Classic Posted April 28, 2003 at 12:00 am

I spent a good bit of the weekend trying to get Red Hat to work with my wireless USB network adapter. At the moment, only a handful of wireless chipsets are supported under Linux at the moment and this is one of them but I was only able to achieve limited success and that was with Titus’s help. At best, it would work for about five minutes before the system would kernel panic and freeze. I’m already sorry that I bought the thing and this experience only reinforces my negative sentiment.

I was prompted to install Red Hat after seeing Knoppix, a live distribution that Titus showed me. The entire distribution fits on a CD and you can boot the OS directly from the CD. This means that would-be Linux converts can get in and muck around with Linux without having to modify their systems at all. This isn’t a bare distribution either. It’s got a full set of applications, several window managers to choose from, and the X window system. It’s an impressive feat and it works surprisingly well. I was already planning on trying Linux again this summer but I moved my schedule forward after seeing Knoppix.

The latest version (9.0) of Red Hat is impressive in itself. Red Hat introduced a new interface called Bluecurve in the previous version (8.0) which represents a significant step foward in terms of aesthetic appeal, usability, and overall polish. Red Hat also uses anti-aliased fonts to great effect out of the box. This is a fairly new feature for Linux and even Windows has only limited support for anti-aliased font rendering at this point. Other highlights include a slick graphical installer, a very nice package management interface that is reminiscent of Add/Remove Programs in windows, and graphical frontends for changing system settings that were previously only accessible through the console.

After the wireless fiasco, I don’t think Linux is ready for mainstream consumption just yet but Linux has made enormous strides even since the last time I used it. At the current rate of improvement, it will become a very relevant OS much sooner than the folks at Redmond will likely be comfortable with.

In other news, it’s finals week at Georgia Tech. I hate how so much of your grade comes down to one test but that’s the established system and I have to work with it. My last final will be Friday and after that I’ll be heading home to get ready for work. I’ll be working at the nuclear plant as an intern again, starting Monday. I’m ready for the change of pace.