you have to do multiple simple calculations. Calculator utilities with pictures of buttons on them are even slower to use. Would you use a word processor by clicking picture of a keyboard? Usually this problem is solved by having a good old pocket calculator on the table. I have found that calc “C-like arbitrary precission calculator” is good enough to replace a pocket calculator. (Karvinen 2002) Mathomatic also does symbolic maths (x*x+3=y ⇔ x=?), but I have tested it only briefly. One of these lighter calculators should be included in Helia’s workstation installation.

Currently, Helia is using Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator on Windows workstations, Linux course uses Mozilla and Galeon. Browser is already one of the most important programs. In addition to browsing information on the web, it can act as a user interface for platform independent web programs. For example, most users read their mail with a web browser.

If Windows and Linux platforms are co-existing in Helia for a long time, using same or similar software on those might reduce support costs. On the other hand, the main reason for supporting multiple operating systems might be to make wide palette of software available. Browsers working in both Windows and Linux are those derived from Mozilla: Mozilla Communicator, Mozilla Firebird and Netscape Navigator. Proprietary Opera Browser is multiplatform too, but the availability of Free browsers makes it very hard to justify Opera’s licensing costs.

Most common Linux (graphical user interface) browsers are Mozilla, Firebird, Galeon and Konqueror. Mozilla is the most popular Free browser, but this popularity will probably later transfer to Mozilla Firebird as it reaches 1.0 (stable) version. Mozilla has a lot of extra features, such as web page editor and an email client. Galeon is a browser for Gnome desktop environment. Galeon is highly suitable for advanced users with fast computers, as it has the best tabbed browsing. Konqueror is the default browser in K Desktop Environment. It has the least web related features of these major browsers, but it also includes the most full featured file manager in Linux. Konqueror (KHTML engine) was chosen as the basis for MacOS X Safari browser, because it was said to have the cleanest code base of Free browsers. Also light browsers exist, but they render pages incorrectly and have limited features. For example, links (g-links, not elinks that is included with many distributions) opens instantaneously, and can be run graphically on computers with out X Window System.

Helia should use Mozilla Firebird in its workstations because it is simple, multiplatform and works in multiple desktop environments. The extension system in Firebird makes it possible to choose between features and stability.

In this chapter, I will look at possible methods for running Windows Software in Linux. Reasons for running Windows software are legacy software, special software and supporting users. Usually, tailor made software that is used widely in whole organization is very hard to change. Even if there were now better alternatives, it would not be cost effective to push a new system trough organization. There are some areas of special software where Linux alternatives don’t match the best Windows software. For example, Illustrator and Freehand artistic vector drawing applications are still a head of Linux alternatives such as Sodipodi. User support may require trying the same programs that user has, and to avoid requiring two computers, it might be necessary to use software from other operating systems. In practice, it is often just one or two Windows programs that are keeping users from changing. Thus, running Windows software in Linux is important for helping the change to Linux.

In teaching Linux, I have noticed a tendency of users converting from Windows to Linux to look for emulating their favorite programs. This was even more common in 2002, when Linux was not as popular as now. For example, there even exist a product to run Microsoft Office on Linux, CrossOver Office. Looking for native Linux alternatives for programs should always be the priority for choosing programs. Benefits of finding native programs are

• Vendor support (for example, Microsoft does not support running Word on Linux)
• Speed (especially virtual machine emulation is slow)
• Stability
• Distribution support
• Price (most of popular Linux software is Free)

Operating system emulators are the fastest class of emulators. They pretend to be the Operating System being emulated, implementing all operating system calls. In practice, the speed is achieved at cost of requiring more manual setup for many programs.

The most popular operating system emulator is Wine, “Wine Is Not an Emulator”. It is Free, and included in most popular distributions. It can run simple programs, such as cd-rom multimedia interfaces very well. However, any complex programs that were probably not tested by its authors required manual setup and had various problems running.

WineX is a version of Wine that emulates also DirectX, the library for 3D games. The version freely available from vendor website did not work for any of the games tried. Emulating 3D games is considered to be the hardest form of emulation.

