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How To Create a Linux Network for Peanuts
securitas writes: LinuxWorld has the first installment of a series on how to go from being a Windows based shop to a Linux one." One of the article's points, one that I strongly agree with, is how overpowered the machines are that most people buy.
Often times you simply cannot find cheap hardware to purchase, unless you want to build it yourself or go with refurbished units.
Build it yourself is a poor option because it is very hard to find the quantities of parts you need, especially since business environments value similarity in desktop platforms. So you end up with groups of five or ten machines with whatever was on sale that week at Fry's Electronics.
If you are like most Windows-based companies you turn to vendors like Dell/Compaq/IBM and then the problem is that the cheaper machine you can buy is still a 900MHz Celeron with 256MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive (granted it's only $600 but still what if you just need it to run training applications through a web browser?). Plus since you are riding the tail end of the cost range, you again enter the problem of having a month go by and suddenly you have completly different hardware.
So it's a choice between
* one vendor to resolve problems
* one platform to support/rollout
* one price that's not so great
or
* many vendors fingerpointing each other
* need a different image for every 5th system
* a price hovering around the lowest possible
For home/small business users I think the second choice is a valid one, but for large business and corporations I just don't think they'll ever see the value in it.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
too many people wanting the latest and greatest. there are several people that i work with that use 300-400MHtz machines with no problem. how do they do it? they haven't fallen in the the MS/Corel/Intuit/'fill in the blank' propaganda trap of having the newest version.
i use quickbooks 1999!
it all comes down to understanding what you *need* to do.
there are people out there that need/deserve powerful machines and there are people that could be just fine with second or third tier equipment.
e.
I didn't read the article, but did it go over how to get your applications running on Linux too? So I have Linux running on all the PC's. What about AutoCAD, ProEngineer, or ALGOR? Oh yeah, they don't run on Linux. So I guess that even though I'm running a free OS in my company which cost next to nothing to implement, the author still hasn't figured out that IT'S THE APPS THAT COUNT, STUPID!
Let's cover the points on morale first:
Do you want a four year old computer on YOUR desk? Of course not. You don't care if the IT manager says that it meets your needs, you just want to get your work done as quickly and easily as possible. If I tried this implimentation in my shop, I'd expect to field complaints from dozens of users saying that "their e-mail and Netscape is taking too long to load". If they bitched loud and long enough, their boss will give them the 1.4 Ghz that they want, but not without giving everyone a bunch of headaches first.
Many of these people have faster computers at home, so they're used to having better desktop performance than what a Pentium 200 with 128MB of RAM can offer.
Now, the points on productivity:
Not only will these workers be very annoyed when a slow computer is put on their desk, but their work output will suffer as they wait an extra thirty minutes each day for their applications to load and to save their information. Most of these people are being payed $20+ an hour, so the cost savings from buying cheap equipment will be sucked up quickly.
Also, If the user is a current Windows user, they'll need to be re-trained for both Linux and it's office applications. It might over a week for the less-skilled workers to get the hang of it. While they are learning, don't expect them to be happy about this, either.
Older computers tend to break down more, as well, and without warrantees that support cost is coming out of the companies pocket.
In short, this article makes the critical mistake of putting your users FIRST when planning an IT solution. Keeping your employees/customers productive and happy is a LOT more expensive than most companies IT costs. If you try to pass off cheap PC's on your workers, you'll pay for it tenfold with creating tons of new problems.
The great thing about building your Linux network around thinnet is that everyone will assume that it's Linux that sucks, not your network.
Lets see -- Woo! You can get crapo ISA 10B2 network cards for $1 a port, once you figure out which ones are broken and which ones work. How much is a old ISA 10BT card? $5/port. Such savings. Did you remember that you have to re-pull your Coax every 5 years or so?
Meanwhile, 100BT switched ethernet can be done for about $50/port + cabling. (Actually thats high - I just bought a 5 port 10/100 switch for $40.) Seems to makes sense unless you live in a place where labor costs are under $1/hour.
I'm also not sure if Linux needs this ghetto-style propaganda -- everyone knows it runs fine on the low-end, its top-end performance that the kernel hackers seemed worried about.
Too much ANTI-MS BS, if this article was an editorial, fine, that I couldn't criticize, but if it was targetted for System administrators or people about to deploy a network in a small company, it litteraly missed the target.
:) ) But unfortunately, probably didn't archieve it's own objective.
1. Who cares how much ressource MS apps sucks and costs, if we are reading that article, chances are we already KNOW all that crap and are looking for an alternative.
2. About no one uses 386/486 anymore, writting a paragraph on how the pentium III are useless horsepower to run all these apps and a 386 would do fine is pointless, unless you plan to deploy a network in a 3rd world country.
3. It gives you pointers, nothing good for someone comming from a windows env. You want a step by step guide, sounding easy a-la-windows install, to make it look simple and straightfoward. That's the big problem with some linux article, the authors knows their systems so well, that they can't put themselves in the shoes of someone that install linux and doesn't know how to access his floppy from the shell because he's used to a:.
This is *NOT* a rant, but a constructive criticism about an article that attracted a lot of people (server was half dead
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
No doubt! I can build a very powerfull workstation
with a decent 17 inch monitor, a keyboard, and
mouse that don't have twenty years of crud built
up in them for under four hundred dollars. I don't
care what you run on a 386DX based computer, even
the DOS prompt is so slow that I can type faster
than my input will be displayed on the screen!
The author of the artical is probably the kind of
guy that would look at a burned out, eye-straining
monitor and think that it's good enough. Then there is the graphics adapter, which will surely be inadequate in both visaul quality and display speed, good monitor or not. He makes excellent points, however, I think he takes the cheap hardware idea to cheap and obsolete realms to which it doesn't need to go. At least not for a modern office: Third world countries, sweat shops, and businesses that don't use their workstations on a daily basis being a few possible exceptions. Obsolete hardware leaves no room for upgrading to new and usefull applications that require the additional
horsepower of a modern CPU and graphics adapter.
I would rather GNU Linux and other free software
be associated with 'frugality', not 'cheapness' or parsimony.
Original centralized machines are (believe it or not) cheaper and yes, you can provide Sally the Secretary with a Pentium 133 as an X-Windows station. It's possible to do this.
But as several people have pointed out, just because you can doesn't mean you SHOULD. He makes a poor argument (other than cost) to return to centralized computing and several people have pointed out that, even if we ignore the advantages of distributed computing (there are several), company's are STILL willing to spend the revenue necessary for distributed computing.
In short, cost alone isn't enough.
A better argument would be to point out the advantages to centralized computing that are not cost related (mobile 'desktops', centralized administration (no more GHOSTING!), etc.) However, given management's previous experiences with centralized computing, this isn't likely to be persuasive arguement either.
An argument needs to be found that shows that Linux is cheaper and invokes the use of distributed computing. (The advantages of remote administration is a start - but there's a long way to go.)
SUN eventually decided that 100-base-T was the only way to effectively deploy that technology.
I used an X-Terminal for about 5 years to develop software. If I ran a local window manager, and did mostly x-terminals it ran smoothly -- graphics and complex GUI's are nowhere near as crisp and responsive. 4 trips up and down a network stack for every mouse click is much slower than anything Microsoft puts out.
Cat: The other white meat