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Where is Largest Linux Desktop Install?
jackb_guppy asks: "Talking with Managers about Linux Training for staff. One asked a simple question: 'Where is the largest installed base of Linux desktops?' My guess the question was asked prove that there is no market, and I am unable to find an answer. I am guessing the next question will be: 'Largest site using Linux to replace MS desktops?' Anyone have a suggestion?" Just for fun, if any of you have Linux Desktops deployed in your department, can you give us some numbers?
4... out of 27 computers... pittiful... but we develop drivers for Windows... so I guess it's ok...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Search slashdot for government, florida, linux, desktop. There was an article about a town replacing all their MS stuff with linux stuff.
--Angus
Either 1) some university 2) IBM or 3) the collective OSDN offices. . .
Our operation runs completely on Windows 2000. However, I have set up one old PC with Linux (Redhat 7.1) so that everyone who wants to can give it a spin.
My university has virtually every machines dual-boot Debian + NT. Does that count? Lotsa computers but NT gets used 99% of the time ;-)
Largo has switched about 800 desktops to linux using thin clients. They use balsa for e-mail and KDE for the desktop. links here and here
"I drank what?" - Socrates
I have a big 3 by 4 meter projector, i display the desktop on my wall.
I think it must be the biggest desktop in use.
In my last project we had about 80 developers about half of whom were running linux on at least one of their boxes; so 40 desktops (admittedly specialized). It won't be the biggest installation by far, but I was genuinely surprised by the level of interest among other developers here.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
Are belong to MS.
As one of their former 'softies' who worked in the WinLuX division, I have signed quite a few NDAs preventing me from talking about it, but let's just say they've got a fairly large group devoted to "bringing Linux to the masses".
The WinsBD group isn't quite as big.
There you have it...with 4 PC's (and one on the way), it's the world's largest installation of PC's running nothing but Linux!!
I seem to remember an announcement about Cisco switching all of their workstations to linux. Try searching slashdot... i think that's where i heard it.
Certainly a persuasive argument, i would think.
Hey, show me how to make a living developing drivers for linux and I'd be all over it...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
In the lab I am at @ HP, we probably have 200 Linux workstations being used, and th enumber is increasing every month as money is tight. We are replacing many of the Unix workstations with Linux, because why buy a $20,000 workstation, when a $1500 Linux workstation can do 'all that and more"? All of our development software now runs on linux, and everyone seems to like it.
The plural of Largo is Largo, not Largos.
We've deployed Mandrake 8.0 for our technical staff (the IS group), but we don't yet have any plans to use linux for our "normal" users. At this point just unzipping a file can still be too complicated for some, so at least sticking to something they use at home is helpful. Also I've had stability issues with nautalis on Red Hat 7.1 with Ximian, and on KDE with Mandrake 8.0. The users would need a fair amount of training to be able to deal with troubleshooting in the new enviornment...
Fate is what cards you are dealt, free will is how you play them.
Of the six senior software developers in our company (CubeWerx, Inc.), five of us use Linux as our primary (and in most cases, only) operating system. The suits still use Microsoft Windows, but that's mostly because they don't know any better. :-)
This isn't something you should use to determine Linux's strengths. I've contracted for a company that makes a cross-platform program. We all used windows, but had exceed for a solaris box and a linux box to make those ports.
Why? Because its easier for the IT managers to buy a bunch of windows boxes they are familiar with, and dump exceed on them, than having a buncha linux boxes with some type of windows viewer.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Where I used to work, many of us used Linux as our desktop, and all of us used linux for the actual job (monitoring network packets, custom filters, custom network sniffing, etc)
In addition to those desktops, we used linux for test nodes (the company tests commercial firewalls and VPNS)...so at least 130 linux boxes there, probably more.
The company also used linux/freebsd for much of its network infrastructure (pop, smtp, dhcp, dns, etc). This was mixed in with microsoft exchange and NT/2000 file/print servers.
news at http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/news/ pressreleases/2001/zseries_koreanair_pr_071601.htm l
Seoul, Korea, July 16, 2001 -- Korean Air, Korea's national flagship airline, and IBM today announced that Korean Air has completed the first phase of developing its core business applications running on Linux for the IBM.
Korean Air's Flight Schedule Enquiry System and the Daily Revenue Accounting System employ Linux on IBM hardware and software.
The enquiry system provides flight crew members with on-line real-time flight schedule information, which they can update anytime. More than 3,000 Korean Air pilots and flight attendants are currently using the system.
_______
I also heard some talk about the government of Mexico, but that was recently and there may not have been progress there.
Not trying to be a troll or anything, but as far as a corp. desktop goes, WinMe wouldn't really be in any, since it's really a "home" OS.
Look at the Universities, where Linux "grew up". My "University of applied science" has several Linux pools, most of the prof's and assistants are using at least one Linux machine on their desktops, and most laboratories have Linux machines.
Why? Linux is cheaper than thousands of MS licenses.
Support? Ask a student!
Cost of Support? None for Profs (or good marks;-)), a beer for friends to install a recent linux.
Denken hilft.
There really is no point to this question. Since Windows has the majority of the market share, the question is trivial. There are tonnes of places that use MS's latest by default.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
If only we didn't have an IT department run by brainwashed NT morons.
Late late news!
Burlington Coat Factory will install Linux on 1,150 computers in its 250 stores over the next 12 to 18 months.
"Burlington will run Red Hat Software Inc.'s version of Linux on 1,250 Dell OptiPlex® PCs for office management, to administer its Baby Registry and to handle back-office functions such as shipping and receiving. Dell will factory-install Red Hat Linux software through its DellPlus service on the OptiPlex GX1 computers, giving Burlington the ease and efficiency of PCs that arrive ready to use."
Sited from: Linux in Business
I don't have a TV now, but that's ok. The shows in my mind are almost ALWAYS better...
Microsoft user support. Their last system just didn't cut it.
And what is the world's largest installed base of Windows computers? This isn't an easily answered question for any operating system.
Tell the manager that finding a definitive answer to his question is beyond the scope of your abilities. It's an unanswerable question because there aren't licensing issues with Linux, so tracking that number by per-seat licenses as is done with Windows and other non-free operating systems is not possible.
Then answer his question with some of the many sucessful linux conversions that HAVE taken place. Burlington coat factory, General Motors, City Governments, China.
Talk about the NSA developing security for Linux.
You aren't going to win a numbers game because the free availability of Linux means that it can be installed many times over without a distributor being able to track the numbers.
I can download my favorite Linux distro and install it to hundreds of PCs without anyone outside the company knowing those figures. With MS products, they can track the licensing down to every copy in use at any business. Therefore, MS will always win the numbers game.
We keep hearing these stories of massive deployments of Gnome desktops by the Mexican government.
- "Scholar Net, has decided to install GNU/Linux workstations with GNOME sofware. The software should be installed in every elementary and mid-level school in Mexico, he says. This means about 140,000 centers in the next five years."
- "ABCNews.com reports that the Mexican government chose Red Hat Linux to power their elementary and middle school computers.
- It's an interview with the Technical coordinator of the Distrito Federal goverment (Mexico's capital of the country) where they say why choose Linux over MSWindows and make the change of all their systems in a period of 2 years to Linux. All the money saved from the MSWindows licenses will be reallocated to programs for fighting poverty.
Has any of this ever actually happened? I've started to regard any story with "Linux" and "Mexico" in it the way I do Loch Ness Monster sightings.Home Depot is using Red Hat Linux for a huge in-store system that its employees will use for tasks such as receiving, ordering, and inventory management. As many as 90,000 cash registers (etc) are running Linux there. Check out this article for details.
w o r l d w i d e w e b e r
Today our non-techies run Windows and our coders mostly run Linux, just as before. And it works (relatively) well. There are crashes and annoyances on the Windows side but at least it's usable. Linux simply isn't up to the task yet - and with funding for open source projects going down the toilet as LNUX, SGI, CALD, and RHAT slowly die off, things aren't going to change anytime soon.
-sting3r
I used to work for a company where they use all kinds of operating systems.. They did, and still do, web and database development and graphical design (computer graphics, posters, company 'look/image', etc.
Since the nature of their work is in essence multiplatform, there is a true multitude of platforms in operation within the company. There are Mac workstations, using MacOS or Linux/BSD, there are OS/2 workstations, Linux workstations, PC/BSD platforms, QNX and BeOS workstation.. And the occasional Windows box.
The company stresses that whoever works there should be allowed to use whatever operating system makes them do their job most effectively - truly seeing how subjective and individual that is.
On a side note, there are things indicating that the Norwegian government might want to rid themselves of their dependency on Windows... Whatever that means..
Love over Gold.
Well... there's China
Isn't the Chinese government in the process of deploying Linux on a ton of PCs? Although from what I've seen and heard WRT the availability of pirated Micro$oft applications there, TCO is not really the issue...
Windows == $free, Linux == $free
I am the very model of a modern major general!
Burlington Coat Factory runs Red Hat Linux on 1,250 Dell OptiPlex systems. If you do a search on Dells website or Google, you will find it.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
If it is good enough for "Big Blue" it is good enough for you.
Just show your manager IBM's Linux sites. For most I doubt that they will need more convincing that Linux is ready for prime time in the desktop market.
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
There is this example of City of Largo .
I would also look for "Succes stories" in enterprise Linux-Desktop related sites, such as http://enterprise.kde.org/
Cheers
-- Don Inodoro
We run 2 Linux Servers as Oracle DB's, 1 Linux Tomcat webserver and there are at least 4 other developers that have a Linux machine for development. Not bad for a small consulting shop of about 15 people.
What about VA Linux? How many does the company (with sourceforge, thinkgeek, slashdot, etc...) use?
I, actually, heard a rumor that the "higher-ups" don't use Linux. Is this true?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The Postal service runs Win98 right now and that's 80K workstations.
-- MarkusQ
If Linux gains enough market share, all linux users [as well as everyone else ;)] will be better off: More software companies porting and creating sofware for linux [games], More hardware compatablity, More technical companies conforming to open standards, More competition for MS, Media coverage and mind share for Open Philosophies.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
I presume you're interested in a GPL'd solution, but have you looked at Sun Rays from Sun? Sun have deployed them over pretty much all of their sites - I believe they have 40,000 seats now. Everyone, from admins to engineers, happily using a Unix desktop.
Has 50 desktops with Caldera Linux, 15 with Solaris 8 and 25 Macs that dual boot Mac OS X/Yellow Dog Linux 2.0. At home I have a new Yellow Dog Linux box and an IBM ThinkPad running Mandrake 8.1. Oh yes I own 10 Macs :)
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
I have 24 computer stations for the kids to use at school 20 of 24 are GNU based (FreeBSD + Gnome) The remaing 4 are Win2k machines acting as LAN fileservers and print servers.
It was setup this way so I could get the most out of the old computers that are donated to the school by using them as terminals and having one multi proc machine as a term server.
Good place to start is http://www.k12ltsp.org/ for linux k-12 stuff
-M
Let's see - at my day job, one development machine (Slackware 8) and at least 2 more on the way (kicking MS Proxy Server out the door permanently).
