Linux Gets Past the Front Door

Scott Draeker launched a tiny company this year to translate popular computer games written for Microsoft Windows to the obscure Linux operating system, a format that was mostly in favor among a tiny group of digital geeks.

Draeker said his Tustin-based company is hiring more Linux programmers and after several months of start-up jitters, he’s breathing easier.

“We’ve got two titles and we’ll do eight by the end of the year,” he said. “We’re at the point where we’re thinking, ‘How long can we get away with this?’ ”

No one knows if Draeker’s company will survive, but its very existence demonstrates how Linux is migrating from the world of high-performance networked computers into the home--the bastion of newbies and technophobes.

Linux, with its complex commands, turbopowered features and lack of applications, hasn’t made much of a dent in the home market, where consumers favor the familiarity of Windows and its endless supply of compatible software.

But the plummeting prices of personal computers and the high cost of Windows software have begun to make free Linux an attractive idea.

Windows can add as much as $50 to the price of a computer--a minor cost on a $2,000 machine but a significant amount for sub-$500 PCs. In this era of free computers, programs and Internet access, Microsoft has managed to hold the price of Windows steady--and even increase its grip on the PC market.

But in recent months, software companies such as Red Hat and Caldera Systems have tried to nibble away at Microsoft’s position by making Linux easier to install. They have also included programs that give the operating system a polished graphical interface that is similar to--some say even better than--Windows.

Now mainstream programs for the home and small office are becoming available for Linux, and computer makers such as Dell and IBM are selling machines with Linux installed, although they are mainly aimed at “power users.”

IBM said Wednesday that its ThinkPad 600E became the first laptop computer to be certified by Red Hat as compatible with its version of Linux.

Spokesman Peter Tulupman said customers can now install Linux on the machines with confidence, though for the time being, IBM itself will not preinstall the operating system.

‘Linux Is Beginning to Make Sense’

Computer companies that sell specialized high-end Linux machines have just begun selling lower-priced Linux boxes. One example is an $899 computer from VA Linux Systems, a leading Linux-only company.

“Linux is not at the point where we will see it in the home yet, but it will get there,” said Sandra Steere Potter, research director of Linux services at Aberdeen Group, a research and consulting firm based in Boston. “In another 12 months we will have a different picture.”

The biggest push for Linux may ultimately come from cheap digital appliances and personal-computing devices that do not need a full-blown operating system. Linux could play a significant role because of its low cost and open format, said Dan Kusnetzky, a director at research house International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass.

“Linux is beginning to make sense,” Kusnetzky said. “It’s going to grow stronger and stronger since it’s small, fast, reliable and free, which is an awfully exciting number.”

Linux was designed from the beginning to be a stable and reliable operating system for Intel microprocessors. It was developed in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, then a 21-year-old computer science student at Finland’s University of Helsinki who was fed up with the Microsoft DOS system running on his home PC.

He based Linux on the industrial-strength operating system known as Unix, which had been developed by AT&T;’s Bell Laboratories to handle large corporate and university networks. What distinguished Linux was Torvalds’ decision to make the underlying code freely available on the Internet and require that all improvements also be made available to other users.

The core of the operating system, along with many components and applications, are freely available for download. Companies such as Red Hat and Caldera sell packaged versions that include support, documentation and their own enhancements.

The result is a stable family of software that has quickly improved, thanks to the work of thousands of programmers around the world.

The program has become a challenger to Microsoft’s Windows NT, seizing about 16% of unit sales to the server market last year, compared with NT’s 38%, according to IDC. The figures understate Linux’s impact since they count only packages that are sold, not the free software.

Sensing an Opportunity

On the desktop and in the home, however, Linux has been virtually invisible--hovering at about 2% of sales last year for desktops--compared with Microsoft’s Windows 95, 98 and NT Workstation, which together make up close to 90% of all operating systems sold for desktops, according to IDC. Linux still trails Apple’s Mac operating system, which has about 5% of sales.

The people who have used Linux for their desktop computers have largely been technophiles, programmers seeking a crash-proof environment and staunch anti-Microsoft partisans, who would rather turn off their computers than use Windows. They have relied on programs such as Netscape’s Web browser, ICQ’s instant messenger--both owned by America Online--and office suites from Applix and Star Division, which was recently acquired by Sun Microsystems.

What has changed in the last few months is the number of other companies sensing an opportunity in the wide-open Linux field.

Corel, whose word processor, WordPerfect, has been boxed in by Microsoft’s Office suite on desktop computers, has found itself in an expanding Linux market with few competitors.

Corel leaped into the fray by giving away WordPerfect for Linux in December. Since then, it has started work on translating its own suite of office programs for Linux. The WordPerfect suite, which will include WordPerfect, the spreadsheet Quattro Pro and presentation software, will be available next year for less than $100.

One of Linux’s biggest shortcomings has been the lack of entertainment software--a key product for the home market.

Draeker, the Tustin game developer, originally picked complex games, such as “Myth II” from Bungie Software Products and Activision’s “Civilization: Call to Power,” figuring that his only buyers would be hard-core technophiles.

But since the release of those two games, Draeker’s company, Loki Entertainment Software, has been peppered with requests from customers for simpler games, even children’s games, that he never imagined would be popular with the Linux crowd.

System Isn’t for Everyone

For all the progress in moving programs over to Linux, the migration still does not make sense for many software companies. Compared with Windows’ more than 270 million users, the few hundred thousand users of desktop computers running Linux is ridiculously small.

Intuit, which makes the popular Quicken home finance program, said that out of its 11 million customers, it has received, at best, a few hundred requests for a Linux version of Quicken.

“To be honest, it’s nowhere near enough,” said Kevin Reeth, Inuit’s product manager for Quicken. “Out of tens of thousands of requests we get for new features, Linux barely shows up.”

Kusnetzky of IDC agreed that consumer demand will not push Linux into the mainstream. He projects that Linux will make up no more than 7% of desktop operating system sales in the next five years.

A more important development that could change his projections is the potential flood of digital devices that will enter the home in coming years, including controllers for air-conditioning systems, video recorders, Web appliances and a variety of other devices that will need operating systems.

One of the first of these is TiVo, a digital video recorder that stores television programs on a disk drive instead of a videotape. The $499 device uses Linux as its operating system.

Jim Barton, TiVo’s chief technology officer, said Linux was the clear choice because it is cheap, stable and reliable.

But another important consideration was that Linux is an open operating system, allowing TiVo’s engineers to go into the software code and fix problems on their own instead of depending on a system from a company such as Microsoft, which keeps its code secret.

“I took a lot of heat back then for choosing Linux,” Barton said. “It’s turned out to be a wise decision.”

For all of Linux’s advantages, it still faces enormous hurdles on the path toward making a dent in the home market.

Perhaps the biggest problem is simply that old habits die hard, both for consumers and manufacturers. Even a Linux evangelist such as Draeker concedes that he, too, is a slave to the old.

Draeker has numerous computers, most of which run Linux. But at home--where comfort counts--he sheepishly admits, “my primary desktop is still a Mac.”