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Office-Worker Linux: It's Here and It Works
A few weeks ago, dot.kde.org featured a great why-should-this-be-amazing story about Linux being used as the day-to-day desktop operating system for city employees in Largo, Florida. Roblimo got a chance to see the system in action to find out how ordinary office workers are proving that the old "Linux is tough to use" shibboleth is nothing but FUD, and how a medium-sized city is saving buckets of money by minimizing the tax dollars spent on licenses and hardware. Oh, and they've also pre-empted the kind of costs (in hassle and money) that can face any organization that Microsoft suspects may have some licenses out of order. This is the kind of thing every elected official should have politely waved in his or her face by concerned taxpayers. The Largo system uses KDE on Red Hat, but since both KDE and Gnome are paying much attention to user interface, similar systems could easily be running on various combinations of hardware / distribution / desktop system.
That is exactly what 90% of computer users do every day. Not everyone is a sysadmin! (Thank god!)
What is a valid usability test?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
It is still automation. Of course humans are still writing the software, they are just doing it for free. Kind of like how robots dont go on strike or demand wages. Free software also takes advantage of the automation of replication. I can copy my piece of software and give it to a million people. I cant do that with windows software, or other proprietary systems.
This form of automation is the basis for the entire digital age. Microsoft takes advantage of it, but doesn't pass that advantage onto the customer. Only pirates get replication automation. Dont get left behind. Dont work for companies that license software as-is, with no responsability. Use freesoftware and pay for service contracts and insurance. Much wiser, I think. Plus the strange twist (paradoxical?) that freesoftware is usually more robust and stable than proprietary.
The future is away from proprietary commodities in software. There will always be proprietary specialty software, I grant that, but operating systems, web servers, web browsers, music players, on down the line, are all simple commodities and should be free, or cost a small sum (say your computer retail would charge to bundle them with your system). I'm glad I have staked my mental future on proprietary API's (win32 for most of y'all). I am free from manipulation, or so I think.
No. What kind of logic is that. Where do you think that M$ got its start? In the office of course! People will start using Linux at work and then want it for home too. As demand grows so does demand for games and MP3 players.
On a side note for the most part games and MP3 players are sub-culture of teenagers. Joe User doesn't play Quake III
The Anti-Blog
Windows 2000 can be installed off of a network as well.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I'm glad they're using Linux. Unfortunately, there's no way the medium-sized business I work for could do that. For us, the problem isn't usability, it's software. And I don't mean a lack of MS-Office. Let me explain.
Like most businesses our size, we use a variety of custom, semi-custom, and prepackaged applications. While, yes, we could use free alternatives to our operating systems, office software, and email/scheduling software, there's no way in heck we're going to find a free replacement to our inventory, financial reporting, or human resource management software, for example, any time soon.
Even if someone came up with one, the cost of switching to the new packages would be enormous, given the complexity of such software and its impact on day-to-day business.
What's more, the specialized software we use requires that MS-Office be installed or it can't do simple things like generate reports. So, if we have to stay with these inventory, HR, and financial reporting packages, that means staying with MS-Office and MS-Windows.
Oh, how I'd love to move the whole corporation to free software. But there's just no way that's going to happen until all the mid-size apps are moved to Linux.
Until then, I'll continue to use FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Linux on the server side as much as possible. But that's where they'll stay for the forseeable future.
Gee, how unusual. I suppose the average corporate drone is handed a Windows CD and an Optiplex?
Have you ever tried to get NT running?
i ven-right (what IS UP with that slashdot auto-spacing-long-lines-because-they-must-be-evil- and-would-confuse-the-reader-so-we-have-to-insert- spaces??-) mentality and start paying for things again (yes, I know a lot of linux users pay for distros, but VERY FEW do compared to the manhours put in to develop and sustain it, and VERY FEW do compared to the number of people who USE it.. Actually, it costs more to put out a distro because of the costs of the bandwidth that you must provide to allow people to download the thing) so that businesses will start to develop seriously for linux, things will not change. With the yelling from business about wanting a "profitable internet", do you think they're going to sink developmental funds into something that they're not going to earn any money at, much less turn a profit? Sure, volunteers and the occasional corporate sponsorship does work occasionally, but look at how long it has taken to get here, and how slowly it works.
... maybe ? is that it, that dot on the horizon? dunno... only time will tell.
Man what type of crack are you on? I've been a sysadmin here for 2 years, and tried to push out linux to users who wanted it on several occasions. And guess what? Linux is great -- that is if, and only if, you have perfect hardware and perfect setup and a standalone system. The minute that something is out-of-spec, linux goes AWOL and the poor desktop user is SOL because they don't know the difference between KDE and dd. OTOH, I've plopped in the install CD for W2K, filled in a few simple details, walked away, came back 30 minutes later and had a system up-and-running without any problems. Sure back in the day of WinNT4 (I humbly agree that Win9X was a POS, but don't get me started on why those existed and why customers demanded Win98SE and WinME...) there were a bunch of problems, but I have had very few problems installing windows 2000 systems (and *zero* on reputable machines (i.e. Dell), well there was that 1 problem, traced to a defective HD)... And secondly, as soon as the user wants to do something new with their system, they're SOL again, not only because installing isn't as simple as "click here to download, run setup.exe and you're installed" (albiet lately in linux it has gotten a LOT better), but also because the apps simply aren't out there.
Oh BTW -- check out my W2K Server, up for 131 days without a reboot, and also survived CodeRed without a scratch because I set up security properly from the day that I installed the server. There's a cool realtime stats program up on the CodeRed attacks and other neat things: here.
To recap, simply, I like linux. I think that it has a lot of potential but it simply isn't anywhere close enough yet to be a mainstream system. Remember this, and the fact that it's manhours spent with linux as well. I hate to be the harbinger of news here, but windows is much easier to use, period. There's no debate about that one, and with XP it just gets easier. Try putting your mother down in front of a linux machine, and then do the same with a windows machine. There is a reason why windows is used on 90% of desktops, and why Microsoft is the software giant that they are (reasons beyond the typical slashdottery about squishing competition and cheating and crap), more than just "being in the right place at the right time".. It's because, for better or worse, they have the best set of software products out there. Office and Windows are extremely successful because they're good, and people like them and use them a lot. That's a fact, hard to dispute.
I don't think that linux will make it as a mainstream OS anytime soon, or at least until most of the linux users (BTW, I think that part of the reason of linux non-acceptability is because of the typical i-love-linux-and-hate-windoze attitude and immaturity, not everyone, but just enough are immature and slander and swear and yell and scream and kick and fuss and act like children to give linux a bad name. Don't believe me? read our very own CmdrTaco. I think that he made some really good points there, the thermostat in hell must have broken that day...:> ) are part of the reason.
Oh well. I think that until linux users give up the I-want-everything-for-free-as-in-beer-as-my-god-g
Ahh... I'd seriously like to see a competetor to Windows and Microsoft products, but unfortunately right now I just don't see it, and
{/end rant}
If God gave us curiosity
because I put together a deployment cd, that way you insert CD, start automated install and walkl away... not need to waste money on norton ghost.
Also adding additional hardware profiles onto the same CD is easier...
Faster too in case one computer has different hardware (I.E. a scsi card for a scanner or capture device)
Still, having to download a driver that should have been there? (the network,video and sound were out before 2000 was made and RH6.2 even found them)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I recently let my girlfriend loose on my Linux box at home. Setting up an account for her was all I had to do - she's playing around with it and has had no complaints so far. And she doesn't even like computers (but goes out with a geek like me - go figure :). Yes, sometimes she does ask
where she kind find some application or other, but
comparing that to the problems the people at work
have getting their Windows boxes to behave, I
was surprised at how quickly she adapted to Linux.
Did you notice that the entire system runs the X protocol? I doubt they are even using XHOST auth on the NCD terminals (Of course I don't actually know anything). With the entirety of the X sessions going over the network in the clear I doubt that they are as worried about the security of their big beefy servers. Those can be kept on their own switches and under tight administrative control. I suppose that they could use SSH and maintain keyfiles for each user across all hosts serving X apps, but this wouldn't help with hosts that are serving Citrix apps and any user who can break root on one of the servers has access to all accounts on all machines anyway. It might give you warm fuzzies but I think that it would only add overhead.
Of course, I could be wrong. I'm just playing devil's advocate.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
Just in case it works, try "CTRL-ALT-KEY_PAD_PLUS". That will switch between the currently configured resolutions, if there are more than one. The resolutions (and many other things related to hardware and graphics) are configured in /etc/X11/XF86Config. There is some documentation floating around on how to write your own video modes (getting a little bit more resolution, getting the image to line up nicely on your monitor, etc), but that's not terribly necessary with new monitors. Recent XFree86 also seems to know internally about a number of resolutions.
Note that changing resolution while running only changes how much appears on the screen-- the server will scroll the screen when you move the mouse to the edge so that you can get to the whole thing. The total size of the screen is set by the largest video mode listed for the depth (== bits/pixel), and can only be changed by editing the config file and restarting X.
If you want to change the color depth, either start X with the -depth <n> option or change the DefaultDepth parameter in the Screen section (where the resolutions are).
This information is from a number of different versions of XFree86, so not all of it will be right for your particular configuration. If all else fails, read the XFree86 man page (man XFree86) and possibly some of the other documentation it refers to.
As a more general point, there's a lot of good documentation for Linux stuff. The main problem is that it takes a certain amount of sophistication to know which thing you're dealing with, so you can read the applicable documentation. E.g., resolution is determined by XFree86, but background color/pattern is done by xsetroot, which may be called from a number of places, and what happens when you click on the background depends on your window manager.
weaning off floppies??
we removed all floppy drives over a year ago. It solved tons of problems IS wise and it eliminated the fired-employee taking files syndrome.
Work is for work, it stays there. If you want to work at home, then apply for a laptop.. if your super approves it then we give you laptop+docking station. (no CD drive or floppy but 2 extra batteries.)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
All this is to say, where are the facts that support your statement?
I didn't make the initial statement, but I will respond. All my GNOME systems are up to date as of today.
The GNOME 1.4 release significantly diminshed speed and functionality to achieve only a baic file manager / web browser type app. Its very unusual that someone would create a new version that does LESS things than then old did, but I still can't create a new application launcher from the desktop or edit an existing one as with KDE
* The current GNOME control center (yes there's a new one on the way, no it isn't here yet) is confusign with its `test' `OK' implementation. This isn't consistent with many other GNOME apps
* 48 x 48 icons that are `supposed to look good' at 20 x 20 often don't. One size does not fit all.
* AFAICT there's no MacOS / Windows / KDE type style guide which can be used to define consistency between applications
* Defining a filetype -> program mapping is difficult in KDE but especially more so in GNOME.
* GNOME still has many programmerisms within it. Sawfish and GNOME might be seperate apps but from and end user viewpoint they should work seamlessly. Having a `meta' button under the GNOMECC which only defines options avaliable for the Sawfish branch is one such programmerism. And what does `meta' mean to a non tech?
So if you don't want AOL or other crap installed, apply a policy that the user can't install it. You can cry all you want that OS A is better because on OS B you can't prohibit a certain action, but all you have to do is read a couple of docs and get your butt in gear.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
This is not a "special case," but one that could easily be duplicated in almost any government or business office environment that runs enough desktops to have its own sysadmins -- or at least a contract with a Linux-hip outside contractor -- to take care of the network.
The actual "special case" is probably the single machine senario (and certainly the "home" computer senario).
My wife has worked in more than a few government and commercial office environments that ran Windows, and they *always* had a separate IT or network support staff to take care of the computers. She wasn't supposed to add software or even mess with the things at all. In fact, in her last "real" job, doing customer support for a pager company, the biggest office computer network problem they had was employees bringing in software (especially games) from home and installing them on their own. Often the self-installed software screwed things up like mad.
Not only that it probably helps turn the IT staff into BOFH clones.
One thing I noticed when I installed Redhat on a machine (I'm a Linux newbie) was that it was very usable by anyone, provided someone else configured it.
And that's a good reason to prefer Mandrake over its Red Hat cousin (or Caldera or Corel over either) in that situation. Half the bitching here and elsewhere about Linux could be eliminated if people would pick appropriate distros for the job at hand, rather than becoming too attached to a particular one, often for ideological reasons, which are often the wrong reasons. Try several - cheapbytes is your friend. When you find one you like, buy a boxed copy.
The "right" distro depends on what I'm trying to do: I prefer Caldera or Mandrake on the desktop, Red Hat on servers (it reduces support problems), e-smith for garden-variety multi-purpose office servers, Turbo or Red Hat on mainframes, and Lineo or BSD for embedded devices. Choosing wisely (and widely) keeps you from the IT equivalent of hammering in screws with a pair of vise grips...