At my home-office, my main work machine, my firewall, my laptop computer, and a spare "development" machine - all running Slackware 8.
At my co-lo ISP, one machine running Slackware 7.1 - makes a total of 6 with 2 more on the way.
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
I work at the Centre for Wireless Communications at National University of Singapore and I guess out of 250 people or so here almost every one has at least one linux box, some have more and I have the maximum, which is 15!!
;)
So things are good here I guess. Its one place where the tech support knows how to setup printer in linux
FYI, Slashcode adds spaces to any word over a certain length so that the tables line up properly. When you have a long URL like that, you should do an href, like this.
If you need to know how to do an href, you can go here.
Cheers!
They apparantly saved over £250,000 (~$350k) by switching to Linux and Star Office. This was during the uproar about MS licensing.
--ALex
My Poor Sig.
-- My hovercraft is full of eels.
Try http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/news/ pressreleases/2001/zseries_koreanair_pr_071601.htm l instead.
science is a religion
http://www.stti-usa.com/LinuxSuccess.htm
http://www.m-tech.ab.ca/linux-biz/
Burlington Coat Factory
Bay Area Rapid Transit, BART
Telecom business - international company with 100.000 people (you can see the name of the company in the adds...) .2 cents.
We have a research site, 1700 people working here, around 4000 machines.
Amongst them, we have 300 "repertoried" linux cpus, with around 80 desktop and some servers. But apparently this will soon ramp up.
my
[Pruneau
My university has at least 5 major public access PC labs configured with to dualboot linux and Win98. I'd say roughly 180 desktops on linux, not counting the dozens of CS and engineering faculty PCs and servers running linux.
These labs are managed by the CS department and user accounts are actually shell accounts on the CS linux/unix server cluster, so you can log in at any station and your desktop travels with you. Each machine has a linux login screen with an option to reboot into Win98 after logging in.
The engineering department has a similar system using MS networking (with no dual boot linux desktop option), but I'm pretty sure the ENGRNT domain controller is actually a Samba box.
Christopher
Mozilla
Seeing as china declared linux to be their official OS.. I would assume there is or will be a large deployment there
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
i have linux on a computer with a 20incher. i'm not sure that's the largest but that sure is pretty big. wait till i connect that to the company projector...
seriously, i have linux on 7 machines. one laptop (desktop use full time). one file-print server. 2 web-servers. and the rest are used by developers thru VNC software on their windows machines. do those count?
a debian machine on my desk, everything is windows in the company, except firewall/web server etc which are FreeBSD :)
On my desktop I also have a win machine, a BeOS one, a debian one, a SCO one, a QNX4 one, a QNX6 one. I am a OS whore
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
I have here Linux deployed on 45-50 desktops (r&d) and about the same in Win2K/NT4 desktops (Sales, Marketinng, Management, etc)
BUT, All my servers here, including R&D test beds.. all run linux.. about 300 Machines.
Cheers.
Status of machines
No, I did not count them.
According to this, it have the biggest commercial linux cluster in thw world (like 10.000 servers).
I seem to remember that Ford's Europe division converted (or will convert) to Linux
It would be nice to see how they fared after the switch. Did everyone run screaming from the building? Is everyone happy as a clam? Has everyone's productivity doubled or halved? Have the support costs done the same?
I know it's early, but it would be nice to see some results.
The largest install will be ENIAC, once Linux/ENIAC is ported and ready...
sigfault
Doesn't this seem like an odd premise for the question? Training people on the Linux desktop. What does that mean exactly? You're trying to make Linux a viable alternative to Windows. A reasonable, commendable to some, desire.
Except, what does Linux training mean within that context? You're likely not teaching people about bourne shell. Or how to use tar, mv, etc. Oh, you're going to teach them about the GUIs. Okay, KDE, Gnome? Application software like Star Office?
But none of those are Linux-specific, either. They could apply equally well to a host of other UN*X-like OSs....
I think at the "desktop" level it's not Windows versus Linux. That's the problem with OSs where you can customize and change the desktop to such an extent that it is totally foreign to someone who is supposedly trained under the "Linux desktop".
One question I would have is, why was the experience that you had so vastly different from the one described in the florida government? There they seemed to make good use of it and had few problems transitioning employees to the new system. I'm thinking that perhaps there is a strategy that does work well for deploying Linux in a business environment if the right approach is taken.
I'm a bit baffled about some of what you are describing. When X died, you say they'd hit reset and then fsck would take out half their filesystem? I see a few things here that don't make sense:
1) why was X dying? I've never had X die except in the rarest occasions or more routinely on systems I had really futzed with.
2) why would fsck cause damage to half their filesystem? while I've on occasion hit reset or powered down without a proper shutdown I have never had fsck cause any damage to my filesystem. Furthermore, if that was a concern, a journaling FS like XFS could have solved your problem.
3) why were newbies having to "figure out" the desktop? what kind of training did you give them?
4) you say you kept trying several combinations. wouldn't that tend to lead to increased confusion about and disdain for the new environment? seems like picking one thing after careful evaluation and sticking with it would solve some headdache.
5) If your bank requires IE, maybe you should consider a new bank? I mean that may seem drastic, but if they are uncapable of supporting the system your business wants to use, I'm sure another bank would be happy to hold on to your money.
When you look at the setup they used in Florida, they made a very strong point of making it simple for the users. They eliminated a lot of unneeded and potentially confusing funcationality, and they did an apparent good job of figuring out what they really needed to have to do the work they wanted to do.
Basically what it boils down to is that I get the sense that Linux is capable of being on the office desktop if it is implemented in a way that conforms to its benefits and drawbacks. You will have some initial training investment because it's different from what most people use, but there's no evidence I've seen to indicate that it's a fundamentally unusable OS in that space.
Does it still leak memory like crazy?
I used to be a Balsa fan until I discovered Sylpheed...
http://sylpheed.good-day.net/
It's the best GTK based email client I've seen anywhere. Check it out....
M0571y H@rml355.
They are in the process of switching their desktops from SGI to Linux right now. Timescale: A few month (and a lot of work beforehand).
Source: The Dreamworks CTO at a presentation at San Franciscos LinuxWorld
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
As much as many of us love Linux, a lot of people are so used to Windows, or even so fond of it that they may not do well in a Linux enviornment. Imagine if someone came up to you running a Linux desktop, not even doing very hard work, at least nothin beyond the capabilities of Windows, and told you you were moving to windows, and you would at least have to try it. You would make such a fuss, and even in cases when you *know* you could do something and how you would do it, you will tend to say that the task is as feasible under Windows, even when you know this fact may not be true. Same is true of Windows users. Most don't want to learn anything else. And technical users that prefer Windows can be as fanatical as most of the Slashdot community is about Unix. You have to make sure that the costs do not exceed the benefits..
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Take the example of my startup: 4 individuals: 4 laptops and 2 desktops, (not including 2 servers) and 2 PDAs, all running Linux 2.2.x and Linux 2.4.x. The distro is Debian on all of these puppies except for the ipaqs are running Familiar.
That puts the number of systems at 8, or 2 per individuals all running Linux (200%)
The decision came after evaluating the cost of development for a client/server application. We just didn't have the dough to go the MS way (SQL+Windows 2000 Server IS expensive.) We decided unanimously to go Linux (even for the assistant when we hire one.)
We prefered instead of getting expensive software that we don't control, buying better equipment and even pay little extra to hire smart people. Being smart of course, the new hires are able to use Linux by themselves, so we cut on the cost of support and everybody can help each others and expand the capabilities of the systems on a day to day bases (Don't have to wait for these darn software updates coming from vendors.) I also noticed that running proprietary software puts you in a lethargic mode where you don't question so much the problems you are getting with the system.
I find it way more stimulating and interesting to talk about Linux development around the coffee machine, than any other propreritary software I have been dealing in the past.
PPA
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
City of Turku in Finland considers switching to GNU/Linux systems because of Microsoft's new licencing policy. According to a newspaper article (in Finnish), this would mean 3000 users.
We have development workstations for geeks developing on python running Debian. And we have the other half running Windows 2000 who are primarily developing on Java.
Unfortunately, I have seen some developers switching over from Debian to Windows2000, since they had some real bad experiences with Borland JBuilder4. JBuilder tends to be really slow and non-user friendly under Linux environment.
However, there is still room to cheer. Most of our staging servers run Linux and Ops wouldnt touch a windows box with a yardpole.
I guess until or unless the development/productivity tools show more than a mere interest in porting their apps to Linux, we would be stuck with Linux based server systems.
Rapid Nirvana
Almost anyone that's not support staff @ UCO/Lick uses Linux or Solaris as their operating system of choice. That comes out to about 150-200 machines total.
That's what happens when people want to do tricky things like "research" with their computers.
And here are some more out-of-date stats,
from last year, to give you an idea of our
department's size. We have one IIS server, and
three NT file servers, but all other servers
are running Linux. All (well, almost all)
Linux workstations and servers (including
four clusters) are updated nightly through
a remote update scheme we developed here:
Number of Users 247
Faculty 57
Senior Research Staff 7
Research Associates 15
Graduate Students 59
Majors 81
Staff 28
Number of Computers 220
Operating Systems:
Number of Linux Computers:
Counting clusters as single machines 66
Counting individual boxes 92
Desktop workstations 36
Laptops 4
Research group servers 8
Departmental servers 8
X terminals 10
Number of Windows Computers 114
Number of Macintosh Computers 21
Number of Computers with Other Operating Systems 25
Average Logins per Day:
Galileo (departmental cluster) 112
Mail Server (interactive) 70
Mail Server (pop/imap) 3,270
Computer Lab 70
Messages per Day through Mail Server 3,010
Web Server:
Visits per Day 1,300
Pages per Day 2,430
Hits per Day 15,400
Pages Printed per Day 847
Disk Space Backed Up (GB) 370
Departmentally-owned Computers 150
Research_Group_Computers 220
I have deployed four linux desktops in my home office.
Dozings.com -- Its kinda funny... If you're as crazy as me.
Sun Microsystems uses Linux on their level I/II tech support for the cobalt appliances. I think there are 8 of them right now.
I think the mangers want number on a systems where Linux is in the majority on the desktop. I mean IBM might have thousands of desktops running Linux but they are spread all over the world. However another company may have 1000 desktops running liunx and only 50 running windows in a single building.
The second example would prove to the managers that linux is a viable desktop alternative.
/b
[Please type your sig here.]
If you are thinking about a company wide rollout then for fsck sake use Xterms. Maybe the xterms are just diskless PCs running Linux.
The reason being the greatest cost savings for your company will come from having a centralised machine/cluster. Backups, security, upgrades etc can all be managed much easier.
Client/Server is a dead end for most companies.
Cheers,
I believe that North Carolina State University has a number of linux computer labs(Red Hat). Although I get the feeling that you were not referring to educational institutions.
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
The school I am network manager for has a deployment of 250 linux based thin clients running citrix desktop software off 6 NT servers.
:).
The linux client software is a heavierly customised RedHat 6.2 with an ext3 root fs (which is great not a single ext3 related fault on any of them and no fsck's) that basically boots an X session with a full screen citrix client on them.
