Stories by: Eric Foster-Johnson

Long a diehard part of all UNIX and Linux systems, the vi text editor runs on just about every platform around. And, in this era of Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), vi remains one of the most popular text editors used on any platform.

Many companies are turning to Web-based applications to provide easy access to employees spread all over the world. Once on the Web, you have near-universal access; all you need is an Internet connection and a Web browser. Depending on the application's requirements, this is great news for Linux users.

After writing a column searching for Linux alternatives to Microsoft's low-end database, Access, I received some great replies. Many readers pointed out the limitations of Microsoft Access, and while all of them are true, such comments miss the point.

Linux has always been about choice. You are free to choose a non-Windows operating system, such as Linux; you are free to choose which applications to run; you are free to choose a particular window manager; you are even free to choose which type of desktop environment, if any, you want to run.

After writing a column searching for Linux alternatives to Microsoft's low-end database, Access, I received some great replies. Many readers pointed out the limitations of Microsoft Access, and while all of them are true, such comments miss the point.

Linux has always been about choice. You are free to choose a non-Windows operating system, such as Linux; you are free to choose which applications to run; you are free to choose a particular window manager; you are even free to choose which type of desktop environment, if any, you want to run.

One of the problems with Linux on the desktop has been the perceived need to run all programs using the command line. Of course, with the KDE and GNOME desktops, Linux users can avoid the command line for most tasks, but there still comes a time when you need to enter a Linux command.

Over the years, the lack of quality desktop applications represented one of Linux's long-time drawbacks. As application after application has matured, that myth has certainly changed over the last few years. In the area of Web page editing, I recently came across a standout Web editor called Quanta Plus.

With an increased business usage of instant messaging, along with ever-increasing proprietary messaging systems, the ability to participate from a Linux system is even more important. Although a number of companies have tried to ban instant messaging, including IT giant EDS, other companies have discovered that instant messaging can be an important tool for communicating with clients.

GNOME provides one of the two most popular desktop environments for Linux, with the KDE environment constituting the other popular environment. Most Linux distributions include both KDE and GNOME but the release of GNOME version 2.0 has GNOME poised to content for greater favor amongst Linux users.

Despite all the debates in the press, Linux provides an adequate desktop environment for most Windows users. The main issues lie in providing alternatives or replacements for all the Windows software currently in use at your site.