Windows Vista vs Linux

Lately, Microsoft is using all its PR power to promote Windows Vista.

Vista is the latest release of Windows. Microsoft worked for years on this version, and the deadline eventually was delayed four years!

Microsoft claims Vista has a large amount of improvements over the current Windows versions. Some of these improvements are:

• Aero, Vista's new user interface
• A search capability, comparable with Google Desktop Search
• Internet Explorer 7
• Improved security with User Account Control

Other promised improvements, like the new filesystem based on metadata (WinFS), were not be included in Vista.

Let's explore the improvement that are in Vista in more detail, and let's compare them with the competitors.

Aero Glass

Aero Glass is Vista's new look-and-feel. Aero Glass is beautiful eye-candy with nice icons with glass-like effects (check this). It is possible to shift all open windows in 3D to get an overview of them (check this).

Vista introduces so called Gadgets: small applications that run on the desktop (like an analogue clock or an RSS feed).

All this beauty needs state-of-the-art hardware, like a graphical board with at least 256MB memory. DirectX 9 must be supported and the card must use the latest Vista compatible drivers.

Gnome and KDE are the two most important window managers for Linux. This immediately shows a big advantage of Linux: Users can choose the windows manager they like! Gnome, as well as KDE are very mature pieces of software, that are highly configurable and expandable. They support small plugins, comparable to the new Vista Gadgets (check here for some Gnome screenshots and here for some KDE screenshots). Apple's OS X has comparable (and very beautiful) Widgets. 

Linux has a concept called Workplaces. The Linux screen usually is one of four available screens. One can "flip" between the screens easily, and every screen can contain open windows. Vista has no such functionality yet.

Compiz and Beryl are the Linux versions of Aero Glass. Here is a movie showing some functionality (the movie is a bit blurred). After viewing this movie, you will probably agree that Linux is years ahead of Aero Glass. Compiz and Beryl run fine on low-end hardware (like my Thinkpad T42).

Apple's OS X also has comparable functionality available for years, and does not need any fancy hardware for it as well.

A search capability, comparable with Google Desktop Search

Vista promises to make searching local documents as easy as searching information on Google.

Beagle is the Linux variant for this (see here). I have been using it for some time now, and it works fabulous! Changed documents appear as soon as they are saved on disk in search results (if the search term is included in the document of course). Apple's OS X has similar functionality for some time now.

Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 7 is the first new Microsoft browser in years. Finally Microsoft gives us tabbed browsing, RSS feeds, PNG support, etc. Firefox had this for years, and not only works in Linux, but also in Windows. Apple has Safari, which also supports all of the above.

Improved security with User Account Control (UAC)

Most home users are logged into Windows using Administrator privileges. This makes it easy for spyware and viruses to infect Windows systems. Vista tries to fight this using User Account Control (UAC).

When an application is installed (and also when a virus tries to install something), the user is presented with a pop-up window asking for the administrator password or for confirmation. The user should be alarmed when she gets this message when she is not installing an application.

For decades, Linux, UNIX, and OS X have a command called sudo for this. This has the same functionality as UAC. Most window managers in Linux present the user with a nice pop-up screen when a command is used that requires extended privileges. With sudo an administrator can setup which command for which user will get such a pop-up screen. By the way: Linux users are normally never logged in as administrator (or root as it is called).

Conclusion

Don't get fooled by intimidating advertisements about Microsoft Vista. Although Vista will probably be a very nice, stable operating system, there is more in the world than Windows. Other operating systems sometimes are years ahead of it!

Linux certification: RHCE and LPI

Recently I passed my LPI-202 exam, so from now on I am LPI level 2 certified. Because I was already a Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE), I will describe shortly the differences between both certifications.

For Linux certifications, there is no de-facto standard, like MCSE, CISSP or CCNA. As with most Open Source projects, one can choose between several options. The most important options are RHCE and LPI.

Both certifications cover much more than Linux alone. They also test applications and services like DNS, DHCP, Apache, NTP, INN, Squid, FTP, LVM, RAID, NIS, SSH, Firewalls, etc. It would therefore be better to talk about Open Source certifications.

As shown above, much knowledge is needed for these certifications. They are certainly not meant for newbie's and both certifications can not be passed without at least some study.

Both RHCE and LPI have this wide scope. However, the way the exam is organized is very different.

RHCE

RHCE stands for Red Hat Certified Engineer. As you have guessed, it is a certification which was created by Red Hat. The exam is a practice exam only. This means there are no multiple-choice questions! The exam consists of two parts:

1. You will get a Red Hat Linux system with several problems and errors. All of these problems and errors must be solved in 2.5 hours time.

2. You get a four page description describing setting up a complete system, including much of the services and applications stated above. Setting up this system would take several days to finish in a typical working environment. During the exam you must be finished in three hours.

The largest problem about the RHCE exam is the time pressure. One must have much knowledge and experience to be able to work very fast, certainly in the second part of the exam. There is virtually no time to read any "man" pages.

Although the RHCE exam is about Red Hat systems, the needed knowledge for the exam is very useful when working on other Linux distributions. 

If only the first part of the exam is passed, and not the second, you will receive the RHCT certificate (Red Hat Certified Technician). Red Hat has also a RHCA (Red Hat Certified Architect) certificate. This relatively new certificate is even more demanding.

Red Hat offers a four day RHCE training, which will prepare you for the exam. I encourage everyone seeking the RHCE certification to take this training. The training prepares you and make you focus on the exam, which will take place on the fifth day, after the training days. Experience shows that only about 60% of the candidates that took the training, pass the exam.

More information about Red Hat certification can be found here.

LPI (Linux Professional Institute) certification is something completely different. It was setup from the Open Source community and consists of multiple-choice questions only. Although no practice is tested, the exam is not easier than RHCE, but different!

There are two levels of LPI certification: LPI level 1 and LPI level 2. Each level consists of 2 exams, so in total you need to pass 4 exams to get LPIC-2 (LPI Certified Level 2). Since a few months, also LPI level 3 is available, for those seeking real challenges!

The description of LPI level 1 says it is meant for "Junior Level Linux Professionals". Level 2 is for "Advanced Level Linux Professionals". With my 10+ years of UNIX/Linux experience I found level 2 pretty hard to pass. Even the first level is not easy to pass without proper preparation.

An example of a question from level 1:

What will be printed on the screen when you perform the following command on two files:

file 1:
John
Pete
Mike 

file 2:
Alice
Jetty
Julie

Command:
tac file1 file2

Hm... that was not that easy, was it? An example from level 2:

Which type of keys, generated by dnskeygen is needed for TSIG?

o Public
o Private
o Shared
o Public and private
o All three

As you can see: Even for the most experienced Linux administrators LPI questions are not obvious.

More information about LPI can be found here.