All the full clients that we have (50 or so) have a dual boot option to a full RedHat 7.1 + Ximian 1.4 desktop that is used by some pupils and also the art department for Gimp and Blender work.
While these aren't true linux "desktops" they run run linux and sit on desks
All the back end servers are linux baring the 6 NT desktop servers. All filestore, mail, web, dns, auth, etc is run on linux.
On a side note, I have the longest uptime of any machine in the office.
I am currently not obliged to divulge that information as it might compromise the agents in the field
75,000 windows nt systems at 24,000 retail postal sites.
s cs tory1.htm
http://www.itsupportnews.com/july2000/depts/sc/
I signed up for an account with them a few months ago and the software they used for the new accounts looked like gnome desktop. Haven't heard any articals about it, but i'd bet my moderation points it was Linux
Also notable: some 60% of our visitors are running linus/desktop, with infactdead billyboxes coming in a weak second, at around 23%. 60% netscape/mozilla browsers, with Konquerer a respectable 3rd.
fud is dead (as far as we're concerned).
Viva La Revolucione
Well, like a lot of places we use NetBSD for our dns server, for a while we had a linux machine running our mail server, however it was dropped (due to the better advice of myself and my supervisor) for an exchange server (I forget exactly why we dropped it, I believe we got a discount on the server itself) also, we have a VMS machine running down there as well. I don't think there is a lot of plans to move us to a more linux/unix desktop setup, however it shows that unix still controls and commands the server industry.
0. We have two FreeBSD machines, but they act web and email servers respectively, not clients. For better or for worse, Windows (particularly 2000 and XP) are best for desktop usage.
We at Transcept have about 20 linux boxes (the number is growing, because every product that we ship, now, has a linux system inside, and the prototypes actually count as general-purpose workstations and servers), and something like 50 employees.
Everyone already had a MSWindows NT PC before the linux boxes became part of our lives, so those PCs stayed as they were.
Many of our employees sit in front of old MSWindows PCs with full-screen VNC or telnet sessions connecting them to the linux boxes all day, which brings up an intersting point about unix-like systems: you don't have to have one at your desk to use it and have it be the centre of your world--it's a real multi-user system. If it's more cost-effective to have a few powerful `servers' (mainframe or `micromainframes', the latter being highpower'd PC hardware, except that the "P" isn't really appliccable anymore) and a many cheap terminals, peopele do that (and it is, so they do). Does this sort of setup count less? If you have 2 linux boxes, and 100 people spending their entire day in VNC or telnet or remote X11 sessions interfacing with those 2 computers, do you get 2 points, or 100?
-rozzin.
At $60 a pop, it ain't cheap, but at least it's an option.
a de xch.html
http://www.bynari.net/Products/TradeXCH/body_tr
Free the West Memphis Three!
I think that this is the worlds largest Linux installation ever. IBM says it is the biggest ever commercial use of Linux, it is more than 15000 IBM eServer xSeries running there, can you beat that?
:)
By the way, did you all know that google has over 6000 Linux servers, ahh me like google _alot_
2 reptiles beneath your current threshold.
My company has been working on custom Linux applications to replace Windows. I hope there are many chances in the future to suggest Linux.
Click here or here.
Try Fermilab (Department of Energy)
www.fnal.gov
More than 2000 emploees and most of the scintists use Linux as Desktop OS. We even have our own Linux distribution: Fermi Linux
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I thought I read that toyota was going to be using it for inventory throughout their dealerships.
Most software engineers and web developers at the large ecommerce company I work for are issued centrally administrated Linux desktops.
I remember a story from some time ago that stated that (I believe) Brazil (or another latin-american country, I forget now...) mandated that all government infrastructure run on Linux. I would that this includes desktop as well as server apps?
I believe this initiative was taken to save the government the millions it cost to license MS software.
Does anybody remember this?
Tried to poll their site to see how many other users use linux, and I'm sure that there is a way but I don't have the time to find it right now. I sure that you can get reports on who uses linux. If you want, punch in some high profile companies into that search and see who pops up, or go over to the "longest uptime" pages and notice that most are BSD/Linux.
(BTW - "da99@COFFEEhome.com minus caffeine" should be "da99@NOCOFFEEhome.com add caffeine")
If God gave us curiosity
They state that their "eventual" goal is to do away with Windows too, but that's not now.
_E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
He didn't know a thing about windows. This was 1993/4 and there was just windows 3.1. But wing commmander really kicked on that box.
What I'm trying to say is that maybe there needs to be a similar approach in companies serious about switching from MS to Open Source. Offer incentives to workers to bring Linux home. Get a decent box with a standardized distro and offer a substantial discount for it. Offer a free tech support contract and have a stipulation that you cannot format and install windows.
Give them a kicking game to play (Quake) and a Online gaming account. That'll keep'em interested after hours.
See how many people go out for their second computer and sign up for a Linux box. It worked for OEMs and Microsoft. It should work for open source.
http://cincyboys.blogspot.com/ Everything Cincinnati. Including the word 'Finnih'
StarOffice: Yep, you have to train the secretaries how to do basic operations in StarOffice. Many learned MS Word in school. That's what they know, and they don't know how to learn without being trained. Does this make them stupid? Well, maybe (at least as far as computers go), but that's why they're secretaries, not highly paid engineers like you.
Basically, you cannot just throw out the software and expect them to "get it". Even if the software is utterly intuitive to a highly trained engineer, it is *NOT* intuitive to someone who is not a computer geek. I remember the first time one of my musician friends used Windows... "okay, double-click on that icon ... left button... no, not that left, the other left!". Why assume that Linux will be any easier?
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Cendant has deployed thousands of PCs across the US (and maybe even other countries) with OpenLinux installed. They're using these PCs to manage their hotel chains, like Best Western and a few others. That's one company deploying thousands of copies of Linux for a single purpose.
IIRC, largo switched from an older Solaris/Xterminal system to Linux. The users were probably happy with the speedups and better desktop.
i have chosen debian gnu/linux as it's easy to work with and has that superb funny text-adventure called apt-get
www.linuks.mine.nu/workstation
for the numbers: at home a sparc classic (linux), doing nfs and porn-get workstation linux (mom and me), firewall linux and a web/ssh/mailserver linux too and my brother uses windows98
i've got an installed linux on my aunts laptop farway (she using debian too :)
at work 5 servers on linux (dns+hd mirroring, nfs, samba,proftpd)
my workstation, and 6 more, 20 people about 50 machines
Windoze not found: (C)heer, (P)arty or (D)ance
Hmm... I wonder if this could be the reason people seem to have an inordinate amount of BSODs. I haven't had a BSOD for years, but I also haven't run Netscape for about the same amount of time.
Correlation != Causation. But...
Hmm...
In any case, a cheap, license-free (or let's say, unencumbered by restrictive licensing) desktop would be a natural for public entities that are currently facing very tight budgets. Whether the employees would be happy and productive with such a setup depends on how much work the IT department will put into the changeover; if it's left up to the individual user, happy faces won't be easy to find there.
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
I have a very large customer (who will remain nameless for now) with over 200 stores nationwide that will be switching to Linux using IceWM as their window manager. It will be running their point of sale software. These are workstations, not servers.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
Walmart uses Linux for their inventory tracking and the like...
Meanwhile at Fred Myers last night, I was at the 'do-it-yourself' checkout and witnessed a station reboot...sadly enough what I saw was the Windows NT 4.0 start-up screen...Thus I understood why the system was rebooting...
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
Greek school labs.
Since last year, each new lab delivered in any school, consists of 12 pcs, all dual boot SuSE and Winblows 2000.
They are used nationwide for Internet (learning surfing, email,ftp,telnet etc), programming etc, since the corresponding educational printed material has chapters for Linux shell commands, GUIs (KDE, Gnome), shell scripting, backup, basic administration etc.
Till now there should be a total of over 5000 PCs in these labs and lots to come.
Just look at the Linux companies.
In our company, which is a rather small section of a large organization, the development team (which is 4 including the boss), is using Linux as a desktop. Still, because of the compatibility issues of Micro$oft, we have set a vmware with dos and winblows. The funny thing is that a vmware install of windows 2000 professional in a mandrake linux 8.0 with all the packages installed (minus the new kernel), and with defined memory 128mb (out of 256 total in the box) runs like hell! It takes below a minute to boot up everything!!!(enough about ranting)
The trouble with linux is that even though desktop use is possible, it's still on development, at least for my country, because there is not enough localization to support other users switching from ms to linux.I myself use kde 2.2.1 and it's ok, but hence, I find it difficult sometimes and not fully debugged. Yes, Microsoft's products are not 100% operational (call me BSoD) but yet, they have an operability.
Better than 90% of the time, I have Linux running on a dual-boot system here in my home along with 2 dedicated servers, and another workstation.
The ONLY time I find myself ever booting Windows 98SE is to play an older game that I can't get a Linux version of.
And concidering all the Nimda issues going around lately, I don't even run IE while in Windows to look up any game tips.
Just reboot and play, and reboot again.
(Yes, I've grown very tired of rebooting just for a stinkin' game that isn't even sold anymore.)
All of my new game purchases are Linux compatable. So hopefully even that old habit won't remain for too much longer.
__________________________________
Free your mind - Flush your toilet
All computers out on the floor with internet access (except the new broadband ones) use NeoLinux (or something of that nature), as does some of the routing devices that control a few printers and other utilities
The only desktop markets Linux has penetrated have been all around, over, and under the Consumer PC and business Desktop markets.
In order to break the egg shell (of steel) and storm these markets, Linux needs one major manufacturer to produce and market a Linux Consumer PC. That is, pre-installed systems at CompUSA, BestBuy, Office Max, Office Depo, etc.
In order to convince a major manufacturer to produce and market a Linux Consumer PC, we need to present a desktop with:
o Good Demo Software..
o Simple, 100% GUI usability for desktop uses
o A lighter-weight StarOffice or MS Office compatible KOffice..
o Layman capable system for software installation/uninstallation
o Layman capable system for hardware detection with driver installation/uninstallation
In order to get all these features we need:
o A desktop API that holds still longer enough for programmers to write apps for it. GNOME and KDE teams are ASCII Holes in this respect.
o A solid BASIC language interpreter or compiler with good database, network, and GUI componant connectivity. Python will not suffice.
In order to modify this for the business desktop market, we simply need the addition of an Access-like database... That is, visual forms, reports, queries, tables, and BASIC language scriptability--though I think allowing any language of choice would be preferable.
Do all of the above and a quick victory will be assured.... 100% guaranteed.
--Matthew
I know replying to a .sig is lame... but I don't let normal users run yes... should you?
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
A company addressing the needs of its non-technical employees and discovering they weren't up to the task of a more complicated environment than Windows is a reasonable post, there is nothing flamebait'ish about it.
/. a few months back illustrates the same thing, that many many people are not ready for Linux. Linux is not for the massess yet, and when it directly impedes productivity in a certain area of the business because the users are unable to use it it should be removed because productivity is the key to any business.
