GrassrootsComputing

From Berkshire Linux Users Group

Grassroots computing
Linux Expo highlights open-source system
By Jessica Willis, Berkshire Eagle Staff

Sunday, August 27

NORTH ADAMS — Once a month, Peter Breen gathers his gear and heads to the library at C.H. McCann Technical School for what his young daughter calls "geek camp."

"I grab my water bottle, head for the door, and she knows where I'm going," he jokes.

Does he dislike being called a geek?

"Nah, it's a term of endearment," he said, glancing up from his laptop screen.

Breen, a teacher in the Adams-Cheshire Regional School District, is a member of the Berkshire Linux Users Group, a club composed of 50 or so other computer fans who get together on the third Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m. to discuss — well — the coolest grassroots operating system ever.

Yesterday was the club's second annual Berkshire Linux Expo at McCann, and the highlight was the "Installfest." Participants were invited to bring their computers for a free installation and tutorial.

Call it the anti-Windows.

Linux (pronounced LIH-nix), according to the club's co-president Josh Szmajda, derives most of its credibility from the fact that it is "open source" — meaning Linux's source code recipe is available free to the public.

"Anyone can download it and use it," he said.

That's not the case with the pricey mainstream systems like Apple or Microsoft Windows, where the source code is top secret and known only by a select few.

"With Microsoft, you just don't know what's going on under the hood," Szmajda said.

Curiously, Linux's open-door policy has the benefit of making the system incorruptible by the viruses and spyware that plague more mainstream operating systems. In fact, expensive virus protection software isn't even a necessity for Linux.

"There are a lot of people reading and inspecting Linux's

code all the time," he explained. "They make sure it's not infected. They're paranoid, so you don't have to be."

Linux was created in 1990 by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish code writer who invented the "kernel" of the system. After expanding the kernel into a full operating system, he gave it to the global community, where the code was made into other "flavors" or "distributions," as Smajda calls them. The end result is free, safe and readily-accessible software.

Currently, only 16 percent of PC users in the United States have Linux, and although that percentage pleases Szmajda and Joe Monti, the club's other co-president, those numbers seem woefully small for an operating system that is virtually hassle-proof.

"The biggest problem is getting the word out," Monti said. "Change is a big hurdle for a lot of people. They get used to Windows and Mac, and the interface isn't exactly the same."

Szmajda, who lives in North Adams and works as a Web application developer for Biotest Labs, has 15 servers in Virginia powering one of his personal Web ventures, and they're always worry-free.

Why?

"I can get away with the servers being so far away because they're running Linux."