Oh, and be flexible - the costs for switching between distros are low and becoming less as we move to LSB-land, so don't be afraid to switch when it makes sense.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
All the apps (WordPerfect, etc) are kept on different servers and run with rsh. They use memory and hard disk space on a different machine. I imagine the /home directory is an NFS mount on a different machine with TONS of disk space. That server runs KDE, and only KDE, all the time, nothing else. It's not their file server.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Umm, and what do u call Interix? they bought them last year...
Hetz (Heunique)
I've worked at several places where all work grinds to a halt because everything is nfs mounted and there are network problems; problems I've never had with roaming profiles.
Grinding to a halt is probably the lesser of two evils. With the profile writeback caching algorithm if the server is unavailable at logout you loose all the modifications...
Search for Broadcast 2000 on Freshmeat.net it seams to be very good at both digital video and audio. I don't know for serious apps because i've only played with it but you might consider giving it a try. There is also video capture devices that work I believe the Broadcast 2000 site tells you which ones should.
The Anti-Blog
If you would have read the article you would have realized that the folks at Largo aren't putting computers on people's desktops. They currently have over 400 X terminal devices deployed. These devices have no moving parts, and boot off of the network. Basically you plug the bad boy in, and you are in business. Any idiot could do it.
With this arrangement there is precisely one machine to administer, the server.
Using dumb X terminals as clients is so much less labor intensive than putting PCs on people's desktops that it is almost ridiculous to compare them. There is no need to painfully construct a master PC image, and there is no need to purchase big piles of identical PC hardware, and there is certainly no need to install operating systems on client PCs. Add to that the fact that the Linux + X Windows set up costs a heck of a lot less to purchase in the first place and you start to see how brilliant the folks in Largo really are.
This an excellent example of how Linux can get it's "foot in the door" for everyday office use. Most of us already know that using it is not really difficult, especially when dealing with a limited set of applications, though setting it up and administering it can be a little tough for the average user. Presenting office workers with a stable and predictable environment and allowing them to get comfortable with it is the best thing that can happen for the OSS movement and the central server/diskless workstation is clearly an efficient and economical way to do it. This applies to both the admin and the user side.
Let's face it. Fear is primarily based on lack of knowledge and unfamiliarity. As more companies (and government agencies, etc.) get their employees to understand that our beloved OS isn't really so scary after all, and installation becomes increasingly easier, home users will eventually migrate on their own. Why? Because that's what they use at work and they're comfortable with it.
Do we have a ways to go yet? We sure do. But the more oppressive M$ gets (and they are taking it to the limit with XP) the better chance we have of gaining ground. I applaud the "City of Progress", where I happened to spend my high school years. Go Largo!
sorry, not possible :-) all printers are network and unused ports on pc's are diabled in BIOS and locked.
now If you put a laptop on the network and can get the domain to believe that it is trusted then yup you will get that users files.
you didn't mention the one way to get all those docs.....
PRINT THEM! DUH.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
<sarcasm> Oh, right. Let me guess: where you work, all the secretaries installed NT on their own, and as soon as those W2K boxes arrive, they're going to upgrade. </sarcasm>
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
One thing that many of the people on these forums forget is how much of a special case we are. Your average office work is never permitted to install their own software. People have been arguing the case for thin clients for year because the average office user has no need to do their own installations and should be discouraged from doing so. I mean, we don't 'em wasting time with net Quake or anything. Not to mention ungodly mess a user administered machine can become. And, if you're running the type of place where people share work-stations like in a call center or clerk desk then you need to preserve uniformity from one session to the next so as not to confuse or completly derail the workers. Customizing the desktop is one thing, but installing any random app is a bad idea.
In that light why the hell should the place even expect the users to need to know stuff like that. ? In terms of apps being available the usual course is to go through IT management and request it. And, if you have a user who's knowledgeable enough to want a specific linux app by name, why not consider moving 'em into the tech department?
Easily, my non-tech-savvy friends could get used to KDE and become comfortable in it, but I don't think they could set it up to be usable (nor do they care, and rightly so, they shouldn't have to). They could actually install easily--the Redhat install was exquisitley easy--but as far as installing programs, setting things up the way they like, etc., I don't think they could.
Then again, many people can't do the same with Windows (installing programs and configuring it to their liking).
Anyway, even if the display/keyboard wear out, the thin client (less display/keyboard) has a better lifespan than the PC (less display/keybaord). But I agree that it's a moot point.
KDE was likely the most crusial choice. Even moreso than Linux. For the stuf office workers do all day KDE is realy the best Unix based solution (Not counting MAc OS X which I havn't seen myself but have herd good things about).
I am all for being nice to "the other side" on these things but what I see is people strugling to use Gnome for ideological reasons and other people getting work done with KDE for financial reasons.
You know Finacial reasons like "Less money spent on Asperin", "fewer monitors shot at" and best of all you can fix the problems that do come up for less than it costs to fix the stuff you pay a grand more per seat for.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
The 18 GB for KDE makes a lot of sense. I'll agree that a 3 year lifespan isn't aggressive for PCs, but your people don't need the power of a PC. Thin clients are are the right solution for your place. I think the idea of a ten year duty cycle on the thin clients is laughable. The screens and keyboards won't last that long. PCs don't cost $2000 any more, and they have warranties to replace failed hardware, just like the thin clients do. This is all a moot point, because the real advantage of the thin clients is being able to configure and do software upgrades from a central location. This alone could result in $300000 in savings. You don't have to convince me of the benefits of thin clients, I once did PC support in a place that had 1200 users. I love the idea of thin clients.
I have almost no experience with Windows Terminal Server. The cost of running Exchange still sounds high to me, but I'm too far out of my limited area of expertise to know. It sounds like you've designed an exelent network that meets your users needs well. Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post.
This is what happened at the last place I worked at (an IP Law firm). They wanted robustness in their Servers so I implemented both a Linux firewall and a Samba Server for home directories. WELLL! they didn't like that since if I got hit by the proverbial bus they felt they wouldn't be able to find someone qualified (course this is Ottawa where the two biggest employers are the government and High-tech) so I had to rip them out and implement boxes running NT 4 and Proxy.
The ironic thing is that before I left they were way over the amount of licensed workstations/servers they should have had and this place does intelectual law!! Sooner or later I am going to snitch on them to CAAST (www.caast.ca) just need a job first.
No I'm not bitter ;)
what that does is install a specific instance of windows on a particular client, but keeps the disk storage remote. This can be a big improvement, but it requires that all the clients be identical (impossible to maintain over time) or that each worker sit at the same desktop (which defeats one of the main benefits). It also keeps the support work at the client end which undermines the main benefit that Largo was enjoying.
No, Microsoft's OSes really are quite limited in the network world. X-Windows was designed for networking and handles this stuff without a sweat.
"This is the kind of thing every elected official should have politely waved in his or her face by concerned taxpayers"
/. geek, but why should we expect any reasonably large government office to be swayed by this? If this were for servers, sure. The admins should have the experience to make a transition pretty smooth. But offices?
Huh? Why? I love Linux as much as the next
I've worked in government offices, I've seen these people first hand. They aren't the most computer-literate bunch, and they are doing well to navigate Windows. Not to say that they couldn't navigate KDE or Gnome, but why spend the time and money to teach them?
Bottom line (and it always comes back to the bottom line) is that it would cost too much to make the transition.
Even though you admit its flamebait I still have to bite.
If you can change their views and switch them over to Linux, then and only then can you claim some sort of victory.
I thought the point of articles like this were to show those people that it can be done. In order reach that point other companies have to show they can do it first.
I'm a sysadmin in a pretty much Windows only shop and I can tell you that I'd love to introduce my users to Linux but in our environment, the fact is that we use way too many custom apps built around Windows. Sure, these could be ported but not all at once.
None of Wine, Vmware, Win4Lin, possibly dosemu (if they are really old) will handle them?
This is exactly what I needed -- a Slashdotting so that I can finally try to optimize the dot server to handle it. (no joke) :-)
Cheers,
-N.
Wow.
Windows systems can be and are regularly used, totally unsupported, by novices. They add and remove programs and occasionally add stuff like printers and it's not a significant problem.
GNU/Linux systems do not yet, from what I see and hear, provide this degree of ease of use. This means that they are not considered sufficiently easy to use as they cannot be considered for unsupported novice use.
Office workers are supported, so this issue goes away - but they're not a fair test as the problem area (which is very relevant indeed for home users) is simply bypassed for them.
Why is this seen as a complicated or strange concept?
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Recompiling a kernel is unnecessary for desktop users. The default kernel comes with most drivers they'd need in low overhead modular form and if you don't like it, run `up2date' (KMenu -> System -> Update) and install any new ones (yes, up to date can now do kernel upgrades).
Linux printing Pantone colours to that Winprinter over there
WinPrinter? The one which breaks down every five days under Windows? Here's an idea: rather than using a hundred dollar desktop printer designed for a single user who doesn't print often, lets act like very other business in the world and use large reliable laser printers (invariably HP Laserjet models). I've never found one which doesn't work under Linux.
Oh...and don't forget those TPC coversheets!
If I knew what these were (Transaction Processing Council?) I'd respond.
When you've figured out how to make Linux print as well as Windows, go print yourself out a dozen copies.
Use a business printer rather a home one. But if its an emergency, add a printser shared from a Windows PC to your Linux box via printconf.
Is it that you don't know Citrix MetaFrame exists or are unwilling to accept that it works?
If Citrix's website was up right now, I'd point you to a demo page where you could run a remote desktop over the web. Wow, intrestingly enough, the site just back up (or maybe it was my connection). The demo login is here. The UNIX/Linux client download page is here.
Freudian slip #3857
And I don't think that the rest of the articles make for a mutual admiration society. I can use information like this when I discuss things like licensing terms, alternative solutions to problems with my co-workers. These are pertinent stories that can be used to advocate linux.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
I just installed Win2k and Redhat 7.2. Both bootable cdroms, both on mix match newish machines:
From first POST to "installed":
Linux: 35 min
Win2k: 45 min
Time to get drivers up to speed.
Linux: 0 min (had all my stuff)
Win2k: 25 min (nvidia, creative)
Time to get Quake3 running
Linux: 5 hours (still doesn't work right)
Win2k: 10 min
Time to get my RAID ATA-100 card working
Linux: 0 (it doesn't work)
Win2k: did it at boot, only took 2 min
-Jon
this is my sig.
My point is to dismiss some very valid complaints as FUD, is ignoring the problems that do exist. Most criticism of linux should be taken as constructive. We can correct the problems that exist by identifing them, and addressing them. I think several distros have done that in the install process.
Sure, Email, Word Processing work just fine, but can't they be better? Can't they be a lot easier to use? Can't the word processors have better on-screen rendering of fonts out of the box? Can't all these tools have tighter integration with each other? Yes they can. 'Good Enough' never is.
Do we want to strive to have a product that is acceptable, or a product that is superior?
Beyond that, people need to be able to screw with it for fun. People who have computers at home, and play with them, in my experience, tend to be more productive with them at work. UI and Software installation problems can be addressed and correct these problems. Installing Mozilla on Linux isn't like installing it on Windows, but it should be, because there's no reason it can't.
Another big (HUGE) drain... Internet Explorer. The default location for the cache on several versions of IE is in the user profile! If you have a big hard drive, that could be 60mb, maybe even 2 or three times that. All uploaded to the server every time you log out, and downloaded every time you log in.
This is more a failure of a design. Since a network workstation does not need a per user web cache. Indeed most of the time the only kind of web cache a workstation really needs is a volatile one anyway.
If you have a high-paid IT person, and that equates to a more reliable network/computer for your users then you have probably saved money, or, better yet, allowed the company to make -MORE- money.
People waiting for their computer to be fixed are not very productive.
EIther because they cannot work, or they cannot work in their usual fashion. (Even if they can do their job without the computer you have completely disrupted their usual method of working. Productivity will drop considerably in most cases).
Actually, the thing you have to remember is that the most often toasted parts of a computer are the power supply and hard drives. If they didn't hardware-raid their hard drives, well, they were dumb. However, they did mention that the computer had a dual-hotswap power supply, so that's not an issue (those things ROCK). As for motherboard and memory, It would be best to have backups, but those only go out every few years, so having active redundant pieces would be wasteful. I've looked into clustering for several applications, and found that it is usually better just to have a big, redundant server, with some spare hardware sitting on the side than to try the failover stuff.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Office working won't kill Linux - just like the fact that Linux is a great server OS doesn't make it a bad desktop OS. One of the big advantages of Linux is its flexibility - it can do everything well, from an embedded OS to an enterprise server running on a mainframe. In fact, getting Linux onto office desktops will help Linux on home desktops - after all, it'll make non-techs (office workers) see that Linux is not "that cryptic command-line OS for experts only".
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Second paragraph, quoting one of the admin assistants:
"...but I like to do it this way on my computer."
'nuff said!