That usability survey that was up on
Someone else posted that these non-technical people should be fired? Just because someone can't grok linux doesn't make them a useless employee.
OK, so it looks like it's all developers and students using Linux on the desktop.
Is there anyone using it that BUYS SOFTWARE? If not there's no chance of a commercial software marketing developing, which will drive Linux onto MAINSTREAM desktops.
IBM wants to sell your business solutions, so just call a sales rep and pose this question to them. then you can take this answer to your boss, look like you did great leg work, give him the card of the IBM guy and let IBM take it from there.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Red Hat 7.1 :
30 Server installs
Mandrake 8.0 :
25 In HR
30 In Accounting
5 In Tax
5 In Legal
15 In Maintance
5 In IS
Windows 2000:
5 In IS
50 throught the company
slowly getting there
Check it out here:r nd es.php3
http://www.linux-verband.de/einsatz/projekte/be
70 KDE desktops.
Moritz
what's the max number? what's the total up to? what's the point of this tread?
there's no place like ~
The "Washington" in Washington Mutual refers to their home state, BTW.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
This post is really from MS. They are trying to get a feeling for how much trouble they are really in.
The Math Department at Texas A&M (not only the faculty and staff, but all of the computer based math classes) uses Linux almost exclusively. We have one NT box running citrix that is limited to 15 logins and only certain people are even allowed an account on it. There are approximately 150 machines in faculty/staff offices, and 4 labs of Linux workstations (approx. 300) In addition, all the servers for the labs are Linux, and there are several Linux servers for faculty/staff use.
The nice thing about it is, any science oriented student *must* take three math classes that are based around these labs. So you've basically got a captive audience for at least 1.5 years while they're still impressionable freshmen.
Quoted for those who can't see 0 scores. Leif_Bloomquist wrote "Our operation runs completely on Windows 2000. However, I have set up one old PC with Linux (Redhat 7.1) so that everyone who wants to can give it a spin. "
For this he was modded down to 0, and tagged Redundant. How can it be redundant if noone else has ever posted how many computer Leif_Bloomquist has running Windows and Linux? It might not directly answer the posted question, which wants the most Linux desktops, but at least let the guy have a voice.
Have the moderators gotten lousy in the last month, or is this a cyclical thing? (I've been reading and posting for about 4 months now.) Seems every topic lately has posts modded down to 0 and tagged either Flamebait or Redundant, when they don't deserve it. They may not be the most informative and in-depth posts, but they're not trashing anyone or pasting diatribes either.
Hell, I'm glad this guy cares about Linux enough that he setup a Linux box for his Windows-only co-workers to tryout. Again, how is this information Redundant? Plus, it's not an Anonymous Coward posting, it's someone who is putting his name on his post, and possibly his real name at that. This kind of stuff makes me want to stop reading Slashdot and get back to work. A sentiment I have seen others mention several times in the last two weeks. Maybe it should be a topic in itself.
Of course, this doesn't mean Linux is overrunning Windows on the desktop at Cisco. Cisco allows its employees to select the tools they need to do their job and that includes their preferred OS. Windows is still very common on laptops and most of the less technically driven departments. Within the technical ranks, Solaris shows fairly strongly.
Linux gets good competition. But its relatively new as a supported option at Cisco. It made some consicerable headway as it entered the Cisco workplace through new aquisitions. And the linux-users list was showing more and more engineers who liked taking their own build environment with them on the road.
101% agreed, same with windows/mac
Lots of the linux boxes here. In my department, only maybe 30, but that's out of 50-60 workstations, and is competing with Suns, SGIs, and the Windows. If you count the linux clusters, then we have hundreds more, and when the Itaniums get here, even more will be the linux. Many other universities are also having the linux themselves. Suns are expensive, IBMs, SGIs and HPs, and the linux is cheap on cheap hardware. For universities, at least science (not liberal artsy stuff) ones, the linux is good choice.
- Andre Smilev
I'm just starting out, and haven't had that many takers yet, but who knows? If this takes off, I'll be in front of the pack :)
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
Jeb Bush's administration has created a new office of technology. One of their main policy objectives in technology is interoperability across state government agencies. How are they going after this interoperability? Windows 2000. Go figure. See the link.
http://w2k.myflorida.com/vision.asp
All of them with a different distro.
:-) (took extra time to make it look JUST like her old box, but the joy of knowing it took her a week to get a clue!!)
So one day they were all standardized to FreeBSD. And the one "linux app" (aka a binary only program) runs fine with FreeBSD's Linux compatibilty layer.
So, no more Linux here, and we were even able to make one person redundant. She didn't like loosing Linux, even tho it was a week before she knew she wans't even running Linux anymore
You've obviously never admined a windows network for "mere users."
Any unix would be far better than what we have now, since we wouldn't give the users root.
The vast majority of our support calls are clueless users who broke windows trying to install some cute screensaver or some other such drivel.
It probably wasn't the world's largest Windows installation, but it was the world's largest installation of that version of Windows NT Servers. I don't remember the version, I think it was NT 3.1 or NT 3.5, at the danish institute for statistics.
Every time they added a new user, another user came in and said "I cannot log in". They reached the limit of users in the user database and had to wait for a patch from Microsoft before everybody could get into the domain!!!! Every time they added a user, another one was dropped from the user database.
Lars.
Until March I worked for a startup that fancies itself the next Juniper Networks. The standard desktop for new-hires was a slightly customized Red Hat. When I left, there were less than a dozen MSWindoze boxes around, and hundreds of Red Hats.
They're at almost 300 employees now.
Cameron
Most oil companies seem to by buying huge linux clusters for oil exploration.. html
Here's an example link:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2090687,00
my advice: seach google
The statement below is true.
The statement above is false.
I spent 3 years evangelizing Linux and getting it installed on a lot of desktops. Is it worth switching? I'd say yes for any small-medium sized company. For any large company it's simply not worth it.
Large companies have large turnover rates and need to hire people and quickly get them up to speed. Large companies also don't notice the extra cost of licensing. I see tens of thousands of dollars thrown away each day on stupid expenditures - why would software licensing matter? Plus, large companies tend to sign contracts with companies like Dell and Compaq for all their desktops - the OS is already there.
Yeah, I used Linux exclusively for 4 years as my desktop. It's still my OS of choice at home. But at work.. well, we have the MS thing going so that's what I use. And you know what? It's not that bad. It works, I can get my work done. I used to have to do programming, and Linux worked well for that. Now I simply use a bunch of canned applications that are peripheral to my job. Windows works ok for that.
Now, if you really think you want to go install Linux on a bunch of secretaries desktops, here's what you need to plan:
Good luck.
----- obSig
I would argue that TCO is the issue to switch to Linux, independent of purchase price.
Network Security: It always comes down to a big guy with a gun.
You must be rich.
This isn't exactly what you're looking for, but I think this Slashdot article is closer than some of the other suggestions.
Dept. ofDefense Adopts StarOffice
Tangentially, somebody mentioned impatient desktop users power cycling their linux boxes, and then suffering through a long fsck. Sounds like lots of users I know. (This is one reason that server rooms have locks on the doors.) I think some of the journaling filesystems coming into popularity now will help make Linux _far_ more usable as a desktop machine.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
i just got a call from one of our "duh...click install" NT people about one of our boxes here's the stats :
(3) beowulf clusters, 512 nodes future
~50 desktops
~5 servers
I never thought this would happen... but it did the studios got a clue. After working for the studios I was beginning to lose hope. http://www2.linuxjournal.com/lj-issues/issue88/480 3.html
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2761 566,00.html
my sister-in-law works for amazon, says they run as many as 5000 RedHat units. says they develop their tools on them and that the shipping floors run it for day to day (tracking, shipping) orders.
Several members of the Tucson Free UNIX Group setup a Linux system at Corbell elementary school in Tucson, AZ. The kids (6+ years old) all had no problems using the system. As a matter of fact they looked forward to working in the computer lab.
These were debian boxes with KDE on the desktop. Of course much planning and work went into the creation of our system images so that all things that were not needed were removed (GCC, header files, etc.). Special scripts were written to prevent user error (i.e. A perl script which would only allow one instance of Netscape to be spawned since Netscape has a very slow startup time.) and NIS with NFS home directories were setup so that any user could log onto to any node and get their desktop/user data.
This was done about four years ago and with the DRAMATIC improvement of Linux on the desktop, I would think that this task would be even easier today.
The administration benefits alone are worth using Linux versus Windows. You SSH-in and remotely fix any box at anytime. No PC-Anywhere licenses, no waiting until you come into the office tomorrow, it rocks!
I also have setup all my systems at my house with Linux and all of my computer illiterate family members has never had a problem using the systems.
The key is that you as the sysadmin need to setup the environment for the user and make it stupid simple for them. Then you show them how to use it. A little scripting and creation of a desktop icon on your part will go a long way to helping your users have a good experience.
From the brief description that you give of your problems it is evident to me that not much care was taken to give your users a gentle transition. It should come as no surprise that if you just plop your users in front of a UNIX box and tell them to get to work they are going to have problems.
This is just my ten cents.
p.s. In regards to your browser issue with your bank did you try Mozilla?
the question is about desktops, not servers
totally different things
A few months back, when the chip business started to decline my department was in dire need of some compute server upgrades. We were running Synopsys' Verilog compilers: VCS, Arcadia, Platforms LSF, and Clearcase for VOB on old UltraSPARC 1's@167MHz and a scattered "few" E-class dual UltraSPARC2's.
Due to the price of new Blade 1000 systems, I approached the group with the possibility of using Dell systems running Redhat. Redhat was supported by all the right applications and it fit perfectly into our Development cycle.
I gave my boss a cost comparison of buying 12 Blade 1000's versus buying 12 Dell Precision 530's @ 2x1.7GHz Xeon systems. Needless to say, I easily got the okay to buy the Dell systems. The management just had no idea they could get systems that much cheaper with the same kind of support offerings.
Since putting up the Redhat systems, other Engineering groups have queried me on using Linux and have began implementing the systems themselves. So, as of today, I support and maintain about 30 RH7.1 systems and growing. Other groups in the company are growing as fast as Synopsys ports their various tools to Linux.
Linux is alive and it's roots are still expanding.
--Kolbe
They approved a law forcing use of opensource software in preference of proprietary soft and they did a LARGE deploy of Linux.
Try www.cade.com.br and search for
linux RS software
Steve Ballmer recently (Aug 22) visited Mexico and had a meeting with President Fox about the e-Mexico project proposed by Fox. While no conclusive evidence has surfaced, based in Ballmer's declarations Microsoft would "help" the government with Windows licences.
If you can read Spanish see the following article in the respected newspaper Reforma of Mexico City.
Ballmer decried using Linux or other open source in government projects and discarded criticism regarding the possible technological dependency of the Mexican Government on MS. Quote: "The grovernment will make a wise decision," said Ballmer, obviously meaning using MS instead of Linux.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
On Windows, you double-click to open a program. On KDE, you single-click. Minor difference, you say? Tell that to the secretary who manages to open StarOffice *TWICE* (after her disk stops churning, that is!).
