| Switching to Linux? From the end user's perspective |
by Kevin L. Ritchey
Pennsylvania attorney Kevin L. Ritchey has written an open letter about using Linux on the desktop -- from the user's perspective. Ritchey chronicles his successful switch to Linux, laments a few features still in need of improvement, and offers us his opinions as an average daily user of Desktop Linux. Ritchey did not make a switch because of cost or philosophical reasons -- rather he moved to Linux because it worked better and was more productive . . .
I've been reading several articles recently on the viability of using Linux on the desktop. The articles present various perspectives, from the developer to the evangelist to the IT specialist. I'm writing today to let you know of my experiences – the end user.
I am a 36 year old attorney practicing law in Pennsylvania, US. I began using computers in high school, a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer. In college I became familiar with DOS, Unix and Apple/Macintosh. In those days I used computers for word processing and little else. In the early 90's I bought a Macintosh computer for graduate school, and found the Internet – text based and limited to e-mail, WWW, gopher, and FTP (for my purposes) – but it was a whole new world. In law school I sold the Macintosh computer and bought a Packard-Bell computer. Microsoft was a new creature to me, I had never used it before. Windows 3.11 was intuitive enough, but seemed crude and too complicated coming from the Macintosh OS. Windows 95 was soon shipped to my door and honestly, I really liked it.
Then came Windows 95B, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I've used them all (except ME). I've used and become dependent upon Microsoft Office and particularly Microsoft Outlook. I am a Microsoft Certified Professional and consider myself reasonably familiar with the OS and the platform. As an attorney, I use the computer to conduct research (Online and via CD-ROM), draft documents, correspond via e-mail, instant chat with colleagues, and manage my contacts and calendar. The critical functions in descending order of importance are:- Draft/Exchange documents in Microsoft Word and
- Word Perfect formats
- Print those documents
- E-mail correspondence
- Conduct Online research
- Manage my calendar and contacts synchronizing with my Palm Pilot
- Share my calendar and contacts with my secretary
- Manage my to-do lists and project outlines
- Draft/Exchange documents in Microsoft Excel and Lotus 1-2-3 formats
- Instant messaging with colleagues
These are all tasks I do on the desktop. There are also other computing tasks such as file sharing and printer sharing that are critical to my law practice as well, but those are handled by our Linux server. A few years ago I decided to move to Linux from Windows 98 for stability reasons and see if I couldn't use Linux on the desktop as well. Blue Screens of Death (BSOD) were all too common then and Gnome and KDE were replacing FVWM and TWM.
Long story short – it didn't work out. I couldn't work well with Word and Word Perfect documents. As you can see that is the most critical aspect of my use of the desktop. All the other functions were usable, albeit not as nicely as on the Windows platform though.
So I stayed with Microsoft and upgraded to Windows 2000 Professional. Wow! Not nearly as many BSOD's. Microsoft Windows 2000 is such an improvement to Windows 9x that it relegated Linux to a hobby for several years. I had used NT, but it was not as polished, nor as reliable as 2000. To date, I still believe Windows 2000 Professional is the best OS Microsoft has ever published.
However, over a year ago, two substantial developments occurred that brought Linux back from the server room to my desktop. First, Sun released the code to Star Office and the Openoffice.org project was born, and second, Netscape released their code and the Mozilla project was born. These two projects were the turning point in how I used the desktop. After Openoffice.org 1.0 (OO.org) was released I began to use it occasionally and was impressed with its ability to work with Microsoft documents. More importantly, I began to see features that were missing in Microsoft Office that I slowly began to depend upon. Word completion is included automagically. Autotext is in my opinion more flexible, more extensible and easier to use. I found the compare document feature more reliable than any in Microsoft Office. And the layout of the UI was more manageable for my purposes. In less than six months I had replaced Microsoft Office with OpenOffice.org. But more importantly, I had come to rely upon OO.org. It was more than a “replacement” for MS Office – it was simply a better tool to accomplish what I needed to do and to be more productive in my day.
I work on a HP Pavilion Laptop that dual boots to Windows XP and Linux. Yes, I've had to recompile the kernel adding the ACPI patch to get my USB working properly on this particular laptop – long story. But the information is on the web and it's not particularly hard to recompile a kernel. I've had to modify my Gnome desktop considerably and still find myself wishing I could do some things in Gnome that I can in KDE and visa versa. But who hasn't changed the Windows settings and wished they could do some things differently. I don't know how Windows users ever get along without Pagers, “alt-mouse” move for grabbing windows anywhere, and “cntrl-mouse” resize in KDE – this needs to be added to Gnome's window manager (Sawfish or Metacity).
