Ubuntu Youth
Operating System Divide
When I started my current job in August 2005, I was told to see person X,Y and Z for logging in to the system, for getting an e-mail address, and for obtaining a PC for myself. I was also told to make sure I got a machine with Windows installed. This comment instantly distressed me. During my time as an undergraduate (at the same Physics department), I had used Linux on my own laptop, and also on a couple of machines in the department for a project.
After a few weeks working on the Windows machine (as this was all that was available), I realized how the divide worked. The technical staff were using Windows for their operating system, Microsoft Office for their documents, and Microsoft Outlook for their e-mails, while the lecturers and other research staff were using the Linux operating system.
Linux is used by the academics due to the ease of producing custom software for it, and to its stability - which is vital when running such software. Also, most documents produced are scientific papers and LaTeX is the primary software used for this. During my time as an undergraduate, a cluster was purchased by the department. This consists of 100 dual-core, rackmounted PCs, networked together, and running Debian. Linux is vital in this situation because complete control is needed to administer the cluster; also, imagine the cost for paying for a cluster version of Windows?
Today things have changed. A lot of the technical staff are now happy using Mozilla Thunderbird for e-mails, Mozilla Firefox for browsing the Internet, and OpenOffice.org for producing documents. This last point is important to me, as I can receive documents using the ODF file format, and thereby avoid annoying MS Office import errors.
Much work needs to go into promoting Linux to the masses - the views of many are are still outdated, and do not reflect the current status of projects such as Ubuntu!
I am now happily using Linux on my office PC!
Matthew Holder: a Physics graduate working on the LISA Pathfinder space mission in the West Midlands, UK. I am also passionate about FOSS, and try to promote it, as well as open standards, whenever possible. My blog is at: http://mattmole.wordpress.com
