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I’m linking to a month old review of 9.10 from when it came out to use as a starting point.  Ubuntu has became one of a handful of key names within the Linux Community.  As a desktop Linux distribution it is in my opinion and that of many others, by far the most mature.  Fedora is maybe a close second and I still rely on Centos (a variation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux) for my servers, but Ubuntu has really ran out ahead of the pack for home use.

Normally, this would just be my opinion on Linux, which doesn’t necessarily stand for all that much.  I’m an infrequent Linux home user, who is not at all involved in development.  I’m an amateur blogger, with a nonexistent audience and no standing track record of popularizing products of technology.  In this case, however I have a unique angle in the Linux debate.

Without going into too many specifics, I manage indirectly the computers within almost seventy separate libraries.  I am in a position to directly install Linux operating systems in some cases and to recommend them in many others.  I may not have any grand audience or any huge commanding sway over the populace, but I am in a position where I can familiarize the general public with Linux.

For years and years, the cries have been ‘Linux has come.  It’s ready.”  It’s never been true, not really.  Even now it’s only questionably true.  Sure, Linux can do everything Windows does and often a little bit better, but that’s not enough to upset a market and, more importantly, the status quo.  No, Linux has to be above and beyond.  It’s still not there.

However, speaking as a network administrator, it’s close enough.  I fully intend to begin phasing Linux machines into the library system.  We already use freebsd and ipcop firewall boxes in many cases, but I intend to put a few OPAC linux machines out there this year.  OPAC machines are barely more than dumb terminals.  They’re computers that log directly into firefox and go straight to our OPAC website.  No other functionality is necessary.  It is hardly a cutting edge use of Linux development, but it is a good first step in familiarizing the library staff and eventually the public at large.

It is a side note and beyond the discussion I want to have here today, but what happens once Linux wins?  Just like any improved ideology that eventually triumphs (albeit only slowly and at great cost), Linux will have to come to terms with its success.  What will that world look like?  How hard will companies and governments fight to restrict the various freedoms currently associated with the Linux community?  Once proprietary development turns towards Linux, where will that leave the market?  The pessimist in me suspects that much of the community will come to regret their own success.  There are always consequences to these sorts of things and as long as Linux is a “hobby” development is largely unmolested by the innate stupidity of the market.  Then again, maybe I’ll be surprised.

At the moment, it’s a non issue.  Linux is the underdog, but I’ll be doing my part.  I have a personal goal to push through 10% Linux saturation throughout the libraries within two years.  It’s an ambitious goal only in that it requires the library staff (in my experience, notoriously close-minded towards technology) to embrace it in any measure.  I’ll be discussing this further as my work comes to fruition.