But a few weeks ago something occurred to me. I was at home and needed to get online. We have an AOL account for this purpose and so I booted to XP to accomplish this. (I know... and I am looking into Peng) I loaded up Mozilla and OO.org (I use them on MS XP as well) and my first impression was two-fold. First I remembered that nice little utility that sits in my system tray and keeps both these programs loaded in memory – Wow! they start up fast. That REALLY needs to come to Linux. But then I noticed something else – my bookmarks are old! I haven't booted to XP in months. And while I do have a neat little utility to read my ext3 partition under Windows, it isn't nearly as easy to work with as working with FAT32 under Linux. So, I'll have to update those bookmarks later. Let me say that again for those of you that missed it – it has been months since I used Microsoft. I consider myself to have “made the switch.” Not out of costs reasons – I can afford to buy Microsoft's software and I don't think it is unreasonably priced. Not for philosophical reasons – I don't particularly like their business tactics, but I like a government interfering with free commerce even less. I didn't switch because of the BSOD. Since Windows 2000 this hasn't been an issue for me (I still prefer 2000 over XP, but my video card in my laptop needs XP in a bad way, ie BSOD is still there). I didn't switch because I want everything free – I'll pay for a good product and Open Source programmers should expect to be paid too (see the Kroupware project for a good example). I switched because it worked BETTER and made me more PRODUCTIVE.
In other words, I believe people should consider switching to be more productive and make more money or spend less time in front of their computer and more time sailing, hiking and playing with their kids.
I would be remiss to leave anyone with the impression that “Linux has arrived.” I still need a better Exchange replacement. I'm looking at Bynari Insight Server, Samsung Contact and the Kroupware project. But really! This should have been done years ago. Why are so many Open Source projects on Freshmeat.net and Source Forge doing the same thing over and over – I don't need a new mp3 player (I use Ogg because it's better, btw) – I don't need a new instant messaging client – there are several that work great! I don't need another web-based groupware project – this has been done. I really don't need another text editor, game, IRC client/bot/script or another DVD ripper. I realize many of these projects are “learning experiences” for Open Source programmers and there are legitimate needs for these programs. I'm not lamenting that they exist. I am lamenting that there are so many different types, versions and projects when an Open Source Exchange type groupware server with cross-platform capability and the ability to talk to Outlook still does not exist. And I don't mean to be critical. I just wonder why Microsoft Exchange's capabilities haven't been replaced/extended sooner. Browser based groupware is slow (HTML renders slow even on a LAN network during heavy file transfers) I just want to write an e-mail or add a task – I shouldn't need to load another HTML page to do so.
Lastly, before I get off my soapbox, I would suggest that someone somewhere consider paying their Open Source developers (listen up RedHat, Suse, Lindows and Caldera, etc...) to develop the following programs considered indispensable by many of my colleagues still using Windows:- Off-line Mapping (similar to MS Streets) solution – I am not sure of the availability of royalty free mapping data though.
- Off-line Encyclopedia (anyone thought of moving Wikipedia to CDROM?)
- Intuit's Quickbooks – I know Appgen works and works well. I'd use it if I had the need, but an OS alternative doesn't exist.
GTK/QT front end for Mysql or Postgresql to mimic the functionality of Microsoft Access – this should be a standard part of any distribution proclaiming to be a “Desktop Linux.”
- A “bundled” group of home user friendly and useful software to mimic Microsoft's Works package. This is bundled with almost every computer you can buy today – Linux should have a counterpart that is even better. The programs already exists. But the user shouldn't have to dig through Freshmeat.net or Source Forge to find them. Particularly, the above programs need to be added (an off-line encyclopedia, an off-line mapping utility, and a non-programmer database front-end with useful home user type templates).
This list is short (there already exists projects for a couple of these). But the major distributions need to take a more active role in this. The Server market is attractive, but the desktop market is huge. Consider for example that at one time everyone used DOS... hmm... Things do change and it is not a leap to imagine a world where most people use Open Source software.
One last note. Other than the fact that Open Source software has made my life easier and more productive, there is another reason why I now prefer Open Source software to traditional proprietary or closed source software. Availability. There is nothing more frustrating than finding out the program you depend upon is no longer available because the company went out of business, was sold to a competitor or the hundreds of other reasons why software “disappears” in today's world. Where is WordPerfect for Linux? Thank you Corel for encouraging me to realize that although I don't mind buying software, I'll stick to buying Open Source software so I won't be left on an island in a couple months or years.
So, now you have the opinions of an average daily and heavy user of Linux on the desktop doing non-glamorous things like creating, printing, mailing, sharing and exchanging documents and ideas – you know – business.
Sincerely,
Kevin L. Ritchey, Esquire
Miller, Poole & Lord, LLP
139 E. Philadelphia Street
York, Pennsylvania 17403
Talk back! Do you have comments or questions about this story? talkback here
Copyright © 2003 by Kevin L. Ritchey. Reproduced by DesktopLinux.com with permission.
Please note: The opinions expressed in this essay are those of the writer, not of the management or staff of DesktopLinux.com.
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