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February 9, 2000
Web posted at: 12:05 p.m. EST (1705 GMT)

by Bruce Tober

(IDG) -- There isn't a single operating system out there today that's friendly enough to require almost no training in its use. We Linux fans aren't naive enough to think that we might convince a once-fooled public that any operating system can be.

On the Linux front in Europe, we are experiencing what most analysts and industry insiders are calling an explosion of interest in, and an explosion in the use of, the Linux OS. If there's any one thing necessary to keep explosion from imploding, it's training.

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That this reality was not lost on the exhibitors at LinuxWorld in Paris was obvious from the sheer volume of training companies and products at the Paris Expo this week.

Frederic Turpin, the Manager of La Fourmi Informatique, said he founded his company 15 years ago as a Unix training and consulting firm. "I began training in Linux last year because we think it a good opportunity. A lot of people are interested in Linux because it's free, and so they need to [be] and are asking to be trained. The movement towards Linux is very big here."

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Giovanni Alberto Orlando, president of Future Technologies, agrees. His company "wants to support Linux. Supporting for us means offering courses on site, [providing] a consulting service, and [offering] a possibility to customers and to end users to know Linux."

To that end, Giovanni has spent the past three years writing a major Linux course. The course is available in Spanish, Italian, French, German, and English and it covers the major Linux distributions, including Caldera, Red Hat, and SuSE.

Giovanni believes that his course is needed because Linux is free; as a result of this, he said, "We can find Linux everywhere, as magazine cover-disks, on the Net for free downloads. But after you get your copy..." He laughed at that point, by implication indicating how Linux is perceived as difficult to install, configure and use.

"I worked with Unix for 20 years," he continued, "and I offer all my experience to people to introduce them to Linux and various aspects of its use and programming."

Giovanni says that the European push toward Linux began in earnest in August 1998. "That's because at that point Oracle said it would port its software to Linux. And shortly after that, Informix also said it would do the same. After this happened, increasing numbers of people said, 'Okay, now I'll try it.'"

All in one

One is called DemoLinux, and was created by the folks at the French National Education Department. This CD was made to demonstrate Linux to people who wanted to see it before trying or buying it.

It loads on nearly any machine, putting Linux into memory without actually installing any files onto the computer itself. It provides a complete Linux system on the CD without even needing a hard drive. It not only demonstrates what Linux is like, but it can also be used as a teaching tool for Linux.

Jean-Pierre Laisne of the National Education Department, who also works for SerVBox, explained: "The problem you have with Windows users is that if they want to look at something else, they are afraid. And so they buy another machine and it's called an iMac, or they install something on their machine and it's so difficult to install for a non-professional that they stop.

"So with DemoLinux, you can boot on the CD and Linux comes up alive but just in memory, without installing anything on your machine. And you can start to play with it immediately."

Laisne explained that the CD was developed from a concept by Roberto diCosmo, a teacher at ƒcole Nationale Superior, and two of his students. The idea was to show to students and teachers that this can be a very helpful aid to use to train kids.

A very similar CD product, RunOnCD 1.1 from the Korean company Easy Linux Korea, was also on show at the Expo. Chyung Gyu Choi, president of the company, explained that, as with DemoLinux, the product runs from the CD and there is no installation required.

"Although most of the distributions have an easy installation now, many people still think it is difficult," he said. "And if you make a mistake in installing, you can damage the Windows system. So if the system is run from the CD, then there is no partition, there is no LILO, no touching, and no damage of the Windows system on your machine. And in that case, people feel comfortable that they can try it.

"So we suggest that people take it and run with it and see what happens. They'll try to have fun with it at first and then start to learn the commands. Once they get familiar with Linux, then they'll install it," Mr Choi asserted.

Bruce Tober has been a journalist for 30 years. Born in Brooklyn N.Y., he's lived and worked in the United Kingdom for eight years, specializing in coverage of IT generally.