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
I agree with most everything you said. Using Linux is harder than using Windows, and I still don't recommend it to anyone except people who don't mind experimenting and taking a walk on the technical side.
But even though it makes my life a little more complicated (e.g., having to sometimes compile apps, or download dependencies), I still use it out of the very principle you espoused: Windows needs some competition.
To be sure, as much as things have improved, you still have to be a bit of a technical pioneer to want to use Linux, but if nobody takes the first steps and becomes the pioneering early adopters, there will never an alternative to Windows.
Windows may not be ready for the average home desktop yet, but as this article proves, in a corporate environment where there is a support staff to deal with the technical issues, it is possible to use successfully. Yes, at this point in time, in some ways, e.g., applications, it is still more challenging than deploying Windows, but I applaud those companies who are poineering enough to give it a go and make it work. If everybody just takes the easy way out (perhaps even against their principles), we will never see any meaningful competition.
As far as software freedom gos, I personally don't have any problem paying a reasonable price for software, and I think most members of the silent majority don't either; however, commercial competitors to MS have had a difficult time competing. Making software free (either as in beer or speech) removes one of the barriers to get people to use your software. I feel that if Linux had not been free from the get-go, it would never have become as successful as it has -- it's freeness means that is is eclectic, it is not owned by any one entity. At this point in time, this seems to be the only way to even have a chance of competing against MS.
The other thing I disagree with is the Linux user issue. Sure, there are a small minority of users who have an attitude and flame newbies in forums, and certainly this probably causes some newbies to switch back, but by far most of the Linux users I know barely have time in their lives to read slashdot let alone post here, and they are all polite to new users. I believe that there is a vocal minority that does this, and the vast majority of people trying to get Linux ready for prime time (IBM, Sun, HP, Compaq, Linux distro companies, etc., etc.) are well meaning, polite, and helpful.
I have a collegue working for a corporate ISP who use this and run all of their desktops as thin clients under linux (slackware) and win terminal server and it seems to work very well - its not a 100% solution but its stable (they still use MS Office). We looked at this for our environment but decided that with 1500 users its a dog with new flea -, requiring increased bandwidth and server usage and more support on the back end (and more knowledgeable thus more expensive staff in this case - and its hard to quantify skillsets) - but its a step in the right direction.
But unforunately it's not Linux for the corporate desktop, something i am always chasing. What corporates want and need is a Linux distro that is easy to set up, easy for users to cope with, does everything their windows box does and with software that can save in the same formats, ie word, excel (so they can still communicate with the outside world) and which is secure and user friendly as well.
I have looked at a couple of solutions and some of the distros (Red Hat, Corel) are almost there but the back end software isn't there and besided here and many things dependent of the next kernal release etc etc, this may be good for a home machine or a Terminal server implementation but its no good for over 1000 desktop machines.
Stability, Ease of Use, Ease of Rollout and Cheaper support costs - thats what we want, Linux is Stable - (im not talking uptime as this is NOT relevant for a corporate desktop) but not easy to use for beginners, isnt easy to rollout and IMHO the support costs increase even thought its free as the ratio of support staff drops - (i think i read something about it bein 1 support person to 10 staff rather than 1 to 20 for Win)
That said i watch with bated breath praying for the day i can move to a new OS for my corporate desktops and get rid of the MS attitude - i dont hate their products i hate their arrogance.
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
Oh my! :)
.. you never bothered to defend the real victims of the 'dumb as a post' colloqualism - the posts!
.. it's nice to know that KDE has made a dent, and that a substantial number of non-computer-experts like KDE! Cause when it came to knowing the actual impressions of KDE from a dumb-as-a-post non-computer-expert, I was dumb as a post! And it's nice to know the feedback seems to be positive .. this will help other dumb-as-post people learn and hear about KDE in a positive context.
Okay, so here it is. I make salary programming. I'm a programmer. I also write electronic music, and know the underground breaks/jazz scene fairly well. I can only assume you're dumb as a post in this area. I am dumb as a post when it comes to the heavy metal scene.
When it comes to my health, I'm dumb as a post.
When it comes to my legal rights, I'm dumb as a post.
When it comes to fixing my car, I'm dumb as a post.
When it comes to investing, I'm dumb as a post.
When any of the experts of these subjects calls me dumb as a post, I thank them for their knowledge and expertise.
Don't get so wrapped up in the semantics. I only meant to say that these users, when it comes to computers, are DUMB AS POSTS. There's nothing wrong with that, as we're all dumb as posts in some respects.
Dumb as a post wasn't meant to demean or otherwise insult these users; and I certainly don't expect them to be reading this, thus you can't claim I'm tarnishing the image. I only meant to say that when it comes to HR, I'm dumb as a post, and when it comes to an HR person knowing computers, they are dumb as posts. Lighten up and concentrate on the point, not the semantics. If we were always tip-toeing around our words and image, we'd never actually solve the problems that exist.
And hey
Incidentally, I'm not lambasting the peasants here - quite the opposite. I understand that these users don't have the time, interest, or level of knowledge required to properly assess OS and desktop alternatives. That was my point
SirSlud
"Old man yells at systemd"
Well, not completely... in the windows world you can always use roaming profiles and save your crap to a share on a file server.
Problem is that these can easily end up huge. So logging in and out takes a long time. Let alone that logging in on more than one workstation can make a complete "dogs dinner" of the whole thing.
The really daft bit is that Windows could actually work with most (if not all) of the stuff simply staying on the server in the first place...
This story is nothing but mental Linux masturbation. It's an article posted on a Linux oriented website (dot.kde.org), linked to on an admittedly pro-Linux weblog, and being discussed by a group of pro-Linux computer users.
Your post is totally on topic. That's what I love about slashdot, the official blurb didn't mention the potential bias, so you did. The same thing happens with usefull links here too.
Hopefully a (linux) independant news site/paper will pick this up and confirm the numbers and get new quotes, stats, budget figures, and new interview material.
Such an article could be very powerfull once coaberated. Our government agencies occationally need a kick in the butt to resist slothy/financially stupid behavior.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
We all know that the truth is, linux is hard to use for novices, and a good portion of linux users are not inclined to help newbies out. Read a few usenet posts to see this. "Linux is tough to use" is not FUD, it's the ugly truth.
... with xmms she can now listen to hours of music without changing CDs, and some of the other toys in her KDE menu she enjoys playing around with, but in truth her desires were relatively simple.
... not that any rational human being could blame her.
This simply isn't true, and my mother is a perfect case in point. Not terribly computer literate and with no desire to be, she simply wants her email, her web browser, and her word processor. Oh, she was delighted by the Bach, Beethove, and Mozart ogg's I ripped from her CD collection and made available on her hard drive
I bought her a $50 copy of applixware so she could read and write word documents, and guess what? She prefers her GNU/Linux box over her windows box at work by orders of magnitude. In fact, she has become much more zealous in advocating GNU/Linux and disparaging Windows than I ever was. Why? Because she, as a user, has found GNU/Linux to be much easier to use, much more stable, and much faster than her old windows install (to which she has never returned and which now provides additional storage for her burgeoning ogg-vorbis collection as she, herself, rips her own CDs using grip). Indeed, her discovery that it wasn't her, or her "stupidity" that was the root of nearly all of her computer mishaps, but the underlying instability of the operating system itself, has made her positively scathing when speaking of Microsoft. I guess she took Microsoft blaming the shortcomings of their products on her, and the denigration of making her feel stupid in the process, a little personally
GNU/Linux is as easy, if not easier, to use than any version of Windows out there, and as others have pointed out, many GNU/Linux distributions are easier than Windows to set up and install as well.
Yes GNU/Linux is different, and yes, users must be willing to take an hour or two to learn those differences (ie "something new"), but new isn't the same as "difficult" or "tough to use." I spent an hour with my mother showing her the basics of navigating the KDE desktop and the differences between it and Windows, as well as the differences between Applix and MS Office. Again, this wasn't because GNU/Linux is "tough to use," this merely because it was a little different, and therefor new to her. Indeed, according to my mother, Linux is actually easier than Windows to use, so yes, saying GNU/Linux is "tough to use" is FUD in no uncertain terms. Saying "we all know it is tough to use" is adds a whole new level of dishonesty to the discussion, indeed it could be said that such as claim is FUD to the second power.
Now my mom's non-computer savvy friends are bugging me to come and set them up with GNU/Linux as well, so it looks like Microsoft's worst nightmare is in fact slowly coming true: regular, non-savvy Microsoft users are defecting to GNU/Linux in increasing numbers despite all the FUD Microsoft and its shills can possibly muster. Sometimes justice can be poetic.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
And no one gave a crap when we formed in 1995. We are Out of Business now, but we were 100% Linux (a couple of freeBSD servers too) until Oct 2000. :)
My MOTHER uses Linux (Corel) and was happy that she can leave it running for days and no glitches.
My fiance uses Linux (she prefers mandrake) and i have now set her up with a Diskless PC using our network. She had ZERO problems, she is not a computer geek (she's a writer). Our secretaries were told "The icon for yuor browser is here, the icon for the word processor is here", and this was when Linux was still raw! I have been preaching the joy of Linux for years, but I'm talking to deaf ears. The company I work for now was a 100% M$ house..I secretly changed over all the servers to Linux. People were saying how fast the file server was..it shows up in Net Neighborhood SOO fast! Well, this did cause a big problem with management (and the NT admin) because what I did, made their decisions "wrong", and it became a pissing contest. They didnt care that the network is more reliable and i was able to RETURN 5 servers because they were no longer needed. I hurt some egos, so now I am on "indefinite" leave...oh well, The new company I will be working for WANTS a Linux network..maybe i can secretly switch over the user pcs too
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
The other problem I always had when I had a roaming profile is that you have to have the same perfectly vanilla application install everywhere. As soon as you start installing, say, Visual Studio, if it isn't on everyone's desk, roaming profiles are basically worthless
.ADM or .REG file.
The other variation of this is where you get programs which fall over if certain registry keys in the per user section of registry arn't there.
It must have been just too hard for the programmer to use IF...THEN...ELSE when reading paramaters. Or even providing sufficent documentation for a sysadmin to put together a
Biased. Plain and simple.
Granted, Windows is far easier to use than linux. That I will not argue with. Windows is not easy to use. Macs are easy to use. Windows boxen are ubiquitous. They are how the majority of computer users are introduced to computers, and that is a shame. Therefore they are the standard that all computers are compared against.
As for the fact that putting out a linux distro is expensive. Bull crap. Put out something popular on a slow link. If it's popular enough, it will be mirrored. At no cost to you. There are both Apache modules and FTP servers that allow you to specify bandwidth limits. I use both. It costs far less to put up an FTP server and host an ISO image than printing, labeling and distributing CDs.
The moderator that declared your post "Funny" had it right. You make some valid points (Microsoft is finally making some headway in the stability department) but declaring them "best" because they are the biggest is just plain foolish.
I use MS products at work, cause I have to, at home cause the game support isn't there yet for Linux, and never has been for Mac. But neither of these windows boxen are mission critical, or "on the internet" (i.e. each hides behind a firewall).
Each OS has it's strong points. Windows' strongest point is its prevalence.
If I worked there, I would still 0wn all of your files in 10 minutes just by bringing in my trusty old parallel port zip drive. I hope you don't have a false sense of security.
Ahem having to install Over 30 Win2K systems I disagree. Hell I had to ge the drivers for the nic card/video and Sound from the manufacturers while on the same PC (all 30 are identical and have the sticker proclaiming "MADE FOR WINDOWS 2000") model RH7.1 Installed without a fart.
Linux has beaten Windows hands down in the driver arms race... And Microsoft even admits it! check the Hardware Compatibility guide for W2K, it's shorter than the HCG for Linux.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I hope you're not seriously suggesting that VNC or PCAnywhere is a good idea. It's not an application server. You're using *two* computers to get one desktop and nobody else can use either computer at the same time. VNC is how you turn two computers, one of them local, into one computer with the display bottlenecked by the network.
True but misleading. The default place that office 2k takes you when you want to save your files? My Documents. Since this is a folder that's on the desktop, it gets stored in your roaming profile. Every user that I have, and I mean every single one of them, stores their files in "My Documents", and I can see why. Not only is it easy when saving, it's also easy when loading. Guess where office 2k takes you when you choose "File->Open".
The difference between roaming profiles and NFS shares is significant. Specifically, an NFS share only requires the user to send data over the network that they are actually going to use. Everything else just sits on the network server until its needed. But with a roaming profile, the entire profile whether it will be used or not, gets downloaded everytime you log into a computer you haven't used yet. Of course, it gets cached there so that you don't have to do it again the next time. But then when you logout, if you made a change to any part of your profile, the entire profile gets uploaded to the server. Combine this with the fact that Microsoft does darn near everything they can to encourage users to store stuff in their profile, and you end up with roaming profiles being a *huge* drain on the system.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
> The success of linux on the office desktop is irrelevant. What
> really matters is the success of linux on the home desktop.
