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This article is an introduction to Linux for Object Pascal programmers. It is designed to tell you in a relatively short space the most important things programmers need to know about Linux.
Linux is complex OS. It is a better OS than Windows, in some ways, but in other ways it is worse. Linux is very easy to program, but hard to use. It makes setting up a powerful server fairly easy, but it does not have the powerful desktop capabilities available in Windows. It offers more services to programmers than Windows does, but viewer services to end users. Beyond any question, it is harder than Windows to learn how to use.
For me, there have been certain key pieces of software or hardware that took on special import to me. Back in the eighties, WordPerfect did that for me, as did the first BBS programs that allowed me to talk over a modem. Turbo Pascal changed the way I thought about programming, Windows 3.0 changed the way we all thought about computers more than most of us would now care to admit. Borland C++ 3.1 helped define the standard for programming Windows, Delphi changed that standard a second time, and Netscape changed things again. In late 1999, I started using Linux regularly, and I feel as though I am again working with one of those seminal pieces of software that significantly changes my approach to computing.
Linux is one of the few places left in the computer world where the original spirit that animated the early days of computing still thrives. Linux users, and particularly Linux developers, are passionate about their technology. For them, it is more than just a means of making a dollar.
Linux is more than just a technology. Linux is a philosophy that defines an attitude toward computers and how they should be used . But it is also a philosophy about how to behave in the business world, and -- to some extant -- a philosophy about how to live in our society.
The Linux philosophy is built on three cornerstones:
The free software group at www.gnu.org believes that software ought to be given away. They believe that software is knowledge, and that there should not be a price on knowledge. It should be free.
The Open Software group believes that software ought to be an open book. When you have a piece of Open Source software, you have the code to the entire product. Nothing is hidden from you. If you want to change the software, you have the code, and can change it and then recompile it. If there is a bug, you can fix it, or at least step through the code and confirm that the problem is with the product, and not with your use of it.
The Free Software group and the Open Software group are often at odds, but they are united in their dislike of proprietary software houses. The idea that ninety percent of the PCs in the world are run be a piece of software that is controlled by a handful of people in Redmond is enough to drive the whole lot of them up the wall.
The Linux world is not anti-business, but it does hope that business can be more than just a means of making money. This does not mean that Linux developers are necessarily charitable, but they are inclined to believe in knowledge for knowledge's sake, and technology for technology's sake. Linux developers are non-conformists, they are people who want to find a better way to do things. They think it is wrong that computers, which lie at the heart of intellectual and economic life in our time, should be controlled by a single company in Washington state, or by any company or companies that will not share their intellectual property with others.
Having said all this, it is only fair to add that there are many followers in the Linux world who are in it only for the money. And some are motivated by jealousy of the success Microsoft has achieved. Linux is not the land of milk and honey. On the other hand, it does represent a genuine commitment on the part of many sincere people to treating the intellectual legacy of computers as the provence of the whole world, rather than the personal property of a closed software house.
I do not mean to imply that Linux users present a united front to the world. There are many camps inside the land that is Linux. There is Richard Stalman's GNU camp, and there is Eric Raymond's Open Software camp. There are the entrepeneurs of the software business, such as Bob Young at RedHat or Tim O'Reilly at O'Reilly books. And there are also the full time rebels, some of whom are admirable idealists. Then there are others who are simply social misfits. All these varied types of people from varied walks of life most certainly do not have the same philosophy, or the same world view. And yet -- somehow there are common threads that tie them together. Certainly, they are all much more like one another than they are like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison.
I am not really the one to define the Linux philosophy, but if you are intrigued by these ideas. you should go to www.gnu.org, http://www.opensource.org/, or to Eric Raymond's home page at http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/. You might even try reading some of the statements from Tim O'Reilly at http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/tim.html. All of these places speak of a world very different from the one that the folks in Redmond inhabit. Many people are not inspired by Linux, but for those of us who are attracted to it, there is a compelling story here that is worth serious attention.
Linux is not the kind of software you recommend to your spinster aunt who wants to find sites on the web dedicated to crocheting. It is a technical piece of software designed to be used by technical people. (Actually, crocheting is a also a technology, and a good one, but this is probably not the time to explore the epistomological issues surrounding the word technology.)
The people who are most at home with Linux are developers. Linux is really just a particular kind of UNIX, and UNIX was created by programmers like Dennis Ritchie, who were fundamentally interested, either consciously or unconsciously, in creating toys for programmers.
Of course, what programmers call toys businessmen think of as tools, but that's another matter altogether. Rarely has their been such a happy coexistence of craftsmen and businessmen as one finds in the computer world!
