Comparing Linux Releases

Part 1: Caldera, SuSE and Red Hat

Product: Caldera OpenLinux 1.3 (evaluation version)
Price: Eval CD (including StarOffice) is distributed freely at trade shows; boxed version is about US$50.
Summary: One of the most "business-oriented" versions of Linux, the Caldera OpenLinux (COL) can be purchased on CD, but is also available for free download from the company's FTP site. Caldera's release includes a configuration tool called LISA, an MS Office 95 workalike called StarOffice, a backup program called BRU 2000, a number of text editors, including the classic emacs and the more user-friendly CRISP and, in the case of the boxed version, a Linux implementation of SyBase. A bootable CD-ROM makes installation moderately easy. A number of graphical environments are provided, including the NeXTstep-inspired Afterstep (the system also includes "Wharf," a NeXT-like application dock), Looking Glass (based on a windowing system known as fvwm), the Mac-like KDE, and others. Netscape Navigator 4.06 (export version) is provided as the primary web browser; numerous other Internet tools are also included. The Caldera release also includes a Linux version of a very nice Photoshop-workalike paint program called GIMP.

To minimize our chance of failure in these tests, we custom-built a computer expressly for use with Linux. We based our PC on a motherboard with the ability to boot from CD-ROM and, because its adherants claim that Linux runs more efficiently than Microsoft's "bloatware" OSes, we equipped it with a modest 32MB of RAM and a 200 MHz processor.We were careful to build our system from components specifically known to work in the Linux environment: an ATI All-in-Wonder graphics card, 3Com EtherLink XL network card, SoundBlaster 32 audio card, plus an IDE hard drive and CD-ROM. Even with all this preparation, we found Linux challenging to install and configure.

When we finally got Linux properly installed and configured after several unsuccessful attempts, we had to deal with the fact that Linux, being a text-based OS, isn't especially well integrated with its add-on graphical environments, of which the Caldera release included two, which are invoked by the commands: kde and startx, respectively. To configure the latter -- properly known as XFree86 -- we had to know the (case-sensitive!) command to invoke its setup program: XF86Setup. Once the information about our system's graphics card and monitor was entered and correctly configured, we were able to retreat from the harsh world of Unix command lines to the comfort of a graphical user interface by running the command kde.

One of the trickiest things about Linux for "Newbies" is the often glib way the instructions describe installation procedures. For example, the online manual for StarOffice blithely says you must mount your CDROM with the EXEC flag enabled, in order to be able to execute the program installer. Nowhere, however, did the StarOffice docs mention exactly how to do this little trick. By using a second computer to browse the web for solutions while we fiddled with our Linux system, we figured out that you had to insert an "exec" command into the /etc/fstab file, as follows:

/dev/hdb /mnt/cdrom iso9660 -r,exec 0 0

We then invoked the graphics environment with the startx command and used the cd command in an Xterm window to navigate to the directory with StarOffice. From there, we typed ./setup to invoke the StarOffice installer. (Alternatively, you can run KDE and double-click the file after mounting the CD-ROM device.) As you can see, there is quite a learning curve to Linux. From there, it was easy -- basically a point-and-click installation from then on. Incidentally, StarOffice is great -- it strongly resembles Microsoft Office 95 in both look and feel and functionality. Its word processor even saves and loads Word 95 files. Like Word95, an option to spell check words "on the fly" is provided, too. It's available for free download at www.stardivision.com -- and, yes, it works with most other versions of Linux, too. Unfortunately, the version of StarOffice (4.03) on our Caldera CD wasn't compatible with Red Hat Linux. A terse description of the problem and a fairly complicated set of steps providing a solution are listed at www.waldherr.org/soffice. Apparently, version 5.0 of StarOffice addresses these problems.

Product: S.u.S.E Linux
Price: We paid $1 for the eval CD at a tradeshow.
Summary: This version of Linux is popular in Germany. It is based on the Slackware release and includes a relatively easy and almost fully automatic installation program that detects your hardware, partitions your drive, installs the necessary code and walks you through other required steps. Instructions on the CD packaging further simplify the process. It includes a system conguration tool called YAST (Yet Another Setup Tool). Like the other versions of Linux mentioned here, it also includes a huge pile of Linux applications (and their source code!), ranging from the trivial (goofy eyes that follow your mouse pointer; a nearly endless array of screen savers) to the curious: an Atari ST emulator!

Our first mistake when installing the S.u.S.E. release was assuming that a 325MB hard drive would be big enough for a 100 MB "minimum" installation. As it turned out, the installer didn't work properly until we replaced the drive with a 1.2GB model. We also managed to mess up the S.u.S.E. installation (twice!) by getting the entire package installed and configured, and then finding that it wouldn't boot the OS from hard disk after a restart. Eventually, we got it working, only to find that the "X Server" (the code that provides a graphics-mode environment) wouldn't start. Instead, it returned a cryptic error:

X11 TransSocket UNIX Connect - Error 111
xinit : Connection refused errno 111
xinit : No such process errno 3

We also noticed that the XF86Setup program, which we had originally configured our system (apparently successfully) with, now produced a distorted graphics screen with three copies of the same image on it when we re-ran it. We were able to fix this problem by running its less friendly command-line cousin, xf86config and entering all-new settings. You'll soon learn, as we did, that filenames in Linux are case-sensitive!