Not even close. The corporate world spends more by factors than the home market, and so Linux must find its way into the corporate world if it's to get widespread acceptance. I agree that soul-killing business apps aren't the best way to use Linux, but those business apps are a necessary step in the process.
> Sod Linux in the office, it is a stupid idea. Linux on the home
> front is all that matters. The rest follows naturally.
Actually, by history you've got it backwards. Familiarity is what most people aim for in a home PC, not "cool" features. People who got familiar with Windows at work, using lifeless applications, then went out and began buying Windows PCs for home use because it's what they knew. As an example, many users who started out with Macintoshes at home, then worked with Windows PCs, switched to Windows for home systems, for compatibility and familiarity reasons. For this reason, Linux needs to find its way on to the corporate desktop, where users will not be able to choose to avoid it. Then, when their enforced use breeds familiarity, they'll be more comfortable getting it for home use. The increase in home use then drives the demand for the cool features for which you're longing.
Virg
The developers of this setup should have their fingers smashed with mallets... well OK that's a bit extreme, but I mean, really - if this is people's idea of a reference site for deploying Linux... god help us all. *head in hands*
I would mod you down. But not for violating slashdot groupthink. I didn't bother reading most of your comment. I'd mod you down for bitching about how you expected to be modded down. That sort of thing is really lame. If you have something to say, then say it. Don't be a whiny little bitch about it.
One of the guys 'round here was talking about setting his mom up with Linux because previously she'd managed to repeatedly destroy Apple and Intel based systems. So he set her up with Linux, gave her a user ID, and she has no idea that root even exists. He even set her up a "Support" icon that opens a hole in the firewall for him to ssh in and fix things. Sounds like it's been going better. The main problem I can see with this is she can't just go out to CompUSA and buy software, but how often do the folks buy software anyway? Mine pretty much exclusively use what came with their computer. My room mate would have more problems, as she gets games on a regular basis. But that's why God made the Playstation 2, right?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The complaint that Linux is hard to use is not one necissaryly of GUI per se, it's set up. Basic quality assurance questions are hard to answer: What hardware are you going to use? What software are you going to use? Where is that software located? How do you install that software? Where is the software located on the Hardrive after you instal it? How do you get OpenGL to install? Why did it take me 15 minutes to find the PPP dialer? How do you set up a network where hard drives are shared? How do you put things into the menu?
If a sys-admin takes the time to form a planned approach for Linux installs, makes a custom CD for installing the "supported apps", then Linux can be usable. Problem is the Linux approach of shipping not only with the kitchen sink but 10 different kitchen sinks to choose from, all of which are disassembled and in their boxes is not one for newbies.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Of course, having installed all flavors of Windows more times than I can count, I can state unequivocally that many Linux distros are much easier to install than Windows. Have you ever tried to get NT running? It's not exactly easy.
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
We have over 200 staff running Citrix Metaframe on wyse terminals with Win2k Terminal Server on the back end and heres the rub.
Its a great solution BUT
1. Be prepared to increase your bandwidth A LOT - most of these users are on remote sites and we have one here with a 320 k link and 20 staff that is slower than a wet week -Citrix admit (off the record) that runing a full desktop and apps sucks up as much as 32k each desktop
2. Servers - Minimum has to be a dual pentium with a gig of ram - we specced all ours to be quad xeon with 2.5 gb and they work - but the costs hurt
3. No FDDs, no CD roms, Palm Pilots are shit to set up and much of the software doesnt run properly - Flash for one, printer driver unsupported etc etc.
But i agree with the comment on admins - the MCSE as god syndrome has fucked this industry and left us with morons - but dont blame MS for that totally, the training companies and the corporates did it.
I agree lets see an honest comparison
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
Exactly how many novice Windows users do you know? I can't count the number of times I've been asked to fix my girlfriend's parents' computer... usually it's because they got infected with a virus or Windows decided to gut itself. Currently, my mom can't use OE to get her email through MSN. They sent an email to their users a few months ago detailing changes that needed to be made to make it work, but she couldn't figure it out (and I couldn't help her over the phone...). So she's without OE email until I come out for Xmas. (She uses Hotmail as her primary email anyway...)
Office workers are supported, so this issue goes away
Home users are supported too... not "officially", of course, but by someone who "knows computers", so your "totally unsupported" claim is a bunch of bullshit.
To within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff
The 18GB of disk is used for just KDE and not other applications. Those are on other servers. The server could run on far less than 18GB, but you can barely get your hands on smaller drives now. WordPerfect, email and other items that are saved are on the other servers. The 300,000 savings comes from projecting out having about 450 units, and swaping them out on 3 year rotations. 150 per year, budget 2000 each. 3 year upgrade cycles is not 'aggresive', and in fact about 1/3 of your users will be disatisifed with performance in the last year of the user of their machine. While thin clients are 750 dollars, they have a 10 year duty cycle. That comes to 75 dollars a year. A 2000 dollar machine every 3 works out to about 700 dollars a year. Plus you know darn well you have thrown a few extra parts into each of those machines during the 3 years. Some extra RAM, some extra harddrives, etc. The 750 dollar price for a thin client is a sealed terminal, with no moving parts. No extra costs, because nothing is upgraded. I wish as you mentioned that no one here at Largo used email, because it should would make my life easier! ;) In fact, all 800 employees have email and probably 600 of them are heavy users. Around 200-250 users are in email during the day. Email comes from another server, currently GroupWise on OpenServer. This isn't a shop where people just have a few green screen windows open. We have graphical software running all over here, some from NT and most from Unix.
The price quoted for Exchange is accurate, and perhaps could go higher. Everyone forgets that you have to start up the Win32 *client* software on NT then too in order to use it. It isn't just bringing up Exchange, its bringing up 250 concurrent Outlook sessions too on WTS. That means 800 NT logins, CALs. Centralized NT doesn't hold as many users, so then we have to bring up clustering, and *hope* we can run 50 users per server....and run 7 servers just to provide Outlook. Instead, using Bynari/Insight the server AND gui Client will all be brought up on the same machine. The post office will deliver email, and the 200-250 clients will all run on the one machine. The cost savings is high, along with much better stability.
Anyone that doubts this model is welcome to fly to Florida, we would be happy to give you a tour! ;)
If Linux were pre-installed like Windows, this wouldn't be an issue.
Guess what corporate admins tend to do with Windows OEM installs... The only people who actually tend to use these setups are the home/hobby group. Even then OEM installs can be sub optimal, especially for users outside the USA.
I guess I don't understand what you're getting at then. If your point is that using a computer is easier for someone who has an admin working for them than for someone who doesn't, you're right, but that's not really OS-specific. Are you trying to say that this case study doesn't prove that Linux is a good home desktop system? If so, you're right, it doesn't prove that, but I don't think anyone is trying to say that it does. The point of the study is that Linux is a great choice for large organizations with office-type requirements.
True enough. But if it the self-extracting exe does fail, you're SOL. No amount of googlizing can save you. And you can do that in Linux (e.g. Mozilla's installer), just most non-commercial app developers don't. And then there's the ever-popular "Remove Program" option, which usually doesn't remove everything. But again, this is tangential to the original point of the story, which is that Linux is easier to set up and admin for a large office organization.
Proof once again that self-deprecation gets you nowhere on Slashdot. :)
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
The joys of having the entire contents of your "My Documents (and others) folder copied to every machine you ever sit down at, even if all you need to do is send a quick email.
IMHO, the best way to provide corporate desktop computers is to buy hundreds of identical boxes, find the optimal installation for Linux and required applications, and then clone that configuration.
:)
Remember than Linux and Windows have different ideas of "identical". Simply having PCI cards in a different order is sufficent to be considered different by Windows.
so in Linux you'll spend hours on each one downloading drivers, setting up the configuration, etc. Windows pretty much requires the same time if you install it yourself and bother doing it right
IME this happens far more often with Windows than Linux anyway
but when you buy pre-configured boxen, it certainly looks like you've saved all that labor
Except you havn't because it ends up taking twice as long to hammer the OEM install into something you can connect to the network and have a reasonable chance of working than it would to have done it from scratch
Tim
The story says how the admins like being able to do software installation and maintenance centrally instead of having to run around to 400 Windows(TM) boxes.
;-)
In process interrupting the work of 400 people...
Which in turn leaves them time to help out the average Joe User with his/hers problems. Installation shouldn't be left to Joe anyways.
Actually it goes further, in that it shouldn't even be possible for Joe to install anything.
Of course this only works in a office-setting as the one described.
Which is a very large chunk of computer usage anyway
Guess most people can't afford a sysadmin at home
In this situation they might be called "relatives" or "friends"...
Linux is hard to admin, but I have friends that walked in and use my compter with no problems, they can barely use windows. (OK, I have Enlightenment and virtual desktops so they were shocked when their windo scrolled off the screen)
Its hard for a computer admin (I.E. for home computers), but not for the end user. KDE, QVWM and the like offer a comfortable (ugly) windows-alike appearence so anyone can do their daily chores. They dont have to install software,set up dial up networking or anything in the office, they justhave to write the letter. Once linux is set u there is no problems. Different permissions for different users (i.e. users, root etc) mean thatit is less likely to need re-installing every few months.
As for the "elite linux user" crowd, they dont want to be bothered by peope asking "where is my start button" for the 5th time that day. Sites like www.linuxjunior.org are the places to go to for that sort of help.
I've been using linux exclusivly for 6 months, and using it as my main OS for 18 months, yet I have only just ventured into some of the more technical mailing lists. It was 6 months before I understood HOWTO's, but NHF's, PETS and helpful people on newbie discussion boards (LJR, LNO), got me on the right track.
It's a big hurdle though. Every bit helps.
If Openoffice gets up to speed, the transition will be even easier.
The story about how Mexico was going to deploy Linux in all their schools everywhere...
/. should revisit this city a year or two later when the current support tech leaves and find out if the decision to use Linux is still in place.
Followed up a year later by another story stating that never happened because Linux was too hard to use.
I say
Unfortunately, I have to agree with this. I work for a retail chain that has installed Linux systems in all our (350+) stores. Mostly they run our custom app, but fire up KDE to get their email from the corporate center. When someone sends them a MSWord document, they can read it by just clicking on the attachment, which fires up StarOffice.
The problem is, StarOffice takes *forever* (and a day) to start up! I mean, 30+ seconds is not unusual. So what happens is impatient people at the store click on it half-a-dozen times, which - several minutes later - brings up half-a-dozen instances of SO.
I'm trying to get them to swtich from SO to something that starts up almost instantly (AbiWord or KWord), but they're reluctant to change (needless to say, I came on board after it was too late to get them to install something that would actually work...)
On the other hand, "good enough" and FREE is a darned good deal. And if you've worked MS systems long enough, you'll find "good enough" and never crashes PRICELESS.
BTW, any administrator that lets users install their own software is a moron
Except that if the users have Windows boxes sat in front of them then stopping them installing software can be very difficult.
Roaming profile... oh no, deja-vu.. nightmares...
Seriously though, I was administrating a company which all users had roaming profile - and it's a PAIN in the ass if a user move from one machine to another - you simple have to wait until of his desktop will be copied from the server - sometimes is few megabyes, but some heavy users have gigabytes of data to move...
On Linux/Unix it's different - nfs mount, finished...
Hetz (Heunique)
I'm glad to see that Largo is showing originality, courage, and technical savvy by going with Linux.
Of course, the company I'm part of has rejected Linux and Unix completely; they're too scared to get into a market that the top brass doesn't understand. Our company can't expand into new markets because those markets use Solaris/Linux for heavy-metal processing. SO they stay in their nice, safe (?) niche, too frightened to take a risk on the future. The support staff doesn't want to learn Unix (they hate it without really knowing it), and the owner is enamoured of anything Microsoft. Ah, well -- they pay me well and don't restrict my outside activities, so I can afford to do the right thing on my own time...
A side note: I hadn't heard about this before -- which tells you how much I know about what's going on in my own area; I'm in Clearwater, which is adjacent to Largo.
Geographical note for those who care: Pinellas County Florida is just one big city from St. Petersberg to Tarpon Springs, covering a peninsula on the Gulf Coast of Florida. You can find Largo just north of St. Petersberg, and just south of the Scientologyville --- err, I mean Clearwater. ;)
All about me
we all note that you use the euphemism "an appropriate place" instead of saying something simple like "in your home directory". You do this because there is no appropriate place in Windows. It depends on the app, and the apps are overwhelmingly not designed for multiple users.
I've worked at several places where all work grinds to a halt because everything is nfs mounted and there are network problems; problems I've never had with roaming profiles.
lemme see... nfs is screwed up because the net is down, but windows shares are not screwed up because the net is down. This could only happen or is only believable, like you said, "if you are an idiot". Because, like you said, "How is an nfs mounted home directory any different from a windows share that gets mounted with the user logs in?"
