Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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.
<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).
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 ?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
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)
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...
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
"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!"
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.
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.
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"
This is not a victory for Linux. This is a victory for one old variant of Windows: yes, X-Windows.
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.
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.
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.
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:>
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.
I have to say this to people all the time. If you think Linux is hard to install, try installing Windows sometime. I have to reinstall Windows a lot at work and at home (mostly due to hard drive / processor upgrades), and it's a very laborious process. Even once you do get it running, you have to grab drivers (and reboot), reinstall all your apps (and rebooot, and reboot...). Linux, on the other hand, I just answer a few questions, take a 30 minute break and do something else, and come back to a ready-to-go box. Depending on the distro's age, I might also run LiveUpdate for Mandrake or apt-get for Debian. The best part is that none of these things requires rebooting, which means I don't have to sit in front of the machine while it works, wasting my time.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
That would be nice, and in your world it probably is true. But in the corperate world it dont work that way...
we run 3 seperate vertical apps that require, (that's right REQUIRE) administrator access to the machine. Now this is the Traffic and Billing software (also requires Admin access to the SQL server!) which by the way is the largest T&B software package out there... it is the de-facto standard in media, you use it, discussion over.
Second we have an AVID. everything MUST be run as administrator. Dont log in and use as admin? too bad.. you don't get to work.
finally. I have a nice self updating Software package for the sales software suite. Now I am 1 IS/IT guy that supports 3 offices spread about 2 hours apart and over 100 machines. If I were to do it your way I need to spend every thursday and friday installing software via VNC or by drivig there.
It may work for you in your small computing environment, but in a large scale corperate environment NT cannot be configured to keep the cluebies from demolshing the hardware....
Oh, and management responds to my request to reprimand users that trash their desktop pc's?
"What did we hire you for? go fix it and shut up."
so... I am doing my job... better than any MCSE ever has here (awarded 3 times for productivity and excellence) and NT cannot do what I need. Linux can. Hell Linux can force the user to drop everything in their user directory (documents and files) instead of spreading documents all over the machine. NT? not possible.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.