S.u.S.E. includes a number of X-Window (XFree86) based graphical environments, including versions of KDE and fvwm not quite as nicely configured as those provided by Caldera. However, some might enjoy the inclusion of fwvm95 -- a Windows 95 lookalike interface based on the fwvm code. The version of Netscape on the 5.3 CD is 4.05 -- older and less fully featured than the 4.08 release on the 1.3 Caldera release disc. Still, we'd rate the SuSE version of Linux as easier to install and configure than the Caldera version. We had no problems running StarOffice 4.x under the S.u.S.E. release. (The 6.0 release includes StarOffice 5.0.) Like Red Hat (below), the SuSE distribution is also available in a burn-your-own-CD format.

Product: Red Hat Linux
Price: We downloaded this release to test a burn-your-own-CD-based installation. (Don't ask how long that took -- it's over 500 MB!) The boxed version sells for about US$40.
Summary: The Red Hat version of Linux is currently the most popular version -- and with good reason. The 5.2.2 release includes easy partitioning and formatting tools, Netscape 4.07, GIMP, a customized version of fvwm95 and over 800 megabytes of source code, web servers, alternative window managers (including a customized version of AfterStep, by far the best-looking of the Linux window managers tested here) and other tools. The boxed version includes three CDs, including trial versions of a Macintosh emulator called Executor, Corel WordPerfect 7 Personal Edition, BRU 2000 and many other useful tools. Unlike the others, Red Hat correctly identified all our PC's hardware components automatically (and correctly!), and provides easy, fully automatic network configuration via DHCP. Despite the fact that a few of the items found in the other packages were missing here (kde and StarOffice for example), it is by far the easiest version of Linux to install -- especially if obtained on CD-ROM. Recommended, unless you want to run StarOffice 4.x.

"Easy" and "very easy" are terms that one hears bandied about by Linux advocates a lot these days. Linux is easy to install, they insist -- especially from CD-ROM -- and the Frequently Asked Questions documents for major distributions (e.g., see www.linux.org) seem to reinforce this contention. So, exactly how easy is Linux to install? Is it as easy as, say, a Mac? Or Windows 98? Or Windows NT? BeOS?!

The short answer is "no." However, for your pain, you'll get a modern operating system with power and customization capability that exceeds that of most, if not all, of its competitors. And it's not all that tough. Once you get over a few hurdles, it's not especially difficult to get a Linux system configured and up on the Internet -- an area to which it is particularly well-suited, we might add. We'll describe the important commands and procedures later, but first, a little background on our tests.

We tested three of the leading Linux releases, as listed above. We encountered severe, show-stopping problems on the Caldera and S.u.S.E. CD-based versions that required us to reinstall the programs from scratch. Fortunately, we were using an empty hard drive -- an item we'd recommend, at least until you figure out how to partition your drive as Linux requires. Ironically, the S.u.S.E. release provides the best partitioning tools -- they are, essentially, fully automatic if you are willing to devote an entire drive to Linux -- but we had more difficulty getting that system running. The Red Hat release provides a fairly simple boot disk maker, which in turn, launches the installation process from CD, hard drive, FTP site or NFS server. After a bit of reading, we were also able to make our own bootable CD-ROM of the Red Hat code, further simplifying installation. (We used the Nero CD burning app from www.ahead.de.)

Although the Caldera release required a lot of manual entry of sector numbers and hexadecimal codes (!!) during the partitioning step, it ended up being a smooth install overall. (Caldera says it is working on a more user-friendly installer.) For the record, we had to try several configurations and setup options before we "got lucky" with the Caldera installer. Ironically, while we were testing the different window-manager options provided, we managed to get it into a state (by selecting an option called "tvm") that we could not find a way to return from. By manually editing a settings file that contained the loader code for this environment variable, we managed to fix it all right -- but we completely disabled the X11 environment altogether! With nothing but a Linux command prompt before us, we were thrust, kicking and screaming, into a world mere mortals rightly fear to tread. We'll spare you the details; suffice it to say that, if you liked hacking around in CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT files and/or felt right at home with the Amiga's CLI, you'll love Linux.

