Use of Linux by nonprofit organizations is nothing new. For
one thing, the lower costs of Linux fit in well with limited budgets. Now,
though, some end users at nonprofit organizations are choosing Linux for a
completely different reason--namely, a better desktop experience than they've
been getting from Windows.
"Using Windows ME, we've had lots of problems with popups and
spyware. There's been none of that with Linux," says Subroto Mukerjea, a site
director for the Computer Learning Center in Fairfax County, VA. Mukerjea
oversees one of 14 sites within an after school program for children and teens
aged six to 16.
"Windows 95 was always going down," maintains Paul Mundell,
national director of canine programs at Canine Companions for Independence,
Santa Rosa, CA. "The problem with Windows 2000 isn't 'crashing.' It's just that,
after a while, applications start running more slowly and features don't work as
well unless you say to yourself, 'Maybe it's time to rebuild your hard drive.'
Mukerjea and Mundell are both recent converts to SuSE Linux,
an OS now owned and distributed by Novell. However, neither of these two users
is about to abandon Windows entirely, either.
The Computer Learning Center supports kids who don't have
access to computers at home. They can come to the center after school to learn
computer skills, and to work on whatever projects they've been assigned in the
classroom," Mukerjea notes.
"I thought some of the kids might be upset about needing to
learn a new operating system. There was a little bit of opposition at first, but
the kids were also curious. After they started using Linux, they didn't notice
much of a difference in the look and feel. And once they found out that they
could run computer games faster on Linux, any opposition faded away." The kids
have been using OpenOffice, too.
Mukrjea decided to try out Linux for classroom use after a
friend gave him a copy of SuSE Linux Personal Edition 7.0. "Truthfully, I didn't
know one version of Linux from the other," he admits. "But we were having
troubles with our PCs, and I wanted to try out Linux to see whether it might
help. Windows ME can be a little buggy. Also, whenever you go out on to the
Internet (using Windows), you're free to get all kinds of viruses."
From Mukerjea's perspective, Linux has been a boon to
managing the after school classroom, which ranges in size from ten to 26
children. Whenever Windows ME bogged down or froze up, program participants got
frustrated, he recalls.
"They'd have to shut down the computer and reboot. When
things got bad enough, we'd have to do an F-disk. This hasn't happened at all
with Linux, and it's been wonderful."
Yet Mukerjea does see one advantage to Windows. "Microsoft's
IE (Internet Explorer) does a very good job of installing plug-ins such as Adobe
Acrobat and Macromedia flash. Maybe plug-ins have been better addressed in a
later edition of SuSE, but I don't know."
Over at Canine Companions for Independence, Mundell, a
genetic researcher, is running SuSE Linux 9.0 on an IBM Intellistation
workstation. However, his IBM Thinkpad notebook is operating both SuSE 9.0 and
Windows 2000.
Mundell uses Windows 2000 for applications that either aren't
available yet for Linux. These include EndNote, an application for compiling
footnotes and bibliographies, and SAS. "IE also interfaces with Medline. So I
figured, let's set the notebook up so I can boot to either Linux or Windows."
Mundell would like to be able to run SAS on Linux, too, but
he finds this option too costly. "If you want to get a nonprofit license from
SAS, for some reason, Linux is considered a server license. A one-person license
would be expensive enough."
The researcher does use Linux for running a couple of genetic
calculation programs for the US Department of Agriculture--MTGSAM and
MTDFREML--as well as for Web browsing and e-mail.
Why does Mundell like Linux better? "Things like deleting
temp files and defragmenting the disk just aren't necessary under Linux. You can
also avoid the hours and hours of work it takes to rebuild your hard drive.
Perhaps the problems in Windows aren't really Windows' fault, because it seems
as though virtually every virus ever written was created for Windows. But I view
the PC as a tool for doing what I want to do. I'm willing to learn enough to
rebuild my hard drive, but I don't want to have to spend time on learning the
fine points of editing a registry," Mundell says.
SuSE Linux isn't Mundells's first experience with Linux, and
he's noticed some huge improvements along the way.
"I first tried out a fairly early version of Caldera Linux.
You have to keep in mind that I was inexperienced at the time--but at that
point, Linux didn't seem that great for desktop use, although it was okay for
certain applications" Mundell observes, pointing in particular to issues with
both e-mail access and modem and display drivers.
"I don't really care that much about the user interface,
because much of what I do is text-based, anyway. But I wanted to be able to look
at my e-mail. You could get e-mail clients, but they didn't necessarily work
well with the Exchange server that we use."
Years after his Caldera experience, Mundell came across
SuSE 9.0 when strolling through a software store, and decided to give Linux
another whirl. "SuSE 9.0 works better in every respect. Novell has also bundled
in Evolution, which gives me smooth access to Exchange."
Back in Virginia, Mukerjea is now looking at double-barreled
use of Linux and Windows, too. Mukerjea has been asked to return to Windows ME,
in that Microsoft is one of the sponsors of the Computer Learning Center.
"We're also being encouraged to switch to with Windows XP,
whenever funding becomes available for an upgrade from our current generation of
Dell Pentium II hardware," he adds. Meanwhile, however, in Mukerjea's classroom,
at least, Windows ME will be running hand-in-hand with Linux.
