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Linux on Campus and the New Student Radicals

By Mikael Haxby '01
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If you listen to the prophets, a revolution is taking place in cyberspace, as a new operating system known as Linux promotes what many "netheads" consider the ideals of the Internet: a totally egalitarian system in which the settings are open and shared and where the truly knowledgeable user can read and edit the code behind the new programs he or she finds.

If you listen to the skeptics, the Linux revolution may end up as a revolution of the few, where only those who will eventually be writing our software and fixing our hard drive errors will comprise the converts to the new operating system. The rest of us, meanwhile, will remain happy using Macs or Windows 95 and believing that a major reconfiguration of the computer involves trashing old e-mail.

Among Haverford students, it seems that both scenarios are foreshadowed. Some students have already started using Linux on their computers, whether in a dual boot situation (in which the hard-drive is partitioned to make room for both Linux and Windows), or as the only operating system they use. They seem highly pleased with its usefulness and stability. Scott Goldstein '01, an Academic Computing Center (ACC) employee, explains that he started using Linux because he wanted "a stable operating system to use as opposed to Windows 95." His ACC colleague Andrew Eldredge-Martin '01 has been similarly impressed by Linux's stability, claiming, "I have never had it crash, but I deal with Windows and Macintosh computers that crash or freeze all the time."

Scott Goldstein '01 and Martin Lukac '02

"I use Linux because I like to tweak and fiddle with computers and basically have as much control as possible over what is actually going on with my machine," adds freshman Martin Lukac. "Also, I've learned a ton about computers in general, and I keep learning more, because there are a lot of people out there making a lot of software, all for free."

This is the famed free-software revolution, where anybody &endash; anybody who knows where to look, at least &endash; can find whatever software he or she wants, free and with its "tweakable" source code available. Lukac explains how he has made the most of this open-source software: "I download something that sounds interesting, and have some fun trying to get it to work, if it is in its early stages of development. Once it's set up, if I find it useful or entertaining, I'll keep it."

While some techies might see a return to Eden in that sentence, the average computer user at Haverford is more likely terrified by the concept of having to make his or her programs work. "My computer works fine right now," says Amy LaGrotte '02. "I don't want to have to rewrite everything." Even Eldredge-Martin, a Linux convert, concurs: "For most of my uses, Windows 95 or 98 works fine." A large number of Haverford computer users, in fact, have never even heard of Linux or the revolution it is supposedly leading.

So, can Linux be useful at Haverford? Should the Academic Computing Center (ACC) consider replacing their current network software with Linux? Should they make Linux available to the average Ford for use on their dorm-room desktops? "I am not sure that Linux could really take off as a student operating system," says Goldstein. "It is simply too hard to use."

"I use Linux because I like to tweak and fiddle with computers and basically have as much control as possible over what is actually going on with my machine," says freshman Martin Lukac. "Also, I've learned a ton about computers in general, and I keep learning more, because there are a lot of people out there making a lot of software, all for free."

While the College has recently hired a dedicated staff member to support the computing needs of Haverford's research and instructional labs (some of which are considering Linux-based systems), Director of Academic Computing Jan Richard has yet to see much demand for Linux support from students. "The only demand now is some students who want to connect to the network," she says. "Most of the students who are actually using Linux know how. They're using it because they want to learn, so they're not coming to us for help figuring out a program."

For a few applications, however, the Linux supporters do see how it could fit into the Haverford computing community. "Definitely for the computer science department," says Lukac. "I think that for the ACC file servers, it would be a godsend," Goldstein adds. "There would be fewer crashes and problems that result from them. Samba [a Unix-based file server application] could be used to connect the PCs and the Macs and allow them to share files more freely."

At least for now, it seems to be these limited but potentially effective uses that the Linux proponents envision. Eldredge-Martin plans to keep his main computer running Windows this summer, but also plans to make use of Linux. "[I will] see if I can figure out how to network my two computers together," he explains. "Once I have done that, I plan to set up a more permanent web server and give a few friends shell accounts on my Linux server."