Legitimately, you should brag about the things Microsoft products are good at. But networking is not one of them. To brag about MS Windows in an network environment is to show that you don't know anything about the alternatives.
But in any case, read the rest of the threads here so you can learn that the benefits of running X Windows have nothing to do with the benefits of NFS.
Where the network admins get involved is usually when it comes to interfacing with the main databases. With 400 seats, you _need_ a database system that makes MS Access look like a toy. (And I speak as one who has attempted to take Access right up to the limits MS admits to...) So unless you've somehow managed to put your whole database onto a IExplorer-compatible website, you are going to have to install a database client on each machine. The front-end one I'm familiar with (for a Progress database running in Unix) is a one-floppy disk 5-minute install, which is a heck of a lot easier than installing Win or Linux.
IMHO, the best way to provide corporate desktop computers is to buy hundreds of identical boxes, find the optimal installation for Linux and required applications, and then clone that configuration. But if they won't give you the budget to buy computers and put them in the closet until needed, then you wind up ordering one at a time for new hires or to replace broken down machines; almost every !@#$% machine is different (at least from lowest-bidder sources), so in Linux you'll spend hours on each one downloading drivers, setting up the configuration, etc. Windows pretty much requires the same time if you install it yourself and bother doing it right, but when you buy pre-configured boxen, it certainly looks like you've saved all that labor -- except for the six times that box is going to crash or catch a virus and have to be re-installed, but that cost comes later, and management isn't going to add it up and realize that buying the alleged industry standard was really boneheaded...
Funny that, didn't realize that you're running in 640x480 mode. I'd suggest that a better idea is to have the little text-boxes set to wrap=physical which means that it'll wrap at the end of the box, regardless of the size of your screen.
/.tters usually tear down MS at every opportunity. They take things that show how MS is decent, find one tiny little discrepency in the post, and use that to tear them down. Then they'll take a post about how linux has something wrong, and just say "Hey, not a big deal. Look at how everything else is good!" Pot and kettle guys... You'll notice that I was also Pro-Linux in that posting as well. I like linux, but unfortunately it just isn't where it needs to be right now to be a mainstream OS.
BTW - I've been an admin here for 2 years, and at most companies that I have been at before that, and most other companies that I know right now, give users "Local Admin" access on their own machines so that when they want to install their own CuteFTP or ICQ or anything they don't have to come yelling to me. It saves me and my team a lot of time. The basic deal is this: you get admin access, and if you fuck things up, all that we will do is swap your hard drive with one with a fresh install on it, and that's it. Takes us 5 minutes if they seriously fuck up their machine (which rarely happens), and if they're spending too much time dicking around themselves their managers will usually find out and yell at them. In either case, it saves us a lot of time in the long run. And, if you know anything about PCs, giving someone physical access to a machine means that they have admin access. Plain and simple. Give me physical access to (just about) any machine running any OS and I can get admin access, not a very difficult task. Sure, it is possible to tie down machines so tight that you can't get in, even with physical access, but it's simply not worth the hassle. So I am not "full of shit", and, by your response, I can see that you've never been an admin.
And the facts are, as you so quaintly put it, very simple, yes. Largo is using thin clients and in an environment where using something like linux is not a problem. They don't have complicated requirements, and their hardware is limited, so yes, a low-requirement OS with a few apps is all that they need. Try asking a large company that needs all those complicated applications and diversity to use linux, in which the applications aren't there, and you'll find it's not an easy feat.
And if you think I talk to much, don't read my posts!
And my post is only Pro-microsoft because
If God gave us curiosity
After much look at WinCE devices as terminal systems in our remote offices I was finally able to convince them to give the Netier xl1000 a try. It not only met all the requirements that the CE device could not but it exceeded them in many areas. They are in deployment right now.
Once that upgrade is done the main offices will move to staroffice and linux later in the upgrade cycles.
Admitidly the Linux upgrade is planned pretty far off in the future. But it's still a move in the right direction.
The article was indeed preaching the glories of Linux. That's fine, however it's done using half truths (that's half lies for the pessimists among us) instead of the actual great benefits. Some examples:
"If Largo ran Windows 2000 as a server operating system, Dave says they'd have to run "a substantial server cluster" instead of a single machine, because "NT [or 2000] gets flaky when you run more than 40 clients, while Linux can handle hundreds." Dave has no exact figure for the cost of of an adequate Windows server array for Largo's civic needs; it was obviously so much more expensive than the Linux alternative that it was never seriously considered."
Half true. I've been using DOS/Windows for years... these guys were running SCO back in 1992. Linux is an understandable (and smart) upgrade path for them, it's familiar and it's compatible. More importantly, they were already familiar with it. However their comparisons to Windows based solutions make me wonder - being relatively new to Linux I'm sure I'd assume things fed to me by popular culture or the media if I was trying to plan a comparable solution. They're right about cost - a Windows based solution to do the same thing is rediculously expensive. It's not however terminally buggy. I personally run Windows 2000 Pro on all but one of my computers - they don't crash... ever. Neither do our NT4 or 2000 servers at work (all 6 of them). Then again, neither does my Linux box.
If they wanted to run a Terminal Services environment under 2000 with MetaFrame (for sound, true color, etc.) they could pull it off on that same server - with the same thin clients. This document (MS word... sorry) discusses Terminal Services capacity planning - you might want to look here for a rough comparison between the processor speeds in the whitepaper and those used in the article (a few quick calculations show a P-III 933 to be about twice as fast as a P-III 450, of course these are highly subjective benchmarks). Needless to say, they should be clustering under either OS for redundancy, not because of an hypothetically unstable configuration. Server crashes, whether Linux or Windows, generally involve rebooting or restarting services. However what happens when your hardware fails on the single machine supporting 800 users?
"Their 10-person IT staff supports 800 users running 400 devices (as Dave calls the thin clients). There is no way they could adequately support that many users and devices with such a small staff if they ran Windows on individual desktops. Dave says that if they had gone that route, "We'd be doing nothing but running around fixing PCs all day."
This is absolutely rediculous. We have 2 people (and 2 more who spend about 5 hours a week each doing IS work) dedicated to supporting about 175 users in 3 offices, all running Windows PCs, mostly 98. Our servers almost universally run NT4. Management hasn't had a single complaint in over 4 months. Email, websites, printers, etc. run without a hitch. If we wanted to make our lives easier - we could always deploy Windows 2000 and deny local administrator to the user of the PC. So long webshots!
Don't get me wrong - I don't have a problem with Linux. We use it at work for our firewalls, because of the low hardware requirements and the complete superiority of IPChains over MS Proxy server at the time we made the decision. I use it at home for my second PC because I want to learn more about it. However I do have a problem when an OS is touted as the only reasonable solution - when it's not. Linux may be the best way to go for these guys, if so please tell us the real reasons, like the cost benefits (familiarity, lower initial cost, etc).
My 2 cents.
I can't speak for their applications, but from a pure UI point of view KDE and Win95/98 are very similar. Instead of a start button, there's a K. Menus are menus, you navigate through them the same. Running programs in the bar at the bottom, clock in lower-right corner. Upper-right X in window closes it. Other than that any differences are in the apps they use, not KDE.
Developers: We can use your help.
It's not the time involved waiting for the reboot, it's the time involved sitting at the computer watching it so I can reboot it when it needs it. It's a total waste of my time because I have to pay a lot more attention to a Windows install than a Linux install. I can do other things while it copies binaries of the disc./p.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Every progression in the level of automation in our lives is always accompanied by fear and uncertainy among the people the automation replaces. Automation always increases the standard of living of the average american, and drives up productivity. True some people lose jobs, but it's usually for the better. I think it's a good thing we dont have to hire people to draw out schematics for production facilities anymore (replaced by CAD/CAM tools).
So if you are living off of proprietary software lock-in in a product that has equivalents that exist for free with no strings attatched, then I think it's better for humanity that you find another line of work in the same field (software development). You may not be making as much money, but so will the rest of humanity not be paying as much money to keep your counter-productive enterprise going.
Answer: "Email the file to yourself."
These people seem to sort of be the poster children for why linux can be used on the desktop.
I don't get it. I've always done this in windows too. Used zipdisks for big files I didn't want to fill my mailbox with. Didn't have to mount and umount the disk either.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I use to work as a tech in a fashion company for about 2k users and boy does windows suck. I just run into the same problems over and over again and only one out of 6 calls at the most dealt with a hardware issue. I still remember how to use ghost-image by heart because its the only way to deal with really screwed up workstations that a ms-office reinstall won't fix.
Anyway, according to the gartner group the average bussiness desktop costs 11k per desktop. Not for the price of the office software/windows and the computer per say but due to support. I assume the TCO for a linux $1,500 workstation would be probably only 6 or 7k. I assume the extra 5k is for servers and networking costs that need to be maintained. Multiple the 6k savings per user for 2,000 users is 12million over a 2 year life span for each machine. That is some serious savings.
http://saveie6.com/
I wish I had moderator points today so I could mod this parent up, but I don't, so I'll just corroborate. Certainly, if the original post deserved a 4 (despite the fact that it was basically a troll), then the parent of this deserves at least the same.
I get LOTS of work done using XFce as my desktop, as much as anyone who uses KDE or GNOME, and it has fewer features (and less bloat) than either GNOME or KDE. Most of the work gets done in the applications, not in the desktop anyway.
In addition, my 12-year-old son has begun using Linux without any particular preconceived bias, and to my surprise, he has chosen FVWM! And guess what -- he gets all his work done! Imagine that, and he's not even using KDE!
Everyone has preferences, and there's nothing wrong with that. KDE looks and feels more like Windows than the other DEs, which might make it a good choice for recent Windows converts; but there are now several modern DEs out there, and to say that you can't get as much "work" done in them is simply false.
I once upgraded GroupWise 4.1 to GroupWise 5.0. We figured we could bring people in to the classroom, show them the new frontend, show them how all the detail screens were exactly the same, and we'd be done in an hour.
Instead, we had people who had been using GW4.1 for over a year, who completely forgot how to do anything. They had to be retrained on every single feature in the whole package, even though only one screen had changed.
And over three years after having moved from WordPerfect 5.1 on Windows 3.1 to WP7 on Win95, we still had people saying they could work faster with the old system, and in fact why couldn't we go back to the old DOS network; that one never went down.
The point is, for the people who only memorize their keyboard shortcuts and mouse clicks they need to get through the day, they're going to need to be retrained for W2K anyway. And for Office. And for the new versions of every app they use. So why not train them on something better, instead?
And just so I don't have to address the hardware issues in another post, at that same job we had 200 new computers come in on one order, all with the same specs, supposedly identical. But the video cards and NICs and a few other things weren't all identical. We ended up having 7 ghost images to get everything working. Add in the older machines we were still using, plus the next shipment that came in, and we ended up with a library of over two dozen system images, just to try to get everyone to the same desktop.
If the only thing we needed to get working was a network connection, the OS booted from the network, and everything ran from the server, this would have been much easier. But this isn't just an argument in favor of network computing. According to the article, a single Linux server was able to handle the entire city. Doing this with Windows would have required a server farm. You then end up with the maintnence issues of trying to keep the server farm synchronized.
The fact that Linux is designed from the beginning as a multi-user system is what makes network computing feasible. This allows sysadmins to run applications from wherever they make sense. Give developers boxes with some horsepower to run their tools locally, but run the office productivity apps on the server. Give secreteries thin clients and run everything from the server. Give road warriers laptops that boot to the network and run a scripted apt-get from the local server to keep everything up-to-date.
Most of this is probably possible with Windows, but the last time I worked in a Windows shop (just last year) it would have been all-custom and prohibitively expensive.
Nope, no sig
This is not a "special case," but one that could easily be duplicated in almost any government or business office environment that runs enough desktops to have its own sysadmins -- or at least a contract with a Linux-hip outside contractor -- to take care of the network.
My wife has worked in more than a few government and commercial office environments that ran Windows, and they *always* had a separate IT or network support staff to take care of the computers. She wasn't supposed to add software or even mess with the things at all. In fact, in her last "real" job, doing customer support for a pager company, the biggest office computer network problem they had was employees bringing in software (especially games) from home and installing them on their own. Often the self-installed software screwed things up like mad.
Running a client/server network completely eliminates this problem. It also makes updating productivity apps a lot easier for the sysadmins.
- Robin
Using VNC or any of the other virtual terminal software is nowhere near the same as simply logging in and seeing your desktop and your files come up in your session. That's something that's almost exclusive to the Unix/Linux world.
