Finding Linux I

In the IP Watch Article Complaint Lodged Over EU Parliament's Exclusive Use Of Microsoft Systems" by William New (March 6, 2008), a formal complaint was lodged by advocates of open standard software with the European Parliament over how its information technology systems rely almost exclusively on software manufactured by Microsoft.

The article refers to Microsoft's Windows as "the operating system found in most of the world's personal computers."

Surely there are providers of operating systems other than Microsoft in the software industry today, but why is Microsoft's Windows so dominant?

Finding Linux

The other day we were at the hardware department of Landmark Department Store at the Trinoma in Quezon City. At the cashier, I remarked that they were using Java for their POS (point-of-sales) system. Then a guy carrying a keyboard came over, plugged in the keyboard, rebooted the computer (apparently an IBM) under the cashier's desk and the command-line interface showed up. He logged in as root to what was a Red Hat Enterprise distribution of the Linux operating system.

I was told that other large establishments use Linux systems (of various distributions) - National Book Store, Rustan's, Crossings and the Bank of Philippine Islands. With the BPI, though, I noticed that the computers used for non-banking transactions, for example the machines on the manager's desks, were running Microsoft Windows.

It does seem that large businesses are relying more on Linux systems and that personal computer users are still stuck with Windows. With this, one can assume that the reliability, security and stability of the Linux system (or of open-source software systems) are no longer such a problem nor is the availability of technical support and documentation for the business sector.

But what about the small business and the personal computer user? Did this sector really have a choice of operating systems?

Microsoft Windows is for Dummies, Linux is for Nerds?

Recently, I visited the computer shops at a shopping mall in our area to look for a notebook computer to replace my old system. Generally, the public doesn't have much of a choice - majority of notebook computers come installed with Windows Vista. Although compared to a decade ago, there seem to be more computers now that come with no operating system, with Free DOS or some distribution of Linux for booting.

When we looked for the ASUS eeePC, which I was curious of because it
supposedly came bundled with Linux, many shops didn't have it. Some shops said that they decided not to sell it because its specs were too low for the typical PC consumer. The single ASUS eeePC we saw in a shop was displayed with Windows Vista installed in it.

We went into the shop and asked why it had Windows when the reports said it came shipped with Linux/Xandros. (Update: March 2008, ASUStek officially launched the ASUS eeePC with Microsoft Windows).

The shop people admitted that they removed Xandros and installed Windows so that more people will buy it. It (Xandros) didn't look very nice at all so we removed it and installed Windows Vista, they told me. And I asked if people had to pay extra for the Windows operating system, and the shop people said yes, an extra 4,000 pesos.

Anyway, the shop people told us they have a unit with Xandros installed in it, so they showed us that one. We told the shop people that they should let people know that consumers can have a choice of operating systems and that the unit actually came with Xandros. Otherwise, people would be forced to pay the extra 4,000 pesos not knowing that there was actually another operating system shipped with the PC.

While shops say that the ASUS eeePC was too low-end to sell for typical PC consumers, I would have actually liked the ASUS eeePC if it was more "low-end" (i.e. had an internal modem for dial-up when LAN/wifi isn't available)! ;) However, I can appreciate the purpose of the design as a lightweight mobile machine that focuses more on e-Learning situations, so it is built to connect to a network (its specifications include LAN and Wi-Fi), and thus the machine has no CDROM drive, and uses flash memory instead of a hard disk for data storage.

But about XANDROS, I don't know how good Xandros is. I do know that there has been a "broad collaboration agreement" between Xandros and Microsoft. The agreement, according to the Wikipedia entry on Xandros, included "patent covenants [to not sue] Xandros customers", similar to the agreement that Microsoft reached with Novell which has been widely criticized within the free software community. To date, there has been no real evidence that any patent infringement has occurred. Microsoft appears unwilling to specify which patents have been infringed. Because this deal was signed after March 28, 2007, Xandros will apparently be unable to distribute software licensed under version 3 of the GNU General Public License while party to the patent arrangement."

