Bring the tangible benefits of Linux to your organisation

While Microsoft Windows is still the dominating operating system for personal computers, it is by far and away not the only one. Linux distributions are much friendlier to the user than they used to be, to the point of making the difference between it and Windows almost nil. By reducing the hurdle that once made Linux installation arduous, the choice of an operating system is now a question of which one better suits your needs.

In her book, Spring into Linux, Janet Valade describes how to install and use Linux and the most common applications that currently run on that platform. The intellectual tone of the book is geared toward the information technology professional and is a thorough guide to the Linux universe.

In the following interview, Janet describes some of the more tangible benefits of Linux and open source software and addresses the breadth of professional-grade application software available to the information technology professional.

In your book you mention distrowatch.org, which tracks 320 Linux distributions. That's a lot of distributions for a professional to wade through without some knowledgeable advice. You feature Fedora Core in the book, is that the distribution you recommend? Why? 

It's in the nature of open source programmers to make their work publicly available so that anyone who needs it can benefit.

Consequently, when a developer, or group of developers, puts together a distribution to meet their own needs, they often make it available on a Web site. Thus, 320 distros. Some of the distros are very specific, addressing very unusual environments. On their Web site, Distrowatch provides a page showing the 10 most popular distributions. If I were beginning to research Linux distributions, I would begin there. The average user can find a distro that meets their needs in the 10 most popular.

My book features the three most popular desktop orientated distributions -- Fedora Core, SuSE, and Mandrake (recently renamed Mandriva). I use Fedora Core as the featured distribution because it seems the most suitable for the average user. Mandriva is more orientated towards beginners. It tends to protect the user from himself and sometimes flexibility suffers. SuSE, on the other hand, is slightly more orientated towards technical users. However, Fedora may not appeal to users who are most comfortable installing from a boxed set, following instructions in a printed manual. Fedora doesn't come in a boxed set.