Linux Desktop – Journal Interview
Recently I was interviewed by a Journal. Following is a section of it.
1. Is Linux to make a breakthrough on the desktop? : Yes
Linux has always been a hacker‘s paradise. Linux started as a college project and slowly came to the limelight with the Internet & open source wave. Linus Torvalds started branding LINUX as ‘Just for FUN‘ OS. In mid 1990‘s, Linux started replacing lot of Unix, Solaris & Windows servers. Its performance, stability and cost factors proved Linux to be best suited on the server side. By late1990‘s Linux had captures almost 30% of the Server market share. This proved to be a great boost to the Linux community and Open Source Community in general. At this point, seeing the performance, stability, cost factor and n other benefits, the Linux community started considering Linux as a good option for desktops.
(I feel the saddest part of Linux is that it‘s always been compared to Windows by end-users. Most of the people I meet & talk about Linux inevitably start comparing Linux with Windows. I think this might be one of the strongest forces behind Linux moving to the desktop world. Personally I‘m not a supporter of Linux as a desktop. It‘s such an under utilization of a powerful OS like Linux.)
At this point most of the Linux distros(Flavors) started concentrating on the GUI part of Linux. KDE, GNOME, Ximian (now Novel) and many others came up with excellent X-windows support for Linux. In fact, I remember, KDE 2.0 was release and then Microsoft came with their Windows XP and lots of end users started saying, “What happened to Microsoft, why are they copying Linux desktop style+“ Listening to this statement alone makes one feel that Linux is sure to make a breakthrough in the desktop world.
Looking at the various options & the level of customization available in Linux, I‘m sure there is no other desktop OS in this category. It‘s worth noting that Linux not only runs on workstations, mid- and high-end servers, but also on “gadgets” like PDA‘s, PCs, mobiles, a shipload of embedded applications and even on experimental wristwatches. The Linux kernel gives you the flexibility to run a decent desktop on a 486 machines with 4 MB RAM.
The number of projects running in big companies like SUN (Mad Hatter project), Novel, Red Hat, HP, etc is valid enough for one to conclude that Linux has already made a breakthrough in the desktop world.
2. Why are financial services companies in Linux? : To make business
Based on my experience with a few banks & financial companies, Linux is still in an R&D phase of its implementation. Small banks & financial institutions have moved more positively to Linux than the big players. Following are the compelling reasons for companies to consider Linux
+Low Total Cost of Ownership
+Performance
+Security : (which some are still not convinced)
+Stability : (again some are still in the R&D phase)
+Scalability
+Long Term Cost Savings
+Linux running on any possible hardware. So they don‘t have to invest in new infrastructure
+Avoid vendor lock
+Ease of use : Especially for hosting websites, running some servers, etc
+Almost all types of file systems & file extensions work : Greater flexibility
+More control & customization : OS is no more a black box
+Software availability : anything from .exe to .sh runs on Linux
With such great advantages its too tempting for any one to resist. But as I pointed out earlier, Linux is still under the R&D phase. Lot of financial institutions have started replacing their Windows & UNIX boxes with Linux boxes. But as of now, in most of the big places this is done only on few workstations and servers running non-critical business apps. Mostly the internal apps have been moved to Linux mainly to cut costs.
The biggest disadvantage that the end users see (rather, used to see) in Linux is lack of big software service companies backing Linux. This lack of backing is usually perceived as lack of support. This is the key for the service companies. Most of the financial service companies (in general all the service companies) are pitching themselves as ?Support Providers‘ and gradually moving to app developers on Linux platform. (Note that usually I refer to Linux as a platform rather than an OS). This is the beginning of a new era where custom applications are developed on Linux, for Linux.
3. What‘s next? : Microsoft goes bankrupt
Well, future is uncertain, but there are surely some things about Linux that can be predicted. We have seen Linux capture the hacker‘s world, then moved to capture the server world & now to the desktop world. There are huge efforts going on to move Linux from this R&D phase to a full-fledged implementation phase. We have seen some banks & financial institutions move there non-critical business apps to Linux boxes. On successful implementation of these, I‘m sure they would move all their business apps to Linux servers. As this would happens, we would also see a lot of desktops & workstations being migrated to Linux. The service companies have a lot to gain in this move, if they are well equipped.
Even in service companies, all the source control servers, mail servers, domain servers, test labs, etc have been migrated to Linux platform. Slowly we‘ll see all the developer and QA machines also move to Linux. I cannot think of any place where Linux cannot work. It‘s evolving at such a great pace and is so customizable that it will soon fit all the requirements. Nonetheless, Linux is not the ultimate in the OS world; it‘s still evolving and has a pretty steep learning curve.