In KDE this behaviour can be modified in KDE Control Center->Peripherals->Mouse->Double-click to open files and folders.
The Desktop Settings Wizard that runs the first time KDE boots for a new user will automatically set this option if you choose the Windows-like mode of operation for KDE (second question in the wizard after your country and language).
Your argument is null and void, and you should learn to use the desktops that you are arguing about before you spout off rubbish about them.
my machine count is:
;)
3 macintoshs running OS 9.1
1 mac running OSx
1 ppc yellow dog linux
2 pc's, 1 win2k, 1 dual mandrake/NT4.
and only 2 people.
diversity is key
rehab, captain ahab, you're chasing the wrong fish!
Jefferson County, CO has been switching in a passive mode. They offered up the budget and told each group that they could buy more M$ software on underpowered hardware or they could switch to Linux freely, using star-office on new hardware.
Also Aurora City, CO is now looking at switching. Hopefully, they think about all the money that they spend
I mean, you get a nice desktop, you get applications (if StarOffice isn't good enough, there are commercial alternatives - Largo uses Word Perfect). What else do you need?
Do you need your employees having complete multimedia systems that play all sorts of nice sound effects and yell "you've got mail!" instead of just beeping or something?
I'd be willing to say that Linux is not ready for the home desktop, what with everybody wanting nice easy tools to rip CDs, play games, send AOL instant messages and so forth. I'll readily admit that. But in a corporate setting where you want connectivety, email and perhaps a web intranet, and office tools (spreadsheets, word processors), then I haven't bought the argument that Linux isn't ready for quite some time.
To top it off, if you had all Linux or Unix networks, then you wouldn't have things like the recent viruses killing your workplace.
I'm not going to say that everyone should switch right now, that nothing Windows offers is better than Linux (sure, there's lots of applications not available yet), but what I'm saying is that if you built, from the ground up, a shop that stayed away from proprietary formats and tools, you could do quite well with Linux.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Normally you would say that it would be improbable for a user app to cause a kernel crash, but if anyone could find a way to do it, Netscape would be the one.
(Come to think of it, the only time my machine has ever hardlocked was during a Netscape porn popup storm. And, no, I wasn't using the computer at the time.)
Ahem, try finding out what the sales and download figures were of RedHat, Suse, TurboLinux, Corel and so on...
Now, they're actually operating in the market, so they might be able to give you an idea of whether there -is- a market, where it's a tough market or a free ride.
Good luck!
Bizar technology?
> The suits still use Microsoft Windows, but :-)
> that's mostly because they don't know any
> better.
What's the Linux replacement for PowerPoint?
Three out of somewhere around 700 here, but I control all three.. And, before I had come here, there had been a rampant, unebbing 'non-Windows' ban...
It may not be much, but it's a start, right?
Enough said!
Somebody mod this guy down as a troll.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Ditto here. Running Netscape, even on `doze. Netscape runs on 99% of our platforms, while IE runs on 80% of our platforms.
And while Netscape definitely shows its age when compared to the latest releases of IE in terms of performance and standards compliance, those shrilling most loudly urging a switch from Netscape to IE were very recently seen removing egg from face deposited by nimda.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
> What's the Linux replacement for PowerPoint?
Kpresenter?
StarOffice?
WebBrowser + HTML presentation?
I have used all of them. They all work great.
Mexico's thoughts on the recent Microsoft visit and the technological choices that they are faced with here. Again, in Spanish.
is a wet baby!
The next killer app will be the one that makes itself look like whatever the user is used to (M$ Office, Star Office, Netscape, IE, etc.) and slowly begins to transform itself into a more useful tool (in the developers eyes of course!) keeping the user happy all the way.
Get coding fellas!
Stand is the place where you live,
Now face North
Think about direction
Wonder why you haven't before
R.E.M.
Our office runs Linux almost exclusively. We have 50 Linux workstations (Linux-Mandrake 8.1), and 13 Linux server (Linux-Mandrake 7.2). We have only 4 Windows machines and 2 Macs. I would say that the only larger Linux installation in Hawaii is Square USA, but all of their Linux boxen are in a Beowulf cluster.
Wherever you go, there I am...
We have had about 47 at Cray to replace Irix desktops. (also a few servers)
At Princeton Geophysics we have a linux cluster (70 DUAL CPU machines, and 8 or so misc. machines).
And about 7 desktop machines.
I have installed a few at noncomputer literate types
in homes. The biggest issue is that either hardware, peripherals or software is not working/supported on linux. ReaderRabbit, Digital Cameras, scanners, printers. That is hard for novice users. But the desktop has not been a problem.
NOTE: These are all RedHat running GNOME desktop and it has been very easy and user friendly to noncomputer literate.
Mark
I worked at NASA/Ames. About 100 machines with Redhat distro at my building alone. However, I heard there was a push for NT after I left.
I've never seen more than that installed anywhere
-Jason
Our compagny is going to replace 14 desktop to :)
Linux desktop. Mainly using Staroffice, a custom reservations program. Servers are going to replace Windows NT. Guess we have an intelligent boss
The one *big* thing I like with Linux is that it stores all data in your home directory, which is easy to find and back up. With Windows, this is a pain in the ass, because it sticks things in the application's directory, or some other godforsaken place. Everyone has their own little workaround for this to make backups easier, which makes everyone's machine different- and that's bad.
I'm not sure what they have currently because I haven't been there in about 2yrs, however the EE/CS building has one main UNIX lab and a good portion of that lab is all Linux (30 computers). They also have another lab of just Linux and I think that is around 40-50 computers. Then the student-ACM room must have around 10 computers that are BSD and Linux. There is another lab that is not open, but for classes and they are all Linux 20-30 computers there. I would guess the Univ of Mn has around 100 computers that are pure Linux. There might be even more now, I'm not sure. On the downside, they have a new small lab building with all WinNT and some Mac OS (might me OS-X now though). Then if you go to the Carlson School of Mngt, they have a lab with about 50-60 computers (all brand new with LCD monitors) for running MS Office. :)
NEXT!
Note that in a corporate environment, the secretary (or whoever) never sees an "initial setup" screen, s/he gets a standard desktop setup with icons pre-installed etc. for all the major applications. Expecting a secretary to wade through configuration menus is unrealistic even in tech companies.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
In my previous hac^H^H^H adventures through their network (I currently use their cable broadband) I have noticed that every machine on the network is running Dynix/FreeBSD/Linux. From what I hear, only the higher-ups use Win32. Try emailing them. home.tconl.com
I have myself and and about ten ohter people have linux on our computers and then there is the lab for secret information processing that runs linux. There are ten computers in that.
The Milwaukee School Of Engineering has the option to run Linux on the laptops it hands out to its students and faculty. Many of the students get it because it is needed for at least one class. And some of the instructors get it so that they can teach the class.
Others get it because they are fed up with Microsoft and what it continues to market. The Linux OS offers the students the opportunity to fix what they don't like about M$ Windows.
With the number of students at MSOE around 2500 students at the school (almost all of which have the MSOE standard laptop), and about half of them running Linux, that puts the MSOE count up to somewhere around 1200.
All students and staff here have access to a linux operating environment on campus, and often connect to that using VNC or SSH, something that is almost necessary if one wants to publish a web page/site on the MSOE site.
If even half of the students that don't have Linux running on their laptop publish a web site, that means that 3/4 of the MSOE population is now using linux, which brings the count up to about 1800 or so.
"I can do it fast, I can do it well, I can do it cheap. Pick any two." --Unknown
okay i am asking for the official announcement: THE LINUX DESKTOP DREAM IS DEAD.
.com no-profits, etc)
D
E
A
D
Blame it on terrorist attacks, blame it on the stock market, whatever. But when the biggest response to the slashdot question "What is the biggest desktop install of linux" is "400 computers in Largo florida that used to be Unix Boxes" -- well quite frankly it just isn't going to happen! Linux has been proven a failure in the Desktop world.
Many companies and large communist countries, have announced they are going to try to go to Linux--and gollllllly! we just haven't seen it.
It isn't going to happen. Yes, web servers they are doing okay on. Almost a competitor in the small web server business (non-profits,
BUT Fortune 500 companies aren't replacing their desktops with some european pothead's idea of a bastard child of unix.
There is no large install of LINUX (uh under 1,000 isn't large ) on the desktop. If there was then Windows wouldn't have 99% of the desktop market.
Now maybe there are installs like Largo where THEY REPLACED AN OLD UNIX X SYSTEM!!! That really isn't a large deployment of Linux--those are THIN CLIENTS. LARGO IS ALL THIN CLIENTS. They mine as well have VT-100 terminals on the desktop or Windows CE machines on the desktop--LARGO IS A SERVER INSTALL, not a DESKTOP INSTALL.
end rant
But they use Linux to sort mail. (old article, was on slashdot some time ago, this is the only link I coud find)
http://www.pnwsoft.com/linux.htm
-- this space for rent --
we have about
100 Sun dekstops
50 SGI desktops
40 Linux desktops
and about 200 dual processor linux systems operating in a cluster
The large Insurance company I work for thought about it briefly, and even brought in a crash team from IBM and RedHat to set up and help us test things on a large scale. In the end, it just isn't easy enough to use, flexible enough, stable enough, and good enough for the average joe end user in our company. In fact, it caused such instability on our various LAN and WAN systems that it is now banned from anything but unconnected stand alone boxes.
I think you will find a few here, a few there, but no really big install base anywhere.
HP workstations have been the prime example with their 20k bloated slow workstations for why linux should be used with commodity processors.
nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &
I work at a small liberal arts university in Austin, Tx and aside from the small RISC lab running AIX on the desktop (which this lab almost hardly works right) There is not one machine that is running linux on the desktop. On the backend of the university you will find various flavours of unix doing all the work. Not one MS box which makes me happy as a Systems Administrator.
I just got hired in a firm to migrate their entire network to Linux. Both the servers and all of the workstations will be running Linux in a few months, even the ones the secretaries use. It's not a big company (20 people), but still.
-- The Internet is a too slow way of doing things, you'd never do without it.
I work at a large non-profit long-term health care provider where we currently have 2121 IBM Network Stations running NetBSD and IBM's window manager. We manage 4193 user accounts via LDAP and a custom meta-directory service. We have systems deployed in 206 locations. We have 2 FTE support persons managing this infrastructure. We are using Applixware Office, Netscape Messenging server and various web applications. This stuff works great! We are working on a plan to deploy Linux onto the Network Station platform in the very near future.
When one wishes to illustrate a missing point in a question, it's commonly known as rethorical trick to rephrase the answer as a "Counter-question" which will help "the other guy" see problems in the question.
This rhetoric is related to the rhetoric of analogy, allowing you to "reason" about something without explicitly mentioning your arguments (which would be a long story about the value of Open-Source and stuff).
The original question was (stated in the post) posed in a way that could be understood something along the line of "Well, if linux is so good, then point me to a place where they use it (seriously)", implying a lack of value to the "linux product".
Since WinMe is not installed in corporate environt, chances are you will not be able to think of a "large installment" of WinME. But the person who posed the question will most likely hold that WinME has value! The "poser" of the question will now not be able to make the argument : "no large installment implies poor value" (without implicating WinME == poor value).
