This post was most recently updated on March 12th, 2018
Penguin Power Linux Metatrader
Since the early 1990’s, when the early versions of the Linux(namely Slackware) operating system came out, I’ve dabbled with this OS throughout my college days. I was always a Unix junkie programming on Sun computers with C++ and other stuff to do my projects. I’m happy to see how Linux has come so far with their desktops. Back then, and even just a few years ago, the typical PC user just wouldn’t be able to use this OS,it was just way too over the top with complexity, and with MS Windows so dominant and user friendly, Linux was just not going to be a player on desktops. I have to admit though that I was a rebel against the Microsoft machine . I hated that most of the software I needed to use was Windows only. I honestly would not use MS Windows if I didn’t have to. Though I do respect Apple and Macs very much(Apple and Atari were my first computers in 1980), I’m not a big fan of their prices. So for this short article and rant, I’ll just discuss why I keep a Linux powered machine available. 4/4/2009
As you can see(point click to enlarge) the desktop is pretty slick. This desktop
uses a Windows manager called IceWM. I’m sure Microsoft will eventually weave this idea into their future OS’s, they love to borrow great ideas and call it innovation, just ask Mac users. With many Linux desktops, particularly Ice, you can flip through several desktops. This particular session I had 4 desktops. Usually I keep Metatrader on desktop #1 along with News sites. Desktop #2 I’ll have non-Fx websites(naughty and nice, haha), desktop #3 I may have music or DVD’s when the market is doing nothing and I want to slack off and do nothing.
Let me list a few of the new exciting things that Linux systems have included in the past few years, things that I believe have made it more useful.
- Linux Metatrader 4.0 works- Yes hurray! What FX user doesn’t like Meta? I’ve used it for a few years. It’s small, compact, fast, used by many brokers, the charting is great, and at least to me, there aren’t many other applications better. Meta’s only flaw is you can’t access it unless you have it installed on the computer you’re using, and unless you have a version of Windows. With the development of Wine though under Linux, some Windows applications do run under Linux. In the past, Wine was very shaky, it could crash at any time, and it made trying to run Windows programs rather annoying. Things have improved though, and I’m glad to say Metatrader works pretty well on my Linux machine, just as it does on my Smartphone. It looks and feels just like the Metatrader on my Windows Vista computer.
So why would I waste time running and installing Linux when I’m going to trade with Metatrader that was made only for Windows? Well here’s the other cool thing Linux has come up with the past few years, and why as a once upon a time programmer, I really lost respect for MS Windows. I can make a copy of Metatrader on a Thumbdrive and using a Thumbdrive or a copy of Linux on a CD, I can run Linux on another computer without having to install it.
Here’s a simple example/scenario: I’m away on a holiday with a buddy of mine fishing. I don’t have my laptop and I love seeing the FX markets with a Metatrader chart. My buddy has his laptop with internet access. Instead of downloading Metatrader and having to install it on my friends computer, I just carry a Thumbdrive (1Gig or 2Gig) with a copy of Linux and Metatrader on it. Try copying Windows XP or Vista on a Thumbdrive. I can store a complete Linux Windows Operating system with my fishing lures, how crazy and cool! The power of Linux is how small it is, and how robust it is compared to MS OS systems, which is just a massive memory eating beast. An almost full featured desktop with many Internet applications can be loaded into just 512MB or RAM. I could even run that laptop without a harddrive because the OS is loaded into memory and doesn’t need to access the harddrive to function. So now with just a Thumbdrive, I can run and trade with Metatrader. My desktop is there as well, my Browser has all its FX bookmarks, some of my movies, spreadsheets, anything I can store on that Thumbdrive I can access along with some nice Linux applications. I haven’t tried any Metaexperts and autotrading with it, I don’t usually need them, and in the past I only used them for fun, I don’t doubht they’d work just as well with Linux. I could run Meta with Linux for hours without my problem, no blips, drops or anything disruptive.
My other main beef with MS Windows is Security. Lets be frank, MS OS Securty sucks, my 2 year old nephew can break a Windows system by just deleting a few files, wipe out those files and you have blue screens of death or bootup issues galore. It shouldn’t be any surprise that when you surf the web and you get redirected here and there to shadowy websites, you are picked apart by hackers. Yes Linux crashes too and it can have its own quirks, but I’ll wager I can go to websites which will inundate a Windows computer with spyware, malware and crapware and almost be bulletproof with my Linux. I’m sure hackers probably can use a virus to lag computer memory,but unlike Windows, with Linux, you just reboot the machine and you’re cool, no trace of the virus will be in memory, and most important, the harddrive doesn’t get wrecked by the virus, because Linux will be run on RAM, not necessarily the harddrive, and above all, most of the viruses out there were designed for Microsoft, probably by geeks who like me, aren’t too fond of MS.
Flash: For ThinkorSwim traders, I’m pleased to say that TOS’s fine trading platform also works under Linux, without much tweaking. So here’s another great addition made available to the Linux platform, there are probably others, it’s just Meta and TOS I use more on a daily basis.
I can go on and on, but in simple terms, I can trade with a non MS Windows machine now thanks to the wonderful developers of Linux, who really developed software for the love of it. The support in the Linux community is great, it’s almost like some FX communities, where people put their heads together to try to solve a problem. If you’re adventurous with computing like I always have, there’s new systems and updates all the time with Linux, every few months, sometimes even weeks, developers put a new desktop sometimes an entire operating system out there to download for free. If you want to wait a few years, say about 10 or so, that’s probably when you’ll see other Operating systems come around and be more mainstream. I’m just glad that the computing world is becoming more open to alternative operating systems.