Publisher's summary: This detailed step-by-step guide provides both home and business users with a hassle-free way to investigate this operating system before they purchase and install a complete Linux distribution. Quickly learn how to use Linux to perform the tasks you do most: surf the web, send and receive email, instant message with friends, write letters, create spreadsheets, and even how to enhance your digital photos.
During the past several years a number of Linux distributions on CD have been issued to facilitate the transition to Linux for MS Windows users. In the last 3 years I have reviewed Red Hat 7.2, Lindows/Linspire, Xandros, Fedora, SimplyMepis, Knoppix, and Gnoppix. They all had their plusses and minuses, with Linspire the clear winner in terms of ease of installation, compatibility and availability of software.
As much as these distributions may differ in detail, they still are quite similar overall. They all use the official Linux kernel (although not always the latest version), provide a graphic user interface via the KDE or Gnome windows programs, and supply the utilities necessary for accessing disc drives, printers, sound cards, scanners, modems, routers, networks, multimedia and others expected by the average computer user.
The CDs also come bundled with many productivity and entertainment programs, including an office suite, image editors and paint programs, Internet browsers and a variety of games. There is an enormous choice of programs available for use in Linux, but some of these are of such special value and quality that they are included on every distribution I have seen. Such programs include the OpenOffice.org suite, The Gimp paint and image editing suite, various implementations of the Mozilla Internet browser, and GnuCash, an outstanding personal financial program.
These programs provide many of the features found in corresponding MS Windows programs. What is usually lacking on the CD distributions are manuals covering their many tools, some of which are similar to corresponding MS Windows programs, and others that are different. Often there are also additional options, not available in MS Windows, that the user needs to be made aware of.
Test Driving Linux does a good job providing basic instruction in the use of these major Linux programs. I especially enjoyed the thorough review of Konqueror, part of the KDE windows suite. It is a browser program that combines the features of MS Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer and has additional features, such as pop-up disabling and tabbed Web browsing. This chapter was an eye opener since I had always considered Konqueror to be just another file manager. The book also mentions Gnome, the other major windows environment for Linux, but it is not included on the disc included with the book.
I found the discussion of the GnuCash financial program especially helpful. A year ago I first attempted to use this program, transferring my data from Quicken. I found GnuCash to be totally different in that it uses the double-entry account method to handle entries. It took me a while to get the hang of that. If I had read the instructions in Test Driving Linux, my life would have been much simpler. GnuCash is actually an excellent program once you understand how it works.
Another helpful chapter gives a valuable introduction to The Gimp, a powerful paint and image editing program often compared to Adobe's offerings. The many features of The Gimp make it essential to have some help getting started.
Other chapters introduce the OpenOffice.org Writer basics, the Kontact program emulating MS Outlook, some multimedia programs, and games.
A Linux distribution on a Live CD, based on Mandrake, is included with the book. The CD can be used to boot a computer to run Linux on a test basis without installing anything on the hard drive. This is a great way to test the waters for someone new to Linux who wants to see what it is all about.
I managed to boot up three different computers, an older desktop, an older laptop and a more recent laptop. Unfortunately, at the end of the boot sequence on each computer, the screen went black. After repeating the boot procedure several times I found by accident that all I had to do was press any key to bring up the startup screen. Once I started reading the book I noticed that the author mentions this - but who reads the manual first? So much for "From Windows To Linux In 60 Seconds", the subtitle of the book.
Booting and running Linux from the CD has the disadvantage that any changes made while experimenting with the program are lost when the computer is shut down. There is no way to install the program permanently on a computer. To make it possible to save changes from one session to the next, the boot up sequence encourages the use of a USB jump drive to establish a permanent home directory that can be read during a subsequent boot up. Unfortunately this feature did not work for me, as the program could not access my Lexar jump drive, or my Ilo MP3 player. Again, I read after the fact that, surprisingly, not all USB jump drives are compatible. I successfully used an external USB hard drive to store a permanent version of the home directory, but on a subsequent boot the system could not read the information from that drive.
These problems could easily have been corrected before the CD was issued. As it stands, anyone interested in trying out Linux may be discouraged from trying any further and conclude that Linux is not fit for common users. That would be a great disservice to the computing community, which stands to benefit in many respects from the availability of a viable alternate operating environment.
In summary, Test Driving Linux is a good introduction to popular Linux programs for Windows users, emphasizing the similarities that make it easy to switch. The CD is of limited use, only to allow a first impression, until the user is willing to do a permanent installation with another distribution, possibly in dual-boot co-existence with Windows.
Title: Test Driving Linux, From Windows to Linux in 60 Seconds
Author: David Brickner
Publisher: O'Reilly (First Edition April 2005)
ISBN: 0-596-00754-X
Other: 368 pages, $24.95 US, $34.95 CA, £17.50 UK
Chapter 7: Edit Digital Images (PDF) can be read online at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/tdlinux/chapter/ch07.pdf.
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There is no restriction against any non-profit group using this article as long as it is kept in context with proper credit given the author. The Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an international organization of which this group is a member, brings this article to you.
Date Revised: 10 October 2005