Personally, when we checked the ASUS eeePC, I didn't like Xandros at all. It seemed like a corruption of the lightness, flexibility and stability of Linux - as well as a corruption of the free software/open source philosophy, because of its support of software patents.

Recently, someone described how he managed to turn the ASUS eeePC into a system that he actually liked, which at least means that the hardware hasn't been locked-in to a single software vendor:

"My EEEpc has a 1 Gb ram which normally sells at 21,000 pesos but I paid 20,000 for it. Several versions of ASUS eeePC have come out --with different RAM capacities and add-ons. Naturally, the price differs.

"The EEEpc has no hard drive and uses SSHD. The advantage of having no hard drive is that we do away with mechanical motion in a laptop. The
disadvantage is that SSHD does not like frequent write operations and wears out faster if a "swap' file or partition is used on it.

"Windows XP uses a swap file and like Xandros (which I suspect is a MS
trojan horse in the Linux community) sucks.

"I installed Ubuntu (version Gutsy Gibbon) on my eeePC. But I installed it without a swap partition.

"I am very contented with my eeePC now."

Previous to that, someone described how ASUS eeePC as shipped, was very useful, not for e-learning this time, but for telehealth service:

"We just acquired an ASUS eeePC for telemedicine research. The device is impressive. It runs Xandros on the inside and updates its software
applications automatically.

"Skype runs with video as well as all the other applications. It has 4GB solid state drive (but almost 2/3 are used up by the system). There are three USB ports and one SD card reader so you can extend your storage space."

Well, if one was a "purpose-driven" computer user, I can imagine that one wouldn't want to go through all the trouble of updating and installing applications or figuring out if your operating system was compatible with your hardware. But if fiddling with the machine was part of the use - and assuming one has and makes the time for fiddling - then I think it's worth all the trouble.

What's a Computer Anyway?

The idea that the computer is a general purpose machine does not prevent it from becoming a closed, specialized and commercially-defined one-click consumer item, just like your television or more appropriately, your television with all the junk the cable TV company chooses to dump through it.

But a television is not a computer. The computer, unlike television, has the capacity to simulate universal grammar requirements in the process of language acquisition. But most computer users feel that they don't need to bother about that - indeed, when computing merged with communications, communications took over with the (computer) brain ending up only 10% used most of the time. Now we have computers with all the junk the cable Internet company's bandwidth can pipe in.

OK for the rest of us users but shock and horror for those few people who saw the computer in its earliest years.

I can appreciate the shock and horror at the decadence of it all, but one has to admit that the computer has evolved, for better or worse, and it is this evolution (mostly for worse) that Microsoft's Windows now dominate the personal computer market. As a business engaged in profit, one has to go for the mass market, the lowest common denominator - and this is the way that Linux is going too.

In fact, the argument now for using Linux (with all the zippy graphical user interfaces (GUIs) is that it looks just like Microsoft. Luckily, it doesn't work just like Microsoft although it seems to be getting there too. I link this to the growing attitude of nerds nowadays towards non-nerds on the choice of Linux over Windows or MacOS, particularly attitudes like: "I didn't tell her about Linux or open source or free software... because she doesn't care" and "Neither does my girlfriend, who makes a better example, since she's the type of user who all of us computer experts mean when we say "user".

(The "my girlfriend" quotes above, by the way, came from "Windows is Free The impact of pirated software on free software" by Dave Gutteridge responding to Adrian Kingsley-Hughes' article on Zdnet.)

While there are numerous reasons why Linux, BSD or free software/open
source software are having a hard time making it into people's personal computers, these types of attitudes are probably one of the most powerful reasons: even the "computer experts" seem to have forgotten that there's a huge difference between a computer and cable television.

I'll write more about these later.

