ONE good turn deserves another.
Sometime in September 2005, my editor at Standard Today, Jojo Robles, thrust his old Apple G3 iBook at me with “a request” that I learn to use it. Fortunately, I liked what I saw, and when it came time to retire my old Fujitsu Windows 98 notebook, I chose a G4 iBook, which continues to serve me well.
The transition from Windows to Mac OS X wasn’t very difficult. A bigger change was in store for me in June 2006, when, in a fit of frustration over repeated crashes on my home computer, I nuked Windows XP and installed Ubuntu Linux over it.
I have since chronicled my open source journey in this column, pointing out both the difficulties I encountered and the satisfaction I derived from the exercise. On the balance, the satisfaction of installing and using free and open source software on my personal computer has far outweighed any of the disadvantages of leaving the proprietary world of Microsoft Windows.
I did not miss the the viruses and the spyware that were constant, day-to-day threats, or the mysterious crashes that accompanied every other Windows update. And I certainly didn’t miss Windows Genuine Advantage, Microsoft’s heavy-handed way of assuming all Windows users were pirates. With Linux and open source software such as Open Office, Mozilla Firefox, VLC Media Player and hundreds of other free programs, I could essentially get for free the kind of functionality that Microsoft sells for a small fortune.
These days, I get a big kick when I see Windows Vista Ultimate selling for P26,430 and MS Office 2007 Standard Edition going for P26,990. Each time I fire up OpenOffice on my Ubuntu Linux desktop PC, I feel P53,420 richer.
Increasingly, I’ve been eager to share this bounty with other computer users.
Why should you put up with expensive and buggy software, when you can get a stable and modern operating system and excellent programs for free? Unless you play a lot of PC games, need to run custom software, don’t have a broadband connection to the Internet, or you don’t know how to use Google (to find help on Linux), there’s really no reason to stay locked in a Windows world.
Given this mindset, I was eager to convert my editor’s desktop PC—a year-old 2.66-gigahertz Pentium 4 with 1 gigabyte of memory, an Nvidia 3D graphics card with 256 megabytes of RAM, and a 160GB hard disk—into an experimental Linux machine for the office. Up until last month, the PC had been seeing duty as a Windows XP game machine for my editor’s son—before the siren call of an upgrade to an even faster processor became irresistible.
A tinkerer in his own right, my editor agreed. After all, he already had some experience with open source software, having installed NeoOffice—a version of OpenOffice for Mac OS X—on his MacBook Pro. If the experiment works out, he says, we might even convert some of our other Windows machines to Linux.
This step will take more study. For now, I’m happy to have converted just one more desktop PC—and its user—to an open source computing platform.
Elsewhere, the change is taking place more swiftly.
By June, the French National Assembly will convert 1,154 desktop PCs from Windows to Ubuntu Linux, ZDNet reports. Members of parliament and their assistants will use Firefox, OpenOffice, Mozilla’s e-mail client Thunderbird and other applications. Our own Congress should certainly consider a similar move.
In September last year, the southern Indian state of Kerela converted all computers in its 12,500 high schools from Windows to Linux, in line with state policy to promote free software, the Associated Press reported.
In Brazil, three companies have begun shipping computers with Linux installed for the government’s low-cost PC program. They expect to deploy 10,000 of these a month.
Even in the United States, open source is gaining steam.
Spurred by widespread calls from users to bundle the open source operating system with new desktop PCs, Dell has launched an online survey to identify areas where it can support Linux.
The survey, which runs until March 23, asks users about applications they would use, their support requirements and specific distributions.
So far, Dell has not offered any mainstream desktop or notebook computers with Linux installed.
A suggestion to bundle Linux with new PCs garnered 110,000 votes on Dell’s IdeaStorm, a Web site that solicits feedback from its regular users. A suggestion to offer OpenOffice came in second, with 76,000 votes.
All this is great news for existing Linux users, because as our numbers grow, hardware and software companies will have no choice but to take notice—or lose our business. That’s why I’m excited about doing my share, converting one PC at a time.