Most of the time, discussions are not based on presenting arguments, but on pushing rhetoric against non-believers -- this is a tactic many people use when they don't agree with the other part of the discussion (Just look at GPL zealots vs. M$ zealots).
SLOGEN [ http://ungdomshus.nu : Sebastian cover music]
Just a little off topic, but the largest Unix (Solaris) desktop installation would have to be Sun Microsystems. 35k employees worldwide, the majority of desktops are Solaris running CDE or Gnome. (Have to post anonymously 2 :-)
Here's a quote from a webpage describing the computing facilities:
Our workstation network consists of about 500 PCs (mostly Pentium III, more than half of them with flat TFT monitors) running Linux. Windows 2000 can be used as an alternative to Linux. More than 70 of the workstations are mobile laptops that can join and leave the network dynamically.
I read somewhere that this is most likely the largest centrally administered Linux network in Finland... Being a student there, I must say that it's kinda cool :)
Actually, the motivation for the comment was another. Look at: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=21777&cid=2375 669
SLOGEN [ http://ungdomshus.nu : Sebastian cover music]
Several medium sized Army projects/organizations (50-250 users) in Central Florida are already using Linux at the desktop level. They are also surveying contractors to find out if they would develop with a Linux desktop in mind, and what challenges they see.
In the Army world, desktop security policies are often so strict that users will never run into some of the hardware/software configuration gotchas that remain in Linux...
Where I work there are 1000 to 1500 Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000 and ME boxes but each one of them have a remote X sessions, Cirix terminal server connections, or dual boot *n*x platforms. There are about 500 test bed Unix machines. On about 200 test boxes there are versions of Linux running anything from RedHat and Mandrake to SuSE and Slackware. Not to mention the nearly 800 remote Unix servers. The true LINUX numbers are around 50 production (technically test bed) boxes running Gnome, KDE, CDE, and OpenWindows (Unix port). We are thinking about using Linux as a replacement for the nearly 800 remote servers complete with remote X-Server sessions for corporate DNS and web serving for remote web-paged based management.
Does this help?
... there is nothing that has not already been thought
MIT Has a HUGE number of redhat machines deployed. There has to be at least a few thousand in the Computer Science lab alone. Not to mention the rest of the departments in the school. Your probobly looking at at least 10k - 15k linux desktops.
Once you know the answer to who has the most installed desktops, you can find out the issues they had when the switched from their previous os. The city of Largo isn't that helpful in this way because they were already on some other version of *nix. I want to say CDE on Solaris, but I can't remember.
What you want to be able to do is say this company had 50 entrenched users who would give up windows when you grabbed it from their cold dead hands and now use KWord or some such thing.
The title of this joke is just begging for a "Your Mom" joke, is it not?
Free as in speech, free as in beer, or free as in lunch?
I work at a web developer company in Copenhagen, we are granted permission to install whatever OS we want. We are 4 people out of 25 with Linux.
Some of the older guys at work has tried installing Mandrake 8.0 because they want to make the switch, but in general, the upgrade failed because:
- they have to emulate Lotus Notes through WINE, it's slow.
- Mozilla is way slow on their Pentium II 300 machines comparing with IE on NT 4.
- They have no time to learn the basics of Linux on their job - they want full control, but it hurts productivity to learn it in the same time where they must work.
Beg to differ. Netscape 6.1 (based on Mozilla code) runs circles around IE.
i think the X terminal setup is the real killer for large scale usage on corporate desktops: makes admin live easy and reduces TCO. note: you can also convert old desktop PCs to X11-terminals. either creat read-only images on the harddrive or configure them for remote boot...(in both cases: no need for fsck at all...)
greetings from vienna. mond.
this is small beans but we've currently got around 12 linux boxen on the desktop at my company. for fun we turned them into a mosix cluster which is rather nice whenever i need to do any compiling.. and you never know when you might need to do some after hours 3d rendering!
Damn, you're pretty smart!
What's the Linux replacement for PowerPoint?
Maybe you should be asking yourself, why would anyone want to create a PowerPoint replacement? PowerPoint is an awful piece of junk! All the presentations I've ever seen look very poorly done.
We're almost all Linux.
Weve got 4 Sun450s running (surprise) Solaris.
We've got a couple of NT servers.
There are 5-10 Windows desktops.
Everything else is Linux, including about 20 linux rack mounts which we're serving web pages off of.
Since you linked to that site called 'Newsforge' perhaps this would be a good time to examine the name of the site:
Do they forge all their news?
If not, what is the boneheaded rationale for naming their site so that it implies they forge their news stories?
Mine. I have an extra P-100 for Outlook ;-).
You get to judge a moderation. When you
log in, its at the top of the home page.
From what I know, the metamoderation can
change a users chance of being a moderator.
So, when you see unjust moderations, you
can mark them as unfair and that user may
not end up moderating any more.
And your right, anything on topic should
be posted in the forums. Not just specific
to the question in the article, but something
relevant.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
working for an IT consulting group, specialising in linux/unix support, we've got a grand total of 3 windows machines on the desktop (one win95, one win98, and one winnt 4).
however, we've got over 16 desktop workstations. guess what the rest run (answer? various flavours of linux). most of our servers (both private and hosted) also run linux, except for a solaris machine (ugh. nfs) and one or two freebsd machines.
i'm also told by employees of the DSTO (defense science and technology organisation (or something like that) ) that they've shipped out over 1000 linux machines, and only a small proportion of those were for number crunching (this is in australia btw) although i can't confirm that with numbers, as i don't work for the DSTO myself.
I don't work at IBM, but with all the commercial software they ship on Linux it would be odd if they don't win this contest...
:-)
Heck, I do believe I read somewhere that they had 2500 guys running Linux and their cubes were all crammed inside one big 'ol S/390 mainframe.
MIT has over 600 end-user workstations, all running some sort of linux/unix desktop
Scott Mewett presented a paper at LinuxWorld Expo in August on Cisco's "Kickstart Tools" which it uses to do network installs of customizable Linux systems in a large enterprise environment.
Um, you obviously have never used an HP workstation© They are anything but slow© A single PA-RISC 440 keeps right up with my Athlon 1©4 on fpu tasks, ans isn't far behind on integer stuff© the memory bandwidth blows away any intel solution© In addition the Dual 550 Mhz J5600 that I use sometimes will probably blow anything that intel makes away© Granted, one of the reasons that we use HP's is because EDA software that we run ¥mentor and cadence runs on either Sun or HP hardware, and HP's far and away blow anything sun has to offer out of the water© Granted, for there price/performance ration, they don't look all that good© But sometimes you need to say F**K cost, I need performance© and btw, Suns are generaly slow as s**t on anything usefull©©©
Most companies that I know of, don't see much of a market for commercially developed drivers for Linux, especially those companies, like the one I work for, that write drivers for 3rd party hardware developers who don't do it inhouse themselves. Sure Nvidia writes linux drivers, but they also create the hardware inhouse...
I don't see too many companies wanting to pay for someone to develop a driver for their hardware, when it's enough to release the specs out on the web, and some programmers are gonna do it for free on their own time anyway...
Interestingly enough though, we are starting to run non-microsoft OS's on more and more developer machines at work... We just can't take Visual Studio crashes twice a day and taking a source file with it...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
I had something similar happen to me recently where a post was marked -1 overrated. I think a group is just downmodding anyone that posts as 1 for general principle. Another person rated it underrated later, balancing it out.
In the end a sufficient mob, even of geeks, is reduced to it's lowest common denominator.
So I tried a Google search on 'Linux installations corporate' and found a good list. Also, if you do a search here in 'older stuff' I'm sure you can find many posts, since anytime even when a medium size company switches over, someone reports it.
But this was a good reference which contained a list of case studies of businesses that switched to linux.
http://www.bynari.com/collateral/case_studies.html
Linas.org also provided an incredible study of Linux Enterprise Computing.
http://linas.org/linux/
Trinity has 2 teaching labs for students. Each has around 24 PC's in it.
;-)
One is Linux, the other is NT. The NT one is migrating to Linux shortly.
On these, we teach basic computing skills as well as advanced stuff.
The only complaints we have from students is that they can't install
crap all over them as easily as they could the NT boxes. What a shame.
We're also deploying a large number of Linux based web kiosks.
All of our servers bar 3 (accounts database, security system, old fileserver
on it's way out) run Linux.
Currently, we would have about 130 NT/2000 boxes and about
70 Linux boxes, and about 15 Macs.
We need more Macs..
The previous comments are only true, if no-one says they're wrong.
>Just for fun, if any of you have Linux Desktops >deployed in your department, can you give us >some numbers?
http://www.ma.utexas.edu/
All servers and ~150 desktop machines running Linux
Here they have about 200 desktops, most of them (probably around 150) run NT, the rest are split about evenly between HP-UX and Linux.
I am a BOFH at Analog Design Automation, a software company of 47 people. We have 48 Linux desktops (some people have two), and 12 Win2k desktops for our business types. ie. 80% of our desktops are Linux. We also have a Debian GNU/Linux compute farm with 32 nodes, and about a dozen "specialty" Debian GNU/Linux boxen (servers, tinderboxes, dedicated db boxen, auditors, a firewall, a dumb terminal for a sun server).
;)
I especially enjoy busting off one-liners that upgrade/patch all the Debian boxen.
Our company of 400 will be deploying all ThinClients (using LTSP) and a couple of our apps (like Siebel..UUGH!!!) which are windows only, are accesed through Citrix Anyway, so we will use the Linux Citrix client.... :)
Only the developers will get their own PC's as they tend to suck all the processor power
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.
My company uses NCDs (brainless X terminals, for those fortunate enough to have never encountered them) on the the desktop for all developers (about 160, at last count). At present, they run off SGI O2 workstations, but we're in the process of moving to use a newly purchased rack of Linux boxes. From what I see so far, performance is greatly improved - the machines are faster, and much more stable.
if you let every W2k user in as root -- fire all the old ones.
That's the same logic that would have you rolling out Linux with every user as root -- it is a huge mistake to roll out any os when the tools exist to deploy it the right way.
Because they did fix it -- located bug and fixed it. Where's the issue here?
A related question: who has the largest single
Linux desktop? At work we have several consoles
with eight or nine 21" CRT's under XFree86 4.1.0.
Disconnect the reset button.
It's the same answer for seat-belt buzzers, airbags, trunk lights.
Why to techs like Linux so much? Because they can Turn Things Off! And why is Microsoft software hated, really, at the root? Because you cannot turn things off.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
What system are you on? X is more unstable in 90% of the install's I've seen than Windows 3.1
open a command prompt...
/?" if you need the parameters to it
on W2K or NT type "ipconfig" and "ipconfig
on previous versions of windows try "winipconfig" and it's graphical...
Of course, real men use the registry directly (very easy).
still easier -- amazing, your willing to edit a file in Linux but not the command line in W2K/NT -- seems like you never mastered the OS but moved on to another alternative.
Perhaps your boss should inquire of you why you should ask your bank to support your 1% of the desktop... i.e.: why not do what businesses do -- support your business requirement.
