tombeharrell.com - My computing background

My computing background

Written by Tom Beharrell
Tuesday, 30 November 2004
I started out at around 7 years old with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2. I was fascinated by the thing, the anticipation as games loaded from cassette taking 5 minutes, the strange game control keys (Q, A, O, P and Space usually) and limited graphics abilities. I spent many hours transfixed by it. Curiosity got the better of me, and I became more interested in how things worked as they did. I starting to learn programming with the aid of long code listings found in magazines at the time. Those were the days! With such constraints to program into, the quality and efficiency of coding produced some remarkable software in the later years. Following on from the Spectrum, my dad bought us a Commodore Amiga after recommendations from an Uncle. Things were starting to really advance, at school we started to use Research Machines PCs; 186, 286, 386 and 486-based. The first Pentium level machines came in, and things were doubling in speed and capacity every few months. Microsoft quickly gained the market with Windows 3.0 and its successor 3.1. Performance started to really improve when processors were upgraded from 20MHz, to 33, 50, and 66. But then with Windows 95 the Operating System seemed to bloat; so much so that the hardware always seemed one step behind. Until recently it always felt like the current machine was only zippy enough on the previous version of Windows. It demanded that you keep dumping your "obselete" system every year or two; because of the overheads, it would otherwise struggle to keep up. But there is another way! Since about 1997, I dabbled in the Open Source Linux operating system. It started appearing on magazine cover discs, and although was very technical in the early days, it is now hitting the big time. With Linux, I am able to do everything that I needed to under Microsoft's Windows, but with many, many added benefits. I have tried to sum up some of the differences below. Microsoft Windows: Costs several hundreds of pounds Doesn't really come with any useful software Costs another several hundreds of pounds for basic office software Requires the most powerful hardware Is inherently insecure, so much so that governments advise not to use it (particularly its Internet Explorer web browser) Is pretty buggy. No software can ever be bug free, but because Windows is closed-source and proprietory, nobody except Microsoft can fix it. This can take months, which can be scary when you look into the security holes that are left for months Powered the campaign website of George W. Bush, and donates money to the Republican Party There are lots of other reasons why one might not want to use Microsoft products. Linux: Linux is free. Really! You can download a popular distribution over the web, or get it off a cover disc, or buy a full package with manuals and support Linux can run on pretty much any hardware. Versions are available for mobile phones, PDAs, your old 486 in the attic, not to mention the cutting edge 64bit chips The popular Linux distributions ('flavours') come bundled with thousands (literally) of programs, all free too! Most of the software you're likely to need is included, such as free office suites (compatible with Microsoft format files), development tools, games, the list goes on. Even if you do have to use Windows, for example at work, you can often get these applications for Windows too. I strongly recommend OpenOffice.org as a great replacement for Microsoft Office. About £300 cheaper too (yep because it's free!!) It's a completely different way of working. Open Source means you have full access to the source code, so anyone can improve and fix it if they so desire. As soon as vulnerabilities are discovered, you can fix it yourself or wait for a fix. Most distributions (I recommend Ubuntu) have automatic updaters built-in. It's written by the community, for the community. But often, corporates and governments sponsor the development of a piece of software, then release it freely into the Open Source community. The best of both worlds! Linux is for the new, free thinking generation. Apache, the Open Source web server, powers most of the Internet, including the Democrats pages, and the Green Party UK sites. I'll leave the list at that, there are so many more fundamental differences - but you get the idea! If you are inspired to try out Linux, there are several options for you. If you just want to see what the fuss is about, without altering anything on your computer, you can run a Live CD. You put this CD (or DVD) in the drive as you start the PC, and the PC loads Linux straight off the CD. This is great for evaluation, and you can't break anything! The Live CD can be found on many magazine cover discs, or downloaded from the web. I recommend the Ubuntu Linux CD, it's free (and they even ship it to you for free). If you want to install Linux properly on your PC, you don't even have to get rid of Windows. Linux installers will allow you to change the partitions of your hard disk to make room for Linux, without breaking anything. You will then get the option of choosing Linux or Windows every time you turn on your PC.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 17 January 2007 )

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