Going back to the earlier question, why is Microsoft's Windows so dominant, I guess most of the answers lie in something called "trust." Somehow, despite the anti-trust law in the US, Microsoft managed to set its business up for so long as a "trust", that is, in the late 19th century sense of the word, "a business entity formed with the intent to monopolize business, to restrain trade, or to fix prices." Beginning in the late 19th century, American companies used trust law - or used trusts in the common law legal systems - in order to conceal the true nature of their businesses. Thus, the legislation of the Sherman Act of 1890 and the Clayton Act of 1914, the beginning of modern Competition Law.

Marketing is also another answer, which I suppose is necessary for any
successful "trust" effort. So, given a "free" copy or pirated copy of Microsoft Windows Vista and a copy of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, most people would probably go for Vista because of brand "trust" and familiarity.

Talk about marketing, at the LinuxWorld conference a few years ago,
Microsoft managed to come in as a sponsor and therefore had a slot in the programme. What was an almost empty room at an opensource talk in the morning suddenly turned into a room full of people when it was Microsoft's turn in the afternoon. I thought, where in heaven's name did all those people come from?

Well, obviously, Microsoft had more resources for a much better and wider advertising campaign to attract people to their presentation. Also, judging from the types of questions that the audience brought up, which all were meant to highlight the interoperability promise of Microsoft, it dawned upon me that a large portion of the audience was "hakot." And even worse, they had a raffle contest with sexy girls wearing tight Microsoft t-shirts collecting the raffle coupons. I wondered if the Linux community would go that low. I guess I wouldn't be so surprised if they did! At any rate, Microsoft beat them all to it.

Trevor and I attended the Microsoft presentation. Me, largely because I was curious. And Trevor? Well, he wanted to have a chance to beat up a high-level Microsoft employee. Trevor recalled:

"Some time ago, we attended a "Linux Users Conference" in Manila. Microsoft was also present, in the form of a high level area manager. The man spoke about the need for an ecology -and how there must be room for all kinds of systems (after all, this was a Linux conference and Microsoft were the intruders). He then went on to boast of how Microsoft had almost total penetration of most key markets. When asked how this could be equated to a healthy "ecology" (with room for all) he was unable to answer -but requested a private discussion, which was agreed.

"The main point of my (ecological) argument was that (for example) the
introduction of rabbits into Australia has been severely damaging to the Australian ecology -and that perhaps Microsoft products were equally damaging to conceptual ecologies. He disputed this -and claimed that -despite the dangers of an ecological disaster, people (i.e. companies) should always be free to introduce dangerous species into any ecology. The Microsoft man was from New Zealand. Shortly afterwards, we visited New Zealand and were amazed to discover airport sniffer dogs searching -not for bombs but for biological organisms that might destroy the local ecology. So why is New Zealand allowed to ban physical organisms -but not commercial "culture" products that are equally dangerous?"

Looking at all the laptop computers with Windows Vista installed in them in the shops, I told the sales rep, soon a lot of people are going to come back to your shop with a whole load of problems with Vista.

That might just be enough motivation for the shops to consider bundling their no-OS computers with a good Linux distribution.

I plan to go to the shops again after Easter, this time with some LiveCDs or "installation-free distributions" of Linux. I have Knoppix, Freesbie (FreeBSD Burned in Economy) and Kubuntu. LiveCDs are good for checking hardware compatibilities without needing to install the system into the computer hard drive. The internal modem, the card-reader, Wi-Fi and the built-in camera would probably be potential trouble spots. Of course, I hope the LiveCDs might also encourage the shop's sales people to consider using them for demonstration and offering them to customers for installation.

So begins "Finding Linux", the first of my "Linux computer" mis/adventures... ;)

March 2008
Fatima Lasay

About the author:

Fatima Lasay is an artist, and writer/researcher working in digital media. She is interested in the social and political dimensions of technologies.

Fatima is a member of the Copy/South Research Group, a group seeking to investigate the inner workings of the global copyright system and its largely negative effects on the global South.

Fatima is currently involved in programming and crocheting. She lives in the Philippines with her husband, British computer artist, Trevor Batten.