"Ummm...yeeaaahhh...if you could come in on saturday and ummmm...recompile the kernel with the latest USB patches so that your scanner will work...ummmmm...yeahh...that'd be great. Ummm...I'm also gonna need you to come into the office on Sunday too...yeeahh...you gotta get Linux printing Pantone colours to that Winprinter over there...yeaahh...that'd be great too. Oh...and don't forget those TPC coversheets! When you've figured out how to make Linux print as well as Windows, go print yourself out a dozen copies. Grrreeeaattt!"
Those old IBM keyboards are awsome. They stand up to a lot of wear and tear. If the quality of the keyboards on the terminals meet these standards, then they may last 10 years. Monitor's are a different story. I seriously doubt you used your 17" monitor 5 days a week for most of the day. If you did, it's very likely out of focus and the phosphor is getting burned out. I have a six year old 17" monitor that I still use. I have some monitor's at work that are over 5 years old that still don't look to bad, but they are the exception, not the rule. Well before you reach 10 years, the cost of repairs and upkeep on these terminals will exceed their value. Sure some of them will still work. I've got a VT100 terminal that's well over 10 years old that still works fine. The display is a little burned in, but I work fine for what I use it for. It's also the one of two working ones out of about a dozen that were purchased at the time. It will likely see limited use for years to come.
The goal is very simple. It's about enabling me to do what I want to with my computer. I don't share a desktop machine with anyone else and don't need to. I doubt too many other people do either.
And no, there was no tweaking involved at all. These things work right out of the box. And anytime I am in a coworkers office and want to check on my mail status, etc, I can simply term serve into my desktop and check it. No special configuration etc. required. All you need is for Terminal Services Client to be installed - which is installed by default in XP. And all you need on the desktop you're connecting to is Terminal Services Server. Installed by default on Win2K Server, Whistler Server and XP Professional. (Not enabled by default on XP Professional but that's just one option to check.)
So I don't care whether it satisfies some exotic scenarios that no one uses. It does satisfy what _I_ want to do and what almost every one of my coworkers seem to want.
Mmmm.. Donuts
The reason is that Windows is non-multi user so the only way to run multiple users on a single physicle box is to instantiate Windows per user.
I agree the whole formatted cut and paste is nice - but it can also be a PIA. Like when I cut and paste something from the web into an email (friends don't let friends send HTML mail) I mean it gets converted anyway - but I like seeing my email in true form before they get sent.
It would be nice to have somethign like Ctrl-Shift-V or something do the paste WITHOUT all the formatting!
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
As an added benefit, under a non-MS system you don't need to deal with the 20 irritating "utilities" that get installed with, say, a SoundBlaster card. Apparently it's not worth the trouble to port them.
MacOS is still untouched for ease of installation (boot from CD, hit OK a couple of times and go get some coffee). But from what I saw, Mandrake has Windows beat, at least for someone unfamiliar with the quirks of a Windows install.
Then use SMB networking instead... doh... the network is down..
.xinitrc) hoping to hell most of the machines on the network are kind of the same. Then grep them out when you log off and create a new tarball and send it to your server via the most congested network in the building.
Seriously, if everyone is not using the Desktop to store work and are storing their work in an appropriate network drive... uh... the network is down...
Anyway, network seem to go down less often these days.
OK, how about someone writes NT profiles for Linux? I suggest a monsterous shell script to download a tarball of a user's home directory that uses sed and awk to dynamically edit the system files (.bashrc,
More seriously, how about caching the home directory? You could do it, but I'd rather spend the effort putting in a better network.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Sorry dude, but that's COMPLETE BULLSHIT. I was a member of a nine-person team (and I was the developer, and one other was the IT manager) who supported >350 management consultants on *Windows 95*. These are your worst-luser-from-hell nightmare types: demanding (and of course getting) the right to install whatever the hell they wanted, saving multiple copies of 500Mb Access databases "for backups" (of course the file servers were backed up daily), screaming blue murder whenever anything didn't work *just so*. It wasn't much fun, but we did it. So who's FUDding now?
I find it really depressing to find the "good guys" - Roblimo and the general Salshdot population - are, as many people have pointed out, just as happy to resort to knee-jerk FUD, myths and downright lies to support Linux and Free software. Free software is Free as in speech, and that's all that should matter. Trying to claim it's more secure or easier to use is a feeble attempt to gild the lily and the temptation should be resisted at all costs. IMHO :)
Another list to do one day - Open Source FUD myths of our time, starting with "Apache runs more of the web than IIS" and taking all those other pathetic lies about X Windows, Gnome, the joy of the CLI, the "many eyes == shallow bugs == all open software is secure and bug free" nonsense... Pardon my ranting, it's been an exasperating day all round. Just "-1, flamebait" me as usual when someone points out some errors...
Well, not completely... in the windows world you can always use roaming profiles and save your crap to a share on a file server. If you want total thin client, there's terminal services and citrix.
I just had to shove Windows 2000 down the throats of my sales force. Transition from NT4.0. You should have heard the bitching/whining/crying/demands/etc... It doesnt matter what you put in front of them, they will piss-and-moan if it is different in any way. (Hell 2 years ago when I got here and made NT4.0 erase the login-name from the login screen for security they tied to hang me!) Changeing them to KDE or Gnome is no harder than any other change. In fact the Linux change will make the admin's life a dream. (No more idiots installing software that makes the system unstable!!! Damned AOL on NT!)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I have set up win95 machines to boot without gui. In fact, tis jsut a simple setting in a human readable text file.
Yeah -- really. But you know what? There are a large number of Linux users out there who, in having spent so much time learning Linux, that they've learned almost nothing about Windows.
They assume just because THEY don't know how to set it up to be stable that it can't be done. And they assume that just because THEY haven't seen it do something, that it absolutely can not do it. The fact is, most of them haven't got a damned clue what Windows can and can not do. They only know that most configurations tend to crash.
I'm more impressed with a user who has managed to tidy up a Windows machine than I am a user who has 6 months of uptime on a Unix box. I know which one is harder to do.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
One thing to remember is that people at the non-geek level will find any computer not so easy to use at any level. If you're actually interested in what goes on, Linux might be a little harder to get going in, but these are office workers here. What the need to know is how start up, customize a desktop, run apps, access files, and use their apps. From that point, KDE is a whiz. I recently changed my desktop to a not so recent version of KDE and was amazed at how far the Linux users interfaces have come along over the years. This is something that no office worker should have a hard time learning.
The major flaw form the novice geek view is changing configurations on the fly. That still messes me up. Other than that, the installs are reeze these days, and the other big merit is consistent behavior. I can log into my linux box and be assured that it'll run the same it did yesterday. I cannot say that for my windows machine.
That was easy to do in a university I went to. Unsecured ethernet lines, all I . . . *ahem* THE INTRUDER had to do was camp overnight in a broom closet with a single ethernet cable running above the ceiling. The intruder spliced the line, inserted a hub, and put in a throwaway laptop (an old Dell 486/50). That puppy in promiscuous mode was all that was needed to get every single password sent to the old VAX that ran the grade/enrollment system. As far as I know, the system is still there. Oh, and the BIOS being locked out? You can easily reset the CMOS with a minor amount of tweaking. If you want to go sneakers, it can usually be done without even opening the case. I'm not impressed.
funny munging
This article - a bona-fide, user-level Linux success story (that also gives deserved kudos to some very cool sysadmins) is on NewsForge and Slashdot so readers can print it out and hand it to their bosses, and taxpayers can send it their elected officials. In other words, this is an advocacy tool for *you* to use, not direct advocacy by *me*.
:)
WSJ and NYT and other media have reporters that routinely read Slashdot and, increasingly, NewsForge (Hi Lee, John, and everyone!) and use us as a source of story leads. If they think saving tax money by using Linux will make a story worth writing, they'll write it.
Remember, the vast majority of my writing *must* go on NewsForge or Slashdot because I work for OSDN. Yes, it's as strange to me as it is to you, but they *pay* me for this stuff.
Now, about external advocacy...
If The Washington Post's tech editor (Hi Rob) or any other general-circulation publication's editors wanted me to write a freelance piece about how Largo's Linux use is saving tax money -- or any other Linux topic, I'd be happy to take on the assignment. I've written Linux advocacy pieces for both The Washington Post and Baltimore Sun in the past, you know.
I have also been doing more F2F Linux "outreach" advocacy lately, mostly speaking to non-Linux groups. This is the bulk of my public speaking these days, and is a major reason you don't see me speaking at Linux shows, which I feel have plenty of speakers already, most of whom know more than I do. My big speaking schtick is showing non-Linux people how easy it is to use Linux for common office tasks by plugging my (Linux) laptop into a digital projector and showing how to *do* instead of just talking.
Sadly, I can't do much outside writing between now and the end of September. I'm on a book deadline, and it's *not* a Linux book (title = "Build Profits Online") although it has a fair amount of Linux and Open Source advocacy in it. Once that manuscript is finished I'll have a little more time available to write "side" freelance stories about Linux (or whatever).
Thanks for reading,
- Robin
As I read the articles I started out very skeptical, went on to be very impressed, and ended up pretty skeptical again.
It sounds like the system definately meets the City's needs, but it also seems like the Newsforge article is trying to overstate what those needs are. Lets look at the system specs.
400 Clients (800 Users)
Dual 933MHz system
3GB of Memory
18GB Hard Drive Space
Peak of about 230 concurrent users (from the first article)
Each concurrent user gets 11 to 12MB of system memory in which to work. They stated that they designed the system so they didn't have to hit the swap space. The 18 GB of hard drive space needs to be split between the OS application software and user storage space. Some users will need less space than others, so lets just ignore the space for the software and divide the total by the number of users. 18 GB/800 users = roughly 22.5 MB. How many people can here can honestly say that they don't have more space than that used for their email. The numbers tell me that the secretary they interviewed that was using Word Perfect, and email at the same time was one of their power users. I wouldn't be surprised if several hundred of their users don't even know how to access their email.
The big question is, so what? It's still a real system, that's meeting real users needs. The problem I have is that the article goes on to make tons of apples to oranges comparrisons.
It compares the cost of a thin client system in which users have very limited needs to a system with Windows desktops for everyone. How about Windows Terminal Server or other solutions that are more similar. I just don't buy the $300,000 a year hardware savings either. THese users have very limited needs, they don't need a new computer every year and a half, and $300,000 / 400 = $750 a year. Even if your buying new systems with monitors, that's way too much. $400,000 or $500,000 to run Exchange for their user base? Bullshit. I'm not saying that a Microsoft solution is cost effective, or even better excluding costs. It sounds like they found an exelent solution to their needs. The Sourceforge article however was too full of FUD to have much credibility.
Yeah, I know its a troll but I have to bite...
Where is our DirectX, our Cakewalk, our Quake III?
DirectX - Mesa
Cakewalk - not a musical guy myself but I'm told there are some good midi sequencers out there.
Quake III - Quake III. Sheesh... cant you use a search engine? Here's a tip... www.lokigames.com - you can even use your windows Q3 cd with the download!
If anyone had bothered to read the article, they'd see that this was a major victory for... X-Windows. Maybe. Basically, they've moved all the applications onto a central server which happens to be running Linux. The rest of the clients are running some sort of "thin client," and pull the information off the core server. Wowee, KDE instead of CDE. Most of the actual applications, though, are proprietary - WordPerfect, Inprise, and other commercial applications, some of them running on another server running a commerical OS.
So for the actual work, OSS loses yet again and the useful applications are all being written by companies. What a victory for Linux and the Open Source Army! In reality, it's a win for ASP-type services.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
The idea that you could see "your" desktop from another workstation is just a dream in the Windows world.
Ummm.. no. Have you ever used Terminal Services? I carry my laptop to meetings with me and term serve into my desktop (running windows XP). I have the choice to login in a new session or (the one I choose) to login as console. I am then connected to my desktop as I left it on the machine - with all the windows, etc. open just as I left them. I see "my" desktop from any machine on a network.
Mmmm.. Donuts
But most people don't need or care about having multiple users use a single machine simultaneously. Terminal Services allows me to access MY desktop wherever I am. That's what it's intended for, that's what it does and that's what I want and need it to do.
Mmmm.. Donuts
That works great for text. But it doesn't retain formatting information if I copy from Konqueror and paste into KWord. Just as a "for instance" I can do this from MSIE to MS Word-- with all formatting table structures, even hyperlinks in place. Is the situation better with GNOME, or any other desktop environment on Unix/Linux?
:)
I'm not naysaying... most of what we are constantly hearing the parrots say is "essential" for Linux to gain desktop acceptance is nonsense. Even my example is unlikely to be a common need. I've never done it except for testing it, nor seen anyone else do it. I also managed to crash MS Word during my simple test of that feature, so it may not be so useful anyway.
For general, typical office use, any GUI requires training and learning, and the curve for KDE or GNOME is no steeper than for Windows. And most of the "essential", advanced features MS Office provides have little to no benefit, since most users do not have the time or inclination to learn them (and if they do, they often have a peer group which isn't going to be keeping up, making the use of the feature largely useless).