In the programmer's Valhalla that is Linux, one finds more programming languages than there are trees in one of Tolkein's forests. There are bash scripts and Perl scripts, there are tcsh scripts and Python scripts. Linux (and Unix) was built in C, and the OS has the flavor of the C programming language. Or perhaps it is more that C has the flavor of Unix/Linux. In fact, the two products were made by the same people, and they have many of the same strengths and weaknesses.
This is an OS that was designed to be programmed. Not programmed by wizards, by programmed by mere mortals.
Windows is designed to be run with a mouse. You click your way to fame and fortune on Windows. Linux is designed to be run by scripts. You program your way to happiness on Linux.
A programmer who understands the OS can do anything with Linux. It is a playground for a programmer with a little bit of knowledge and head full of ideas.
I don't find the whole issue of the install to be that serious. Other than some trouble that I had for a time with my SoundBlaster Live card, I have always found ways to get around my troubles with Linux install issues. I have admittedly had some frustrations in this regard, but they have not been overwhelming.
Applications, however, pose a more serious problem. I miss the great apps I had on Windows. In particular, I cannot find anything on Linux that is the equivalent of the great Windows HTML editors such as HomeSite and FrontPage. I have never found a great Linux based FTP program, which is a bit ironic, when one considers the power of most Linux networking tools.
There are, of course, some good Linux apps out there. Great text editors, such as Visual SlickEdit and Emacs, run on both Windows and Linux. Delphi now runs on both Windows and Linux. StarOffice is very good, though certainly not quite as good as Microsoft Office. (There are some things, however, such as personalization, where StarOffice is way ahead of Microsoft Office.)
If you cheat, and use VMWARE, then you can access Windows apps at the same time as you use Linux. But that seems more like a hack for people who want to fulfill a contractual obligation, then any kind of real solution. If you want to really use Linux, then you have to use Linux apps, and sometimes that means frustration.
Sadly, I would have to add that this is a problem that is getting worse, rather than better. Great Windows applications are being produced at an extraordinary rate. Some of these applications are expensive, but many of them are low cost, or free. While Linux continues to struggle to get the basics of GUI application development down straight, Windows continues to roll forward on this front.
Windows is an OS with a beautiful surface. The further you are from the core of Windows, the better the OS looks. When you are way out on the edges of the OS, looking only at the Windowing system and that applications that it supports, then Windows looks great. If you dig down toward the core of the apple, however, you find an unstable OS that is still struggling to find its center.
Linux, has the opposite problem. The core of Linux is rock solid. The basic features of the OS, multitasking, networking and memory management, are rock solid. The problems are all on the edges. The GUI environment is still trying to define itself, and there is a shocking lack of strong applications.
My experience as a programmer tells me that it is easier to fix superficial problems than it is to fix fundamental design flaws. However, Windows has momentum, and it has time on its side. Linux has a great architecture, but it also has a formidable competitor.
Open Source software is a great idea, and it is particularly compelling when one is thinking about operating systems. Operating systems lie at the core of all serious computing projects, and as such, their code should not be secret.
Operating systems ought to be reliable. Windows is rarely reliable, and its inner workings are shrouded in mystery. Only the folks at Microsoft are able to fix its flaws, and it is a shame that its source is held so tightly that other great minds cannot lend much needed expertise.
There is much to be said for Linux, and much to be said for Open Source software. Linux is not, however, a powerful economic force in the marketplace. In economic terms, it is a child compared to Windows. Linux lacks the financial weight necessary to launch a frontal assault on Microsoft.
If Linux is weak on economics, it is not without strength in other areas. In particular, Linux has the moral high ground in its debate with Windows. Unfortunately, it lacks the wisdom to take advantage of its position.
In the philosophical realm, Open Source software and Free Software are what one might call shallow philosophies. They are good ideas, but they lack a serious philosophical underpinning on which they can stand. The proponents of these cause are passionate, but they are not always honest. They fight hard, but they don't always fight clean. To take the moral high ground all the way to victory, you have to be more than simply right. You also have to be virtuous. Virtue is in short supply in Silicon Valley these days. It is not, however, entirely absent.
Some no doubt feel that I have talked too long about Linux as a philosophy. Nonetheless, I don't think one can fully understand what Linux is about without having some appreciation for the culture from which it emerged. In fact, one of the more interesting aspects of Linux is the fact that it is built on a philosophy and that it is the basis for a culture. Linux is more than just an interesting exercise in computer logic. Without some understanding of Linux as a culture, it is very difficult to understand its true import in the world of computers.