We had better luck at keeping the kde environment up and running, except on the Red Hat release, which wouldn't work properly with the kde version we tried it with, even after painstakingly following a long and very complicated set of installation instructions. On the Caldera and S.u.S.E. releases, however, we found it more stable -- and more intuitive -- than the "startx" environments, which crashed several times during our tests -- usually when loading a screensaver while the Wharf and Looking Glass docks were enabled. We also liked the Caldera version's bundled apps best. But this version of Linux proved difficult to configure for Internet access; once we figured out that we needed to run a program called LISA to set up the network, we needed to manually enter IP addresses for our Domain Name Server, Router and a fixed IP address for our machine, plus other details that we haven't had to worry about for years in the (mostly) plug-and-play Windows environment. From here, we were able to launch and, after a few false starts related to Linux's inability to auto-detect our Ethernet card, successfully browse the web using a Linux version of Netscape -- cool!

We talked to a number of other Linux "newbies" and experts alike about their installation stories and discovered a recurring theme: a typical scenario seems to be that one aspect of the installation doesn't work properly (as in the case of our initial attempts), causing problems with networks, graphics or some other device. Indeed, we had problems in both the graphics and network departments.

On a scale of relative difficulty, with OS/2 version 2.1 being at one extreme in terms of installation and configuration complexity (there are probably more complex OSes to install, but that one was the toughest we've ever encountered!) and MacOS 8.5 -- a truly easy product to install -- at the other, here's how we rate the installation and network configuration difficulty we encountered with other recent OSes:

Tough
OS/2 2.1
Caldera OpenLinux 1.3
S.u.S.E. Linux 5.3
OS/2 Warp
Windows NT 4.0
Windows for Workgroups 3.11
DOS
Red Hat 5.2 (some configuration details are still extremely complex)
Windows 2000 Professional (AKA Windows NT 5.0)
Windows 95
Windows 98
BeOS 4.0
Windows Me
Mac OS 8.5
Mac OS 9.x
Windows XP
Mac OS X
Easy

Conclusion
With robust apps such as Apache web server, StarOffice, GIMP and Netscape (etc.), Linux -- especially the Caldera release, the only one of the version reviewed that includes all of these items -- is eminently capable of handling day-to-day or even mission-critical computing tasks. And, as its fans maintain, we found Linux's performance excellent on even modest PC hardware. However, setting up important details such as printers, video cards or even mounting and unmounting CD-ROMs is still needlessly complicated, compared to other operating systems. Moreover, the shortage of business-oriented applications for Linux continues to be a problem, although the ever-growing list of native Linux applications is a testament to its burgeoning success. But what if the app you need to run isn't available for Linux? Emulators such as Wine aren't yet stable enough to provide a reliable solution, but even if they are were, ultimately, the mainstream success of Linux depends on support from major developers. Although Corel is already firmly committed to Linux and, in fact, by some reports, is practically betting the company on it, other major players are taking a "wait and see" attitude. Microsoft and Adobe -- two of the largest developers in both the PC and Mac worlds -- say they have no plans to develop apps for Linux, but Microsoft's President Steve Ballmer (who pronounces it "LIE-nucks," by the way) went on the record with a "never say never" comment regarding the possibility of Linux products at Comdex Fall '98. Nevertheless, with Red Hat leading the way in ease of installation (except in the cases of StarOffice 4.0 or KDE!), Linux is finally beginning to transcend its "supergeeks only" reputation. If you don't mind getting down-and-dirty with a command-line interface now and then, enjoy reading online documentation and want a super-stable system for web serving, browsing or other Internet- or programming-related tasks, it is an excellent choice. Indeed, editors from Canada Computer Paper awarded the Linux operating system an Innovation '99 award for Technical Excellence at the Comdex West show in Jan. 1999.

Sidebar #1:
Great GNUs! TUCOWS Launches Linuxberg:

The Coolest Place for Linux Software

TUCOWS Interactive Ltd. has announced the newest addition to its network of software distribution sites, Linuxberg. Located at http://www.linuxberg.com, Linuxberg features the best new applications and games for the highly popular Linux operating system. Each of these applications is extensively tested and evaluated by TUCOWS reviewers before they are placed online and distributed through the Linuxberg Affiliate Network. At launch, the network consists of over 40 sites worldwide with an expectation to expand to more than 100 by March, 1999.

Sidebar #2
Corel has released Corel WordPerfect for Linux. There is the free download version, and the Shrinkwrap Server Edition to choose from at the moment, but the company says it will also have a Personal Edition soon. The only difference between the Personal and Server editions is the Server Edition includes all the applications, plus more. For a thorough look at Corel's dedication to Linux, visit linux.corel.com.

For Further Reading:
Red Hat Linux 5.2.2 - a hand-on test.
Linux_versions-pt2 - Linux for Mac. Links and tests (in progress)
Linux Today: What's new in the 2.21 version of the Linux kernel (available at www.kernel.org), released Jan. 29th.
Native Linux apps: http://www.xnet.com/~blatura/linapps.shtml
Windows emulation for Linux: http://http://pw1.netcom.com/~dagar/winefaq.html
Getting Linux help.
Linux and unsupported video cards and Banshee FAQs
Linux wins "Innovation '99" award at Comdex West
The latest Linux news: www.linuxtoday.com
Jan. 2001: Linux Kernel 2.4 released.

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