I do not have a signature
So, if the something I want is not just a document, but the app that created it, I have to install the app on my desktop? And then Windows will not only launch it, but use the application settings from the registry on the other machine... are you seeing the problem yet? the various ad hoc one-size-must-fit-somebody solutions you Windows guys kluge up just don't solve the problem. Do you argue so hard because you can't believe that Windows can't do something, or because you simply don't understand the problem?
Ok, I'll accept that.
Linux isn't hard to use. It's a pain in the ass if you screw with it for fun. But it isn't hard for most users. They just need Email, a Word processor and solitair.
And those run just fine.
While the article definately has a Linux vs Windows angle to it (and you have to admit, it's hard to talk about one being deployed without considering the effects the other one may have had, had it been deployed), I'm simply more interested in hearing secretaries extoll the virtues of KDE.
...
While this issue has been in full-fledged war mode for years, I think *nix proponants such as myself would have far more success focusing on the suitability and usability of KDE and Gnome than always boiling it down to a Xwindows vs Windows debate. Sure, Windows does the job, I run it at home; but if this article proves that End User X, dumb as a post, doesn't mind KDE (I'd use it daily if my audio-apps ran in *nix), force it on em! Well, at least in situations where it's my tax dollar
Of course, the long term upside is that newbies 'n average users would finally have some variety in their computing experience before they blindly pledge allegience to the only OS they see commercials for; thus helping solidify *nix and KDE/Gnome as a viable platform for the Everyday Joe in the minds of the consumer.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I think the real reasons more businesses haven't yet switched to Free operating systems are really a lot more complicated than "is it easy?" although that's part of it.
... we get used to things. I'm used to getting fish sandwiches at McDonalds -- I know there are better things to eat in the world, better uses for my food dollar, etc, but often, quick, easy, imperfect wins out. Knowing better alternatives is only enough when the perceived benefit it great enough to overcome the additional effort to obtain them ... in the case of Largo FL, that effort was clearly worth it! If it's not for a particular business, then ... ... it's not. I tend to think that people in my employ (government) promoting my general welfar have a greater obligation if not demonstrated ability to steward my money, and thus to damn well *perceive* that additional benefit with all their heart and all their might.
..." the listener hears only "DIFFERENT, THEREFORE BAD." The vague feeling of normalcy one gets from booting up a commerical operating system with a famous name, like buying a car with a known name, is one that a lot of business buyers seem to find valuable.
a) Current applications -- check out other responses in this thread. A lot of people have businesses that are tightly tied to Microsoft Windows and even to Microsoft Office (which some apps rely on as the printing system for generating reports, say).
b) Inertia -- "this has always worked before, and I don't like change" may not be on any corporate mission statement, but that goes to show you how much those worthless pieces of dreck really mean. Mission statements --BBLLEEEAAHHHHCCCHH. But it's true (I assert) that inertia is as great a force affecting human behavior as greed or even horniness is. Change involves risk and effort, invites attention to the changer
c) Ineffables -- which I think mostly are really sub-reasons for b). Many people have come to believe that certain multiple-key combinations are somehow intuitive, because evidently they were born with fingers poking at odd angles or something. So if someone says "Well, this system does basically the same thing your old one did, but in a slightly different fashion
Rationality is complicated.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
Sweet!
They can have all the eye-candy disguised as ease of use they want on their home computers.
:)
Erm, eyecandy? Ever been to themes.org? Ever run xplanet? Ever run Enlightenment with the ripple effect?
Linux has much more eyecandy available then windows
BTW, plenty of good points there too!
Linux and Windows NT are equally easy to use on the desktop after the sysadmin has set up the network and provided the users with a graphic desktop that they log into and don't have to worry about anything else besides their work. However, on a single pc basis if there is no sysadmin and the user has to do all the admin themselves then Linux is a lot harder to use than Windows. Most people never have to use advanced command line operations in Windows, they never have to configure programs by editing text files by hand and they never have to compile anything. On another note, the term hard to use could be used in different ways and a lot of times hard to used is confused with hard to learn. For example linux using command line may be hard to learn in the first place, but it is a lot easier to type a few commands to do an admin job than go through countless clicks and menu choices. Shifting a pile of huge stones from one place to another is hard to do by yourself, but isn't hard to learn how to do at all, whereas the opposite is true for the above linux example.
This is not a victory for Linux. This is a victory for one old variant of Windows: yes, X-Windows.
Office workers aren't a fair test of whether Linux is easy to use as they don't have to do enough on their machines. They turn up, use the word processor, spreadsheet and e-mail program (or whatever - you get the idea) they go. If it breaks, or if anything needs changing, they call the office support person.
:-)
The significant usability problem with Linux, from what I see, isn't in normal use but in modifying the config which remains hard and which these people don't have to do. Ergo, they're not a valid test of usability here.
IMHO
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
You can compare these apples and oranges because, simply put, in the end the job they are to accomplish is the same. Supply the required office/administrative capabilities to 400 people in a work environment for the least amount of support headaches and cost.
There are a dozen of ways to try to accomplish it. This just happens to be one way that works well.
We all know that the truth is, linux is hard to use for novices, and a good portion of linux users are not inclined to help newbies out. Read a few usenet posts to see this. "Linux is tough to use" is not FUD, it's the ugly truth. The people who realize this, and don't shrug it off as "FUD" are the ones who are positioned to correct this flaw.
Don't get me wrong, there's been tremendous progress made in linux usability, but the majority of it has been in the initial install area. There are still a lot of problems with UI consitancy, and any usability expert will tell you that this isn't a minor flaw. There's also the problem with installing software, because there's not the same one-click method for every program that Mac and Windows have.
Progress has been made, but we are certainly in no position to dismiss problems with linux' usability as FUD. When we do that, the progress will stop.
Install the damn service packs or get off the net....
Ok, a little harsh; SInce I have W2K running without any either... but my Linux firewall keeps the idiots out.
they will never have to compile that new, sexy app that only seasoned veterans can.
It's quite appearent by now that only seasoned veterans know how to download and apply IIS security patches too.
Heck, my office of 50+ Windohs users regularly need professional assistance. Not a one of them installed Windohs, the office suite, or setup the file & print systems, mapped network drives, etc etc etc. When the acctng dept gets a new app to access an online banking service or something the first person they call is the Net Admin.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Er, who cares what *you* think about this? The company I work for used to be a windows shop, until they went through a BSA audit. Then I went to management and proposed the switch to linux (which they knew about because of the great job it did as a server). Guess what, after paying through the nose in wasted time and resources for the BSA shit, Linux started looking pretty good to them. Now we're a Linux shop, running RedHat/KDE/StarOffice and users are being re-trained for the new environment. Apparently, the BSA audit was very efficient in convincing management that it's worth re-training your employees in exchange for not hearing about Microsoft ever again. And the users? Who cares. They're being paid to do their jobs, training is prvided to them, so they'd better learn to do it the way the company wants them to, since this particular way has been deemed the most efficient. They can have all the eye-candy disguised as ease of use they want on their home computers.
So to asnwer your point, yes, I've been there, I converted Windows shops to Linux, I keep hearing from my friends that their companies use Linux more and more and yes, I do think that this kind of articles are useful and inspirational. to those of us who actually go out and convince management guys that Linux is a better choice. For those like you on the other hand, who can only bitch and moan about how Linux is not ever going to makie it in what your head tells you from inside your ass it's the "real world", they're probably useless. You'll never get it anyway.
Why is it that whenever this discussion starts, some people seem to forget that some users who are very proficient in MANY operating systems absolutely loath KDE and GNome? I hate the OS underlying Windows, but the interface, the way things work (well, the way they're supposed to work anyway), and the overall design and behavior of the desktop is far superior to even KDE (to me, anyway).
This won't matter to some desktop users at all, most of them don't even know how to change their screen resolution, and they probably wouldn't even if they knew they could. They certainly couldn't give a damn if windows remember their positions or if they are forced to open up in a random corner of the screen. Many don't care if all applications act like you've committed sins just by moving the task-bar to the top of the screen (and some users don't even know you can move it, and they wouldn't if they could.) But other users do change their preferences. They do resize their screens, and they do put things in non-standard locations. Windows handles these UI nuances way better than KDE or GNome. Some users care about some things. And if you don't think some things matter THAT much, just remember some users care about such things so much they use choose to use MacOS. Interface means quite a bit, like it or not.
And then on the other end of the spectrum you have users like me, who love Unix but don't care too much for GUIs to begin with (except when obviously necissary) so they don't even use X on their unix machines. If I have to use a GUI, I'm something of a functional minimalist, and I tend to take Windows and disable just about everything (something Windows handles really well) The fact that I disable so much of Windows is probably a key factor in the stability of all of my Windows machines. None of them are even close to running anything default. They also almost never crash.
Then of course there are users who have specific jobs they need to do, and (as of yet) Linux REALLY doesn't cut it for them. Not yet, but it is getting there. Converting is the right choice for some people. Every day it'll get to be a better choice for more people. But this fanatical need to conver the entire world over to Linux annoys me far more than Windows crashing.
Linux users of today are often much like OS/2 or Amiga users of years gone by, only they have less games to play and they tend to foam at the mouth a little more as they violently rant.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
What would impress me is a study to see how many of the people working here switched over to Linux on their home computers as a result of their experiences at work.
How much leeway are you going to give me on setting up the installations?
I'm just wondering because I could use RIS with a custom Win2k install that included a SP2 rollup, drivers, admin policies and my suite of needed applications.
It'd be completely automated, and I could walk an enduser through it over the phone. Hit F12 on boot, enter username/password, walk away...
Arguing that Windows is hard to install is futile because it's so bloody easy to customize the install with just the tools Microsoft provides.
When I saw this post I thought "something's up" because I have a hard time believing that people accustomed to running Windows could switch to KDE and not absolutely HATE it.
That's when I read they've been running Unixware for the last several years. Hell, they're accustomed to clunky interfaces! Moving from one clunky interface to another is no big deal. They simply don't know what they're missing.
I've seen secretaries and the like jumping through hoops trying to use poorly designed character/terminal interfaces in corporate environments who were PLEASED as PUNCH! Why? They didn't have a better system to compare it to.
So before you all start patting yourselves on the back, I think you need to give those secretaries some credit: Anybody can learn how to do most anything given time. There's no specific reason why a secretary can't learn to deal with clunky interfaces like KDE or Gnome just as easily as they can learn to deal with some hideous 1980's character based interface.
This says nothing about KDE's usability. It's still clunky. These folks simply don't know what they're missing.
No quicktime. No Windows Media. No Vietnamese fonts. Linux is not the best tool for the kind of job I'm trying to do (get a useable web experience for my father).
Best tool for the job. Right now, Windows is the better tool for the job
Je ne parle pas francais.
A year or two ago I read an article in one of the Linux magazines (Linux Journal or Linux Magazine) about an Internet-and-pony show that was touring cities in England. This was a show with a non-techie audience (basically a "Look at what this Internet-thingy can do for YOU!"). There was a counter that had several internet access stations, half running M$, half running Linux with KDE. None of the attendees seemed to notice the difference, usage-wise. Well, some did complain about the Windows machines crashing...
I you don't agree, try an experiment, take Redhat 7.1 and Windows and try to install it on a modern machine and see how it compares. My experience is that Linux will probably install, detect and set up all the hardware, reboot once and be up and running. Windows will reboot at least 3 or 4 times in the process, and then you will have to go to the web site for your video card and download the latest drivers, then repeat the process for the sound card, etc.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Floppies are a transportation medium, not a storage medium. I don't store my importand documents in my unlocked car, because it's used for moving stuff from one place to another, not for storing stuff.
I applaud Largo for a job well done, however unfortunately not all of us can do that yet. As it stands now too many companies are buried too deep in Microsoft products that it would be a nightmare to make the switch. Case in point, I work in the programming department of a certain government entity. The entire network is based on Microsoft products as well as all of our custom applications we write. To switch this over to a *nix based network running thin-clients would be a tremendous task. Not impossible... but very time consuming and headache ridden.
.ph0x
I would be willing to wager that the majority of large businesses out there are in the same or very similar situation. This is, in my opinion, one of the major obstacles that holds off a linux invasion into the corporate world.
---
ps -aux | grep mind
Not sure what you are exactly requesting to do, but in a lot of network solutions that I've set up, there is a shared folder mapped to a specific drive letter on all computers, and users are instructed to save data to that drive only, which is backed up nightly.
Of course, what this article neglects to mention is legacy software. I've seen customers use DOS-based programs since there is no other solution. For these people, upgrading to win2k is sometimes a problem, ne'ermind a *nix solution. The saddest thing is that the source of the DOS programs aren't planning to make a win32 version until 2002. (For the curious, the programs xmits insurance information, without the program, claims cannot be transmitted and thus the business loses a huge percentage of its income.)