Win4Lin is a closed source emulator that requires a paid license. It was not tested, as it has not outperformed Wine in published tests in magazines.

Remote controlling Windows is mostly used for remote administration. Common programs used for this are Virtual Network Computer VNC and Remote Desktop Protocol clients. A less used but interesting tool that has earned a reputation as black hat tool is BO2k.

Currently, Helia uses VNC to remotely control Windows. VNC is truly multiplatform, as Windows, Linux and MacOS can all be both servers and clients. The protocol is open, well documented and many commented reference implementations and free tools are available. All popular distributions have VNC clients. VNC does not have any security features by itself, but the connection can be easily put to a secure tunnel with SSH. As noted before in this paper, the VNC protocol is most inefficient, as it is based on sending compressed screenshots.

All computers running X Window System (the Linux window system) can be controlled remotely, and the protocol is very efficient. There are Free X Window System servers for MS Windows, such as the one included in Cygwin. During testing, this solution worked, but seemed unpolished, and left many questions. Some unreliable hacks were required. I could not find any large organizations using this method.

The Remote Desktop Protocol is a proprietary Microsoft Windows protocol very similar in principle to X Window System protocol. Windows Terminal Server is a Microsoft Windows tool for allowing multiple users to log in with graphical user interface. Linux has a Free client for Windows Terminal Server, called rdesktop. Some students administering both Windows and Linux boxes at work have been very satisfied with rdesktop. Using rdesktop to remotely connect to Windows Terminal Server would allow running any Windows programs, except some 3D applications, such as games. Compatibility is obvious, because the programs are actually run on Windows. Linux users login to a Windows server trough using rdesktop, and see a Windows desktop in a Window on their Linux desktop. Even though this requires a Windows server, this solution has many benefits over others

• No manual setup for each program, full compatibility
• Minimal startup time, as Windows is already running on server
• Better compatibility than operating system emulators, faster than hardware emulators, cheaper than Vmware

Hardware emulator pretends to be a whole x86 computer hardware. An operating system is running inside a hardware emulator. For emulating Windows, this system is expensive. Each computer requires a Windows license in addition to the programs being run. Emulating hardware places huge load on memory and CPU, and true hardware emulation usually makes programs too slow for real use.

VMware is a popular closed source multiplatform hardware emulator. Helia has 10 licenses for Vmware, that I have been used for teaching companies. VMware is faster than real hardware emulators, but it takes some shortcuts that make it something between a hardware emulator and an operating system emulator. It is still slower than Wine. In my experience, VMware works very well for testing user problems while giving user support trough phone. Its cost, almost 300 USD for download version and the cost of an operating system license make it unsuitable for general emulation.

If source code is available, programs can often be compiled again to work on another platform. The effort required varies greatly by the program. For closed source programs, porting for just one user organization is often not available or too expensive.

A web interface to original software can be written or bought, making it usable from practically any platform, including mobile phones and PDAs. If it is wanted, this makes the software usable from anywhere. Web interfaces are available for many closed source programs too. In this case, web interface should be the first option to consider. It possible to write web interfaces to databases, if database descriptions are available and license permits this. Writing own code is a usually more expensive and error prone than using a tested solution.

Helia should first try to find Free Linux alternatives to all Windows programs. If web interfaces for Windows programs are available, these should be used. Helia should install a Windows Server with Terminal Server and required legacy programs. Linux users could use these programs by logging to Windows with rdesktop. Remote use from outside Helia should be allowed by using an SSH tunnel to secure connection until it reaches internal network.

Even though our focus here is mainly the workstations, the whole of information systems must be looked at as a whole. The same need can usually be filled with a mainly server side or mainly workstation solution. For example, email can be read with a workstation mail user agent (Mozilla Mail, mutt, pine, Outlook, Sylheed…) or with a web mail client (IMP, Teromail, Squirrelmail…). Moving a software user interface to web often solves cross platform usage problems.