If your incapable of doing it internally I'm sure their are other admins that could be hired to do it or consulting companies that would be happy to.
I'm sure Microsoft would send in the anti-Linux Teams to add up some numbers found here, in a highly scientific poll conducted at slashdot.
They'll be running their favorite old CALC.EXE, punching in all their numbers, 3043 here, 2001 there. 75% of 14 computers at some IT department.
They scan down the list, what kind of number is Linux Ru132?? So they substitute E.
It's a good thing that it doesn't blue screen here, because it might make them think that they're gaining even more ground from the number shown.
Our Engineering Computing Facility was recently upgraded to Linux boxes; we had sparcs and NT boxes before. There are still some NT boxes, but even some of the new NT boxes became Linux boxes.
I noticed reading this article that free software is referred to as software libre (gratuit). That's an interesting twist on the problem of the word "free".
A man undressed in front of a prostitute, and due to his size she laughed "Who are you gonna please with *that*?"
He replied, "Me."
I have two linux installed base boxen. My server and my desktop. And that pleases Me.
I noticed that some of you want to lump all these type of systems togther for the sake of boosting the Linux numbers, but it just isn't the same thing. Desktops have much greater user flexibility and it is that user flexibility that is at the core of whether a OS is widely deployed for a certain use.
With out a doubt Linux is a great server OS, but one you put it in the hands of everyday desktop users, many of the advantages that slashdotters recognize linux as a great OS for go to waste and can even create problems for the ordinary users.
The truth is, and always will be...There has to be dumbed down OS's... the vast majority of computer users not only NEED it but the WANT something simple. Until a "dumbed down distro" exists linux will not be competative in the desktop market. Keep in mind too that this dumbed down distro will also have a broad range of first class applications as well, otherwise there will be no incentive beyond price/hate for MS to switch over from an OS that alread gets the job done.
At Los Alamos Labs (I work in the tech department) we have at least 1,000 Linux machines (out of a user base of approx. 10,000 machines). The numbers are growing, too, as they replace a lot of Suns with Linux boxes.
what on earth is up with your punctuation? Could it have anything to do with the fact that you're using oh-so-special HP-UX?? :-D
I 'm not suprised Ballmer made it down to see Vicente Fox, in 50-60 years latinos will be the majority ethnic demographic of the united states. I currently work with a few analysts from VMS backgrounds. When I ask them if they're concerned about job security they are quick to point out that OS preferences, like religious preferences, is often a function of how you got started. When digital stopped donating DEC servers to colleges and unix boxes became more cost effective to the universities digital was sowing the seeds of its destruction.
I think if Vicente Fox is far seeing enough he should go with linux. I just bought mandrake 8.0 and I swear win9x is _harder_ to configure. Great for kids and middle management! There is also a case to be made that China, Russia and other technologically savvy, yet somewhat economically derpessed, nations tend to have considerable linux user bases (so I'm told.)
I think mexican children can get all the point and click they need to learn windows from a KDE on mandrake 8.0 while still having access to a shell so that in time they can weild a cluebat in business with the world's largest emerging market. Meaning, China.
Or is microsoft going to "help" china with liscences too?
One of the Network guys there told me that Argonne http://www.anl.gov has the largest. They appear to have a couple of very large buildings that contain Linux desktops exclusively.
I doubt Cisco is the largest number but there is a lot of Linux desktops at Cisco - no idea the actual numbers.
As long as they hold this attitude, it ain't gunna happen. You can use ext3 journalling, you can give them the latest-greatest KDE apps or Mozilla (which scream along in comparison to the second-latest-greatest), you can do all of these things to no avail. They will still find something to whine about.
Now if you keep your eyes open, you'll find one or two important people playing a game or using an app that they treasure. It might even be Solitaire. When you do discover what the sticking point is, install it or a better one on Linux boxes not being used by them, and show the other users how to use it. The answer to Solitaire would be PySol. You may lose a few man-hours to a game, but once your legacy system users are acquainted with it, the transition suddenly becomes easier.
A similar tactic is to install one or two Linux boxes in their area ``for visitors'' or whatever, and put a whole raft of really interesting things on them. Then have people go in every so often and use the interesting things on the Linux boxes only. I don't know your people; it might be bzflag, TuxRacer, Jabber, anything. Who knows what pushes their button? Try them all.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
These don't look like the articles I saw when I originally saw the /. post, but I seem to recall him saying that the employees that were switched from windows only noticed a few differences-- No reboots and no data loss. He actually had to explain to them that it wasn't necessary to back your data to floppies every night like they got in the habit of doing with winduhs. In short, they love it.
"Can I say you're my lovepuppy?" Founding member of SODAMNHOTT
I hope you can come up with enough of your own U.S.-born tech workers, because I sure as hell won't be moving to the U.S. any time soon (and I'll leave Canada if it gets bad here, too. I have no loyalty to a country that fscks around its citizens.)
Most of the reports of 'we tried to use linux but everyone hated it' seem to come from laziness, lack of empathy with users and not understanding how to construct a desktop system for *their* users.
What I mean is the admins like Linux/unix and have convinced their bosses how much money they can save and so they just whack a default Redhat/Suse/Corel on all the machines and give all the staff 20minutes training telling them that gnome/kde/whatever is just like windows.
Honestly I'd recommend using KDE2.2 but you have to so heavily modify its setup and then remove the ability to change those settings to prevent users from breaking the config. Howabout removing the K menu and just having icons for the 5 or so applications that they use on the desktop or the panel. Corporate users shouldn't be to do anything more than change the colours and the background picture. They shouldn't need to change their menus or anything like that - admins do that.
These users should never have to use the commandline. They probably would only use Koffice, Kmail, Kaddress and Konqueror and maybe a couple of in-company apps. And lots of that config should be locked. How do you lock config? chown root, chmod -w. Easy. Simplify and remove options. Options are there for admins to use to customise systems for their users needs - not for users to play with. They afterall are not the 'techies', it is not their job to make these decisions.
Oh and should you need to send a document to anyother company you can print to PDF!!! If you ask a graphic artist to produce a logo for you and send you a sample, does he/she send you a photoshop document? Oh course not. He exports it to a more generically useful format. Why are documents so different?
</rant>
<takes breath>
'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
Wrong.
Linux does work on the desktop. When my parents, who were lost with Win 95, they egan to understand and want to understand their system after I built a Linux system.
The challenge with a Linux system is that someone has to install it and take the time to make it accessible. But once that happens, it is very viable.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Just read my own post to find numerous spelling errors. Sorry im EXAUSTED and only had 2 hours of sleep lastnight.
Someone should point out here that many of the largest and smaller news paper chains in the world use macintosh computers... With the recent release of OSX10.1 and a little push for Adobe to get with the program (photoshop), those will likely be the largest networks of desktops running a *nix os.
100% here ... 1 desktop and one server
aloha,
dave
We run a production/design office (advertising) and its small. Out of 8 computers, 4 of them are linux machines, 3 are Macs and 1 Win$. Unfortunately, out of the 4 linux machines, only one is a Desktop machine.
Weird, I have 12 boxen, 11 of which use Linux (4 Mandrake, 2 Slack, 4 Peanut, 1 homebrew) My mum, uncle, ex girlie, current girlie, and 2 mates all run it on the desktop. I'm rolling out 18 boxes at the Kurdish community centre in 2 weeks. The question seems very odd, since even my computer semiliterate /dev/girlie can tell LINUX is superior on the desktope. Even a microsoft user can tell when it's bloody crashed. I don't know, their stuff is so slow.... I have 2 friends who are computerjournos who are asking me about installing it because 1) they get sent a lot of attatchments with accompanying viruses. 2)ms office can't open ms office attacthments but Staroffice can. Also I've used now't else on the desktop for 4.5 yrs. Where's the problem. Apart from the lack of exercise your arm gets from dipping into your pocket to hand over your taxed income for inferior products. Kein mitleit fur microsoft. They sat down on us and we bit off their buttocks.
Bhaji
The easiest place to find a large number of Linux desktops in your local city is to visit your local college/university. Most CS departments run Linux on many desktops. I know that my University has labs full of Linux boxes.
at my company, we have about 350 workstations, all running windows, but there is a damn good reason for it, you can't imagine how many times i see employees endlessly banging on their numerical pad screeming "the keyboard is broke, nothing works but the letters" and then calmly walking over to them, and with the greatest of ease, pressing the NumLock.
do they ever feel stupid.
tourettes
I did a roll out last year of linux desktops to a lot of the ymca's in New Zealand. While there isn't a great many computers at one site (max about 40 desktops) the ymca has many sites. Still about 30% of the PCs (the really old ones which are too shit to be bothered to run linux on) run a varient of windows. In time these machines will be dumped, sold, stripped for parts and replaced with new linux desktops.
Gnome, Star Office and netscape is the standard install.
replace the: .."29 Mac, 1 SCO, 19 PC installs."
fucko
I work with one (has apache running too), and another is in public use.
Segmentation fault.
All of the staff (around 120 people)are on Win2K and it suits them quite well. We run Win2K on our database and mail servers (for now...) and use linux for network monitoring and security functions with the occasional freebsd box here and there. Most of the IT staff also have a linux or freebsd box for daily use.As a positive note, the next six servers that we are purchasing will run linux. There is also some discussion of ditching a couple of the Win2K servers in favor of linux. We have recieved a couple of requests for linux on the desktop from the more technically inclined staff of late, but that is not just not possible at this time due to one legacy app they must use. So inroads are being made, slowly but surely linux is getting there and becoming an actual alternative for casual users.
Wanna get high?
My school consists of mainly Windows NT 4 workstations along with a few Windows 2000 workstations. Now, I have been sort of boasting about Linux lately and finally got permission to take a less used computer and install Linux on it.
:D
:)
It made an awesome Internet terminal that doesn't crash.
My friend's school though, is almost 100% pure Linux with a few Windows workstations lying arround for things like marking and such.
Mind you, both my school and my friend's school is private.
have it backwards, fuckwad. It's you and your "mywin2kboxNEVERcrashesyoumustbedoingitwrong" ilk that are spewing your "grass roots" crap everywhere.
I am a unix sys admin at a large nationwide computer retail chain. Sad to say, their unix experience has not been entirely satisfactory (aix, hp-ux, etc), which is not the fault of the OS at all. Such a retailer is especially beholden to M$, and so the company has been descending into the windoze nightmare for 2 years now. Working mostly on NT/2000 machines this past year I have experienced first hand just how incredibly inferior is the OS.
So the count here is a pathetic 10 linux/freebsd, 30 AS/400, 300 AIX, 3000 windows.
Admittedly linux has been my primary desktop these last 7 years, but I have had to use - and learn - windows all along too. So I must conclude, this bickering about "linux not up to windows desktop standard yet" is just laughably wrong. _Everything_ for me is incomparably easier to do on linux than windows, and despite the closed systems around me, I can do almost all my windoze work from my linux desktop. In fact I have repeatedly demonstrated my rule of thumb there - any job takes about 30 times longer to accomplish on windows than it takes on linux. And after that - windoze requires constant maintenance from things breaking, whereas linux "just plain works".
