[Web4lib] blue sky thinking

[Jonathan Gorman]

Karen: some thoughts and comments
(Warning: I'm a biased open source geek and 
command-line lover).

> Having heard many statements/arguments for using open source software, about 
> a year ago I decided to do the experiment myself.

One initial question I ask is what closed-source software do you use for 
these same things?  I can't tell what you're comparing the various 
open-software applications to.  Windows Server?  Were you setting up a 
desktop machine (I assume not since you talk about setting up Apache)? 
What other servers have you set up with closed systems?

>
> 1) Get operating system and burn to disk. Since I was starting with a blank 
> slate, I had to find a copy of the OS and get it onto a CD so I could 
> install it. The particular application I was aiming at wanted that to be 
> Debian. This was easy, maybe a half hour (note: I read the install 
> documentation before downloading most software).

Debian is a pretty good linux distro, but it's well-known for not being 
very "newbie" friendly for the standard install.  Why did you choose that 
particular distribution?

>
> 2) Insert disk and boot up. Answer install questions. Here I got stuck for 
> an entire afternoon, believe it or not. First, there were lots of questions 
> to which I did not know the answer, so I was back to my other machine to 
> read more documentation. Then there was one menu that absolutely stumped me 
> -- not because I didn't know the answer, but because I didn't know how to 
> make an "x" appear before my choices. I moved the cursor (tab tab tab) to 
> the right spot and typed "x" - nothing. I typed "a" "b" -- basically I went 
> through the entire keyboard - nothing. Added "ctrl" before them - nothing. 
> Shift - nothing. I looked at the online documentation. It just said "select 
> the ones you wish to install." Nothing on how to select. The next day I 
> tried again, and only by accident did I hit the space bar - BINGO. So I 
> wasted 4 hours because nowhere did it say that the way to select an item in 
> a menu is to use the space bar. OK. I got over that.

Terminal-type applications can be annoying in this regard.  Still, the 
typical buttons to try pressing are return and spacebar.  Again, debian 
installer is probably one of the least "newbie" friendly of all the 
distros.



> 3) I would need "packages." <snip>long dialog

Packaging systems have always been a bit of a pain for distributions. 
They're a nice idea, but sometimes it's just a headache.  Again, I'm not 
sure what you're comparing it too.  Windows doesn't have anything 
resembling a packaging system.  If you didn't want to deal with the 
packages, why not download the source or binary of the various 
applications?  That's what you would have had to do in windows.

Ubuntu is based off of Debian and has a graphical interface.   I also know 
that there are graphical front-ends for package management for Debian.

Paths of packages tend to be one of the bad things in my opinion about 
packaging systems.  Each distro tends to have it's own logic.  Bad package 
paths is one of the factors that soured me on Redhat. I've seen Windows 
apps install in wacky and bizarre places as well, or rely on funky 
registry settings.

> 4) Now I installed the app I wanted to run, although it then needed some 
> changes to things like Apache, etc., to work properly. I spent another 
> day or so doing all of this. In the end, I actually was able to start my 
> app.

You still need to configure any application, even commerical ones.  Not 
sure where you're going with here.  Again, what are you comparing this 
against?  Setting up a server properly is always tricky the first time you 
do it for any system.  There's just so much customizing that can be done.


Open source being, well, open is one of the major reasons I like it.  I 
remember an old Windows game I had.  I recently tried to re-install it on 
an upgraded system.  It checked to make sure I had a certain version of a 
driver.  Problem was it required version 7, even though I knew the later 
version 8 was backwards compatible.  I had to do some bizarre workarounds 
to get it working in Windows.  In open source I could have modified 
installer directly. I could have even rewritten the graphics engine if I 
really felt like it


The cost of open source is that it will take time, or you need to hire 
someone to take the time to do it.  An additional benefit is you get the 
results of everyone else's time.  The newer versions of Windows Server 
have convinced me that Windows is moving in a better direction, so it's 
not as much of a matter of if I want something done I need to use 
Linux/Unix.  But I still tend to use open source when I have a choice 
between two equally good systems.

I'd recommend the next time you want to dip your toes into open source to 
a) invest in some O'Reilly books.  (Running Linux, Apache, any others for 
services you want to provide), b) talk with some people to find good 
newbie distros, c) Don't run debian, d) don't run debian ;)



Jon Gorman