Helia has a huge mix of partly overlapping information systems, bought and rolled out in different times. Some of the systems are the latest production quality technology, some are clearly legacy systems. According to Weill and Broadbent (1998), this is not much different to a typical company of this size. They suggest putting the existing systems to health grid according to each systems technical and managerial value (1998:224). Even though this kind of strategic analysis is out of the scope of this paper, it might provide interesting insight to the value and purpose of systems in use.

In addition to moving to free, open source solutions, Helia could achieve additional cost savings in support costs by dropping duplicate systems and concentrating to support a single system for each operational purpose. Obviously, excess diversity is only bad for operational systems, but teaching many systems, programs and platforms is mostly a benefit.

File format defines the order of data in storage. For example, this thesis has been can be saved as OpenOffice.org sxw, MS Word doc or XHTML web page – all different file formats. If information is of high value to an organization, it is of paramount importance that organization itself has unlimited access to its own data.

File formats are a significant cause of vendor lock-in. Vendor lock-in means that even though a customer is not satisfied with quality or price provided by vendor, the cost of change has became too big. (McHugh 1999) One of the biggest lock-in scheme used by file formats is the Microsoft Word .doc format.

Some file formats are specifically made to hinder users ability to access data on his own hard disk. Realmedia file formats are a good example to this. Digital Restrictions Management (often called DRM or Digital Rights Management) is getting more common, and more vendors are likely to implement it. Using DRM reduces software interoperability, adds a single point of failure to the chain of information from author to user and wastes some bits that could be used to store the data with better quality. As all DRM can be bypassed, often easily, it does not do much to prevent illegal copying.

Patented file formats add expenses and legal risks to companies. An example of this is Frauenhofer attempt to start charging for mp3 music players.

Badly documented and uselessly complex file formats may make use of historical data expensive, often so expensive that it is discarded completely.

Selection of file formats can be seen as an infrastructural choice, as it decides and selects which software can be used to author, view and index date. To avoid the problems listed above, the suggested file formats should be completely documented, patent free and widely used. To maintain access to information in the future, after possible vendor and platform changes, formats should extractable by standard tools, preferably viewable as plain text (such as XML). If possible, chosen formats should also be efficient and promoted by visible organizations.

Suggestions for file formats does not mean that it should be forbidden to use other formats. Receiving a memo written in in MS Word and not opening that would be ridiculous. Rather, it forms the bases for new software selection and guidance for planning courses.

For what kind of data do we need format suggestions? At least we need formats for the most important software we use, such as word processor, spreadsheet, music and video.

Helia should use open formats meeting the criteria set above. Obvious choises are XML, XHTML+CSS, unencrypted PDF for documents layed out for printing, PNG and JPG for images, Ogg Vorbis for music, Vorbis Speex for speech, ASCII or UTF-8 encoded text for plain text, gzip, bzip2 and zip (with suitable compression methods) for packaging.

As OpenOffice becomes more popular, OpenOffice.org formats should be used for storing office documents. Their format is fully documented, and opens with free standard tools. OpenOffice.org Documents are just compressed XML.

In addition to suggested formats above, chosen distribution should support most common file formats. These formats are formats used by currently installed software, Linux related formats (rpm, tar.gz…) and other popular formats. To test support for these formats, a test kit should be built. The test kit could be a web page with sample file for each document, with suggested formats and legacy formats separated. Non-standard and proprietary format samples should be made with original program. The most important formats to support can be deduced from the list of currently installed software (Helia IT Services 2003, Appendix “Currently Installed Software in Helia and Free Alternatives”), and from the discussion of software needs. The table below lists the most important document formats by category. As it is based on the needs of a workstations end user, it does not include packaging formats, data interchange formats or source code formats.

Basic formats

• Text ascii .txt ALLCAPS
• HTML, XHTML .htm, .html
• Text encoded (unicode utf-8) .txt
• PDF
• Ogg Vorbis .ogg
• DivX;) .avi
• Mpeg .mpg, .mpeg

Common formats

• MS Word .doc
• MS Excel
• RTF
• PDF encrypted
• OpenOffice.org Writer .sxw

Rare or obsolete formats

• Windows help .chm
• Realmedia .rm, .ram
• Quicktime

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