I see two types of objection to switching.
The "Necessary Condition" objections are mainly "Office", "Outlook", and "IE". Which is, alas, what everyone spends all day using. And until MS gets spilt up, this will not change. But also "that new accounting package", "my scanner", "our new CRM software", "our ERP project", and so on. And these are actually much harder to overcome. I think maybe we can identify a small group of users who do not use accounting, ERP, CRM etc. If we have to change all those, implementing Linux would actually cost us a lot of money.
Eh, before you say it:
StarOffice etc do not work well enough. Always some problems converting Word and Excel files.
VMware is slow, but it also defies the entire object (you still have to pay for an MS license)
Anyway, then there's the...
"Usability" objections. These are easy to fix in time - or they should be. But we are not there yet! I just spent a whole weekend setting up a new desktop machine for myself - Athlon 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM, RedHat 7.1. I had to do a kernel upgrade before it would see my Envidia graphics card. I still cannot print to my samba printer. And having installed machines ([pre-]CP/M, DOS, Win, Novell, Linux) for 20 years, I am not new to PCs or to Linux, but I still cannot figure out how to rewrite the Gnome/Ximian menus! And the config tool core-dumps: I have had 20-odd core dumps in the first day alone. And the lack of "OLE" drives me mad - an experienced PC user spends his life cutting and pasting, and the lack of this in common Linux desktop environments are a real obstacle.
So now I am looking for small groups of "expert users". Our (mainly hardware-) engineers come to mind first. But I am looking hard for real interoperability so we can roll out across the company. My estimate: 2 years out. I hope I am wrong.
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
The best route for Linux is to get accepted by the office culture. Once that barrier is passed, then when people buy PC's they'll want to work on what they have at the office. The next step, then, is to come up with a killer game that only runs on Linux but gets the same hype and marketing as a PS2 game or major PC game release.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
.. they managed to keep their users from revolting (a normal reaction when you take away their favorite programs) until I read this:
-quote-
Networks and thin clients are not new to Largo (motto: "City of Progress"). The city started down this path in 1992 with SCO (now Caldera) Unixware and its Motif-based IXI desktop that, Dave says, "looked a lot like Windows 3.1." Later they started using KDE 1 on both OpenServer and Unixware, and finally, in July 2001, made the switch to Red Hat Linux 7.1 and KDE 2.1.1, a change Dave says "has gone really well."
-end qoute-
Apparently these users were never exposed to a wintel system at their job (well, perhaps a previous job). Nothing bad about linux, but going from KDE 1.0 to 2.1 would make most users happy but it is something different than going from e.g. a properly installed and administered win2k system to kde 2.1.
That being said, I agree that KDE is userfriendly enough for normal people. You still have to learn some odd system specific things but not much more then on windows.
The real issue is application maturity (they run a closed source word processor to bypass that). Kword looks promising but is not ready. Staroffice seems reasonably functional but the 5.2 version is a rather peculiar thing and it is sort of difficult to use in a multi user environment because it installs a copy per user (never understood why).
The same goes for email clients, web browsers, spreadsheets. There are acceptable versions of each but getting it all together results in a rather inconsistent GUI and these programs generally do not integrate well with each other. So either you use one office suit (e.g. Koffice or gnome office) getting integration but also lacking features or you pick the best apps from various office suits getting a reasonable set of features and a near total lack of integration. Neither option is very appealing to someone used to a MS Office environment where you get any feature you need and excellent integration of the various applications.
Jilles
Your average office work is never permitted to install their own software.
But, guess what, they do.
Not to mention ungodly mess a user administered machine can become.
If it's a home machine, then it's only that person's problem, if it's a small business then there is an obvious incentive to do something about it.
And, if you're running the type of place where people share work-stations like in a call center or clerk desk then you need to preserve uniformity from one session to the next so as not to confuse or completly derail the workers
Probably the largest of these catagories is education, students arn't always the worst offenders either...
In that light why the hell should the place even expect the users to need to know stuff like that.
In no other area of business would it be acceptable for end users to be carrying out "maintenance tasks".
In terms of apps being available the usual course is to go through IT management and request it.
Also with it being done correctly if any kind of licence needs to be bought then there is a record likely to be kept.
I can state unequivocally that many Windows distros are much easier to install than Linux.
In my haste to put up that ever-so-witty sarcastic retort, I forgot to comment on this. They don't have to compile that new, sexy, app, because the sysadmin can do it once on the server and it's instantly available to everybody. That's the real advantage of thin clients. Only one upgrade, instantly applicable to everyone.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
I'm not going to comment on the relative costs of the hardware/software, because it's all true: Linux vs. Windows will win out, pure and simple. But the story (about Roblimo's take) is comparing apples and oranges.
Look at how they talk about backups: it sounds as though their concept of backups in the Windows world is to have users saving documents on their local hard disk, rather than to a server. The users have become accustomed to system crashes and network failures. I'll address at least part of the former complaint in a moment. The latter is the fault of either poor network administrators (as opposed to systems administrators, or a flaky server that hasn't been set up correctly. One of the biggest reasons people think NT is unstable is because the pretty GUI encourages rank amateurs to call themselves systems engineers. Blame this on the paper-MCSE syndrome, or on Microsoft's psychology, or whatever: but let's at least be honest and admit that, should the quality of admins increase, so would the quality of experience.
The other problem I have with this, and what really prompted my subject line, is that the comparison is between a Linux-based thin client network and a MS-based fat client network. Hello? If you took away all the Windows desktops and put in something like Citrix MetaFrame, then guess what? You'd realise several of the same benefits that the article touts or implies as being advantages unable to be put forth in a Windows-based system.
If you take the article as being a good example of how simple it is to migrate users over from Windows to Linux, then fine. But the system level comparisons are obfuscatory at best, and dishonest at worst. Yes, there's no way you could get the same level of performance out of the hardware they use if you went with a Windows implementation; but an article that compares a 10-person IT staff supporting Linux (or any OS) on 400 thin-client devices with supporting that many devices all running Windows on individual desktops is simply not a valid comparison. Is that really fair? By all means, let's point out the advantages for Linux in terms of ROI, open-source, and so on -- there are plenty of valid bases here -- but let's also be intellectually honest. Pretty please?
but to get there, I had to take the difficult step of getting people to stop sending me Word and Excel files. Sending around insecure, application-specific files is a bad idea anyway unless it is absolutely necessary.
At least 95+% of the time someone sends me a Word file or Excel sheet, it is something that I only need to read, not edit, modify, and send back.
I'm an independent contractor, and whenever I receive a Word or Excel file that I cannot read in StarOffice, I politely reply back that I don't have Microsoft Office and I cannot read their files. I suggest that they resend the document either in PDF format, or RTF if they can't generate PDF. For Excel files, If they can't save as PDF, I suggest saving to an older version of Excel that StarOffice can read, albeit with some loss of formatting.
I have been able to change the file sending habits of a surprising number of people, especially when they realize that PDF files actually look more consistent on other people's systems, especially if they use non-standard fonts.
I do have one system with VMWare and one copy of Office for those very rare occasions that I receive a Word or Excel file that I actually have to modify and send back, or if the sender absolutely refuses to send another format, but this option doesn't get used very often, so I don't need it on all my systems.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Oh yeah, and until I met my room mate, I didn't think it was physically possible to destroy hardware from software. She proved me wrong by fucking up TWO video cards trying to install Windows video drivers. If I were billing her for the time I spend supporting her system, she could have bought a playstation 2 after the first video driver update incident.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
PCs come with windows pre-installed out of the box. Nobody actually installs windows anymore.
In probably the majority of situations OEM installs are overwritten. For the simple reason that most OEM's are incapable of configuring machines to work on networks.
It's good to see somebody finally getting it right! Amazing that it was a government agency.
That's not true. I've gotten far more help learning to use Linux than I ever got with MS. There are Linux User Groups (LUG) everywhere, and people I hardly know have helped me at work and sat with me at my house. I got to know them better that way. I've got no problem returning the favor and so far I've set up two other people's computers.
It's funny, because Linux is easier to figure out. Win3.1 was so poorly documented a friend HAD to show me how to use it. Going to 95 was a painful experience and I regret all the time I put into it. 98 was also painful, but more regretible. Linux, at times was not easy to get used to, but man pages online documents and books are all excellent sources of help. In fact, despite the useability claims Redmond makes, MS interfaces are are the hardest I've ever dealt with. The list includes VAX, VMS, Solaris, OS2, Mac, MSDOS, Win3.1, Win98, Win98 and WinME. Mac was a pain, but I liked it much better and learned it much faster than Win3.1. MS's position is paradoxical. They wish to convince users that PC's are hard to use, while prommising them that MS is easy to use. If they spent as much time making things as easy as they said instead of fudding, they might get somewhere.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I've been thinking (off and on in my spare time) about what it would take to convert my office to something like this. I'm the IT guy for a town even smaller than the one in the article, but I'm still f'ing sick of Windows and the headaches it gives me. We have a Unix server, thankfully, and it never gives me problems. We're bringing in another one soon -- had a choice between NT and SCO. Went for SCO.
I'm only seeing two problems, really. One is office programs. We need to read from and probably write to MS format documents. I suppose that could be solved at least partially with WINE, but that's not a real solution.
The other is the database software that runs the financial side of the town. It wasn't a problem until recently, as it used to be run as a console app off the server, through telnet, a modem connection, or a dumb terminal. They've got some weird GUI client for it now, though. To be honest, it looks like one of the Unix widget sets or maybe an X server ported to Windows, but I'm not sure. I'd have to talk with them about it. Anybody know anything about Four J's? They're the ones who made it.
If I can get around those two things, I'm almost positive I could do a slow migration over to linux. Well, if I can get X configured to use these POS SiS on-board video cards.
--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
My room mate would have more problems, as she gets games on a regular basis. But that's why God made the Playstation 2, right?
;-) And don't bring up the technical superiority of the PS2 - I still play Starcraft & UT and don't need the latest & greatest GeForce 500000000 card.
Salesman: "You'll save $100 if you don't have Winderz(tm) installed on this computer. But to play the newest games, you'll have to go buy that $299.95 Playstation 2." Great argument folks. Glad to see the gene pool in the Unix world is getting better
And the users? Who cares. They're being paid to do their jobs, training is prvided to them, so they'd better learn to do it the way the company wants them to, since this particular way has been deemed the most efficient. They can have all the eye-candy disguised as ease of use they want on their home computers.
It sounds like Linux may very well suit your company's needs. It also sounds like your attitude doesn'tt. A large part of any IS job is dealing with users. If the above statement is really how you feel, rather than just the way you post on Slashdot, then I sure wouldn't want you working for me. There are a lot of good technical people out there that can deal with both people and computers. Lose the attitude, it does you a discredit.
Huh? I have a copy of Quake III for Linux at home.
> ...but what about going to some more powerfuly software
> such as video editing, digital video production or audio editing
> and production - which is what i'm into myself.
If you've got high-end hardware and high-end video editing needs, and no Linux native applications fit the need, you might want to give Wine or VMWare a look. They are both very good at running Windows apps under Linux, and Wine at least is free.
Virg
One of the biggest problems Dave and Mike have run into when teaching new employees, most of whom are accustomed to Windows PCs, to use Largo's Linux-based network has nothing to do with the operating system: It is weaning them away from floppies. "How can we take work home without floppies?" is a frequent question they hear. Answer: "Email the file to yourself."
These people seem to sort of be the poster children for why linux can be used on the desktop.
This next bit was just downright funny:
There is also the problem of teaching new employees not to worry about backups . Many are so used to system crashes and network failures in Windows environments that they have trouble realizing, at first, that all their files are stored on reliable servers -- with backups -- instead of on a desktop PC where a crash can wipe out hours or days of work. But these doubts are typically overcome after an employee has used Largo's network for a little while. "I was skeptical at first," one receptionist confides, "because [the place I worked before] had a Windows network that was always having problems. Now I'm comfortable with the network here. It's very easy to use once you get used to it."
The only problem they seem to have is with OpenOffice still being in its early beta stages. Any suggestions for them?
I have been pushing linux on the desktop for a couple of years. Administration (For the experienced admin) is easy and the end users can not mess the system up. I have been running is at home for some time and my wife and daughter (Age 30 and age 8 respectively) find it easier to use. Both feel that the fact that they can not "Mess the system up." helps them to explore and try new things on the computer as they are not worried about breaking it. I have suggested that attorneys move to Linux with X11 as most of there work is done on Word Perfect. With that they can set up Xterms and a primary server and all upgrades, Data Storage, and backups are done in one location. There are many advantages to Linux as well as some disadvantages. I am not saying it is right for all tasks. I have yet to find a good voice mail system for linux and have kept all my voice mail functions on a windows system. There are other disadvantages but as time goes on those are slowly going away.