The windoze losers here simply resist change, and have become accustomed, or more apt, inured, to the windoze way of doing things. I challenge them to at least spend as much time on linux as they spend on windows before mouthing off any more.
tcboo
Hello,
At my last job, I was given a Sun workstation and a PC running Windows. (everyone at that time had a Sun and either a Mac or PC) Then I got my hands on a 3rd machine on which I installed Linux. I had been using Linux for about 4 years at that time, so I felt more comfortable with that than the Sun Ultra1(SLOW!) or WinNT (BLUE-SCREEN-OF-DEATH!). Other people started to notice I did not have to deal with frequent crashes, etc., but that was only mildly interesting to them.
Shortly afterwards, I set myself up a 16-node Beowulf that whooped the 'big servers' on most tasks. This caught people's attention. Afterwards, everyone was getting a Linux Box instead of a new Sun Ultra60. In fact, new hires were presented with a Linux box upon their arrival! (no Sun in sight) Before I left, I figure we went from 0 Linux PC's to ~ 40.
Now, I have a new job at a University research lab, and we are all using Linux on the desktop. There are a couple of Macs, a couple of Sun servers, and my Win2k box (for WebObjects development and system crashes) that are special-purpose machines. We do have some specialized scientific software that requires the use of WinNT. For people who need access to that, we just run VMWare on their box. (which is feasible since we were able to max-out the system memory as there weren't as many software licenses to purchase)
Folks also noticed that they can open almost all of their old spreadsheets, presentations, documents, etc. using Star Office. I've heard some people say Star Office is hard to use. For me, it is easy as I had never used MS Office. (up until recently, my idea of desktop publishing typing in Emacs and printing via Enscript)
I'm a software developer, so I prefer Linux/UNIX to Windows. However, I've never met any serious resistance from new Linux/UNIX users. My experience has always been if you are patient and explain how to use the OS clearly, people are more than happy to learn some new skills.
Of course, I can only give an estimate for our university (KULeuven, Flanders). And the use there is basically on two (or more)different planes: ... It's nice to see people joining the internal newsgroups to get support for their first install, evolving to experts over the years, ...
...) and most of them either shift their workstation to Linux or use it with ssh and some Xclient (some ppl are doing 100% Linux development on a Linux server, themselves running Windows for, ... yep, the dreaded outlook and M$ Office).
1. First, there is obviously the students. As in most places, this started from an OS used by informatics students, to a much wider base: I seem to remember philosophers, engineering, political sciences,
2. But most importantly (and going to the question), that would be the research. In our department, unix machines (HP, Solaris), are more and more being replaced by some kind of Linux stations (or clusters). One of the important reasons is the cost (getting rid of large maintenance contracts and expensive hardware), but equally important is de quality and availability of software.
In our research group, there is a gradual but continuing shift towards Linux. Where people join without much knowledge of it, they see the advantages (stability, quality of LaTeX, development tools, ease of use,
3. This entire Linux-isation is partially supported by the university network itself, since it has promoted Linux to the official university networking OS. It is the OS governing the network. All this gets a, by times, interesting exchange between students and sysadmins going.
4. I can also think of some ppl that moved to a company after graduating, either in Linux consulting, either in software development, using Linux.
Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. You can't simply say, "Today I will be brilliant."
I've got news for you, bro, the careers service lied. You ain't a manufcaturing engineer at all.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
stupid shiteating microsoftie
go fuck yourself
sorry, but it's true..and I LOVE unix as much as the next guy, but this place takes the f'in cake
I am currently experimening Windows Replacement for desktop use in consulting firm. I have my Laptop with a Windowsless install and seem to be doing pretty well (no "lose of productivity" or "Can't do this/Can't that").
.asf's).
So that accounts to 1 Linux box and 26 Windows boxes (i can use other apps, but this are program matches for Windoze users migrating).
- GNOME+Sawfish: bans Windows
- Evolution: bans MS Outlook (100% success)
- Galeon: bans Internet Explorer (98% success)
- Abiword: bans MS Word (95% success)
- GNumeric: bans MS Excel (90% success)
- Bluefish: bans UltraEdit (90% success)
- ICU: bans ICQ (100% success)
- Pan: bans every newsreader (100% success)
- gftp: bans every ftp winclient (90% success)
- Samba+LinNeighborhood: bans MS WfW
- MPlayer+XMMS: bans Media Player (yes, people use Winamp at work to listen to their music. And sporadicaly some
- GIMP: bans Photoshop (80% success).
- Wine as a last resource: bans a lot!
I can do almost everything and colaborate like if i was a Windows user. No need to tell my colleages to use "Open Standards" or Compatible soft.
unfinished: (adj.)
Stop assuming.
Just because you like linux it doesn't mean everyone else should.
that you got a very small number of machines with multiple ip's assigned (failover, know much about it? didn't think so kid)
I seem to remember a story a coupple of weeks ago about how all the movie studios are switching to linux
There just isnt any comparison. My old 75MHz model 715 was about twice as fast as my four years newer 300MHz P II machine for anything IO bound, like opening mailboxes, starting programs, etc.
:) is positively blazing fast compared to our standard 800MHz PC's.
My new 400MHz B2000 (with dual graphics cards
The difference in IO and memory bandwidth makes for some sick amount of difference in actual daily performance.
It is difficult to estimate the number of boxes we have at out company,
since there are a lot of dual boots,
+- 10 Linux boxes Slackware + Mandrake
+- 15 FreeBSD boxes,
out of 15 people, that's good.
At the moment i'm working as an intern at the CWI (This is the dutch research centre on Maths and Computer science).
At this research centre, almost everyone of the research staff is using SGI's, Sun's or Linux desktops. However, these are gradually being replaced to almost all Linux machines. This means that there will be between 100 and 150 people working on Linux machines here.
Most servers will be running either on Solaris or Linux as well.
However, all the administrative personnel will still be working on Windows machines...
Don't worry, it's all just 1's and 0's anyway...
If cash desks count: A german chain of supermarkets uses Debian (german article).
Instead, try to find out how often commercial packages for Linux have been sold (e.g. AutoCAD, ...). Instead of comparing it to Windows, compare it to other Unixes. Many companies working with a commercial Unix try to move to Linux because the hardware is cheaper.
These companies will be a good argument for Linux: for desktop apps, it is as good or better as any commercial Unix.
Idempotent operation: Like MS software, wether you run it once or often, that doesn't make it any better.
Well, I know it ain't biz but nonetheless my school in Goettingen, Germany has a user base of more than 25000 plus (thats indeed 25k+) students, disregarding staff and faculty members, and _all_ the public terminals (several hundred) are running linux thin clients. The clients boot directly off the net, no need to update nightly as I read in another post. One kernel, one desktop, no hassle, happy users. Regardless of where I am in the city (i.e. of course only University buildings) I can grab a terminal and login. _That's_ why you want to use Linux (and perhaps a couple of strong Unices boxen handling the load) for a large userbase with lots of desktops.
We've got 5 Workstations running SuSE. One of them has got a Windooze partition we access with VM-Ware. Plus we've got 6 Servers under Linux.
6 out of 12 for the Press Assococ. RnD Department hear in the UK
Wouldn't it be nice if schools got all the money they wanted and the army had to hold jumble sales for guns
There rumours that the Education department in Northern Territory, Australia, will roll SUSE across ALL student machines. This would include primary & high schools and colleges across the board.
Whether it is a go ahead, and whether they contact the local LUG is another question!
Approx 150-200 computers running linux. A load running IRIX, 2 Fujutisu super computers (dont know what they run) and a load if dual boot linux/blows2000.
I know this may be redundent and obvious but I
can see why MS fears Linux. It has the potential
to do to Windows what MS did to Netscape with it's 'free' Internet Explorer.
The one with Dignity is your Brother.
If a Fellowman drops on the ground, and an Elder at that, you must help him...
You don't have to comment his fall, just help him.
For me, people who trample (or step over) an old lady in Paris RER (High speed subway) is just another heartless Mot****F***/ It won't take more than 5" of your precious time to help...
But then chivalry (and good manners, not to overextend chivalry) have been lost with the High Speed Civilization...
Maybe this comes from playing Video Games (Play with the best, Die like the Rest ? 8| )
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Biggest I've seen in this list is 1200 or so. Any advance on that?
P.S. Not flaming or anything, but why are so many people providing answers to the question
"What's the largest Linux desktop deployment in the workd"
that go
"I've managed to secretly install Linux on 3 machines at work, do I win £5?"
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Then, your Spanish is not good enough. "software libre" is both the literal and conceptual translation of "free software". You can even use the free software motto to conservate both the phonetic simmilitude and meaningful approach if you translate "Free as in free speech, not free as in free beer" as "Libre como en libertad de expresión, no como en barra libre" (the literal would be "libre como en libertad de expresión, no libre como en cerveza gratis"). When, in Spanish you want to refer specifically "at a cost of zero", you would say "gratis", not "libre", while it's true that some idioms will use "libre", as in "entrada libre" or "barra libre".
In the UK the biggest supplier of digital TV "SKY", I am reliablly informed, runs all it set top boxes in Linux. Not technically a desktop install I know but this services does have about five million subscribers all unwittingly using a linux based operating system which has got to be good for our great cause.
I'm just installing the HP secure linux product now. Here.
I use Barclays online baking regularly, and it is superb.
It works perfectly on Netscape 6.1 and Mozilla 0.9.4 on Linux.
I used to work for a VERY large media company in ... we had about 4 or 5 developers within
:(
the UK
our group (out of 7) who were using Linux
(Mandrake 6 at the time) and I heard the majority
of the technical services dept (sysadmins) ran
either solaris or linux on their desktop. Now I
am in a MS shop in the US and there is nothing
but NT with crashes almost daily even with SP6
... at least I have 2 linux boxes at home.
The article is about the largest desktop installs in an office environment. Whether or not someone installed it for their parents and administer the box is irrelevent. It is not suitable for deployment to 1000+ people because it simply doesn't have the application support base that Windows does. The moderators can mod me down all day for all I care. I'm just pointing out the hard facts that you people don't seem to want to accept. A standard Linux desktop doesn't help much when there is no Autocad 2000. A standard Linux desktop doesn't help when there is no office suite to handle the tons of MS Office 2000 documents that float around in a corporation. The only thing I'm saying is that Linux has a place on the workgroup server and in small to medium size server roles on Internet servers. Windows2000 is absolutely fantastic on the desktop. I'm writing from my home box under Windows2000. I can hookup all the latest USB based gadgets without worrying about writing my own drivers. Likewise, I wouldn't stick Windows2000 on an Internet server. I probably wouldn't even use it for a low volume workgroup server. There are places for everything:
Win2k: desktops, workgroup servers, small Internet web servers
Linux: techie desktops, workgroup servers, small-medium Internet servers
Solaris: techie desktops, medium-large scale servers
BTW: I guess the sheep-voting groupthink moderators are on shift right now so I'm going to check post anonymously to preserve my precious karma. I guess I'll have to succumb to the groupthink and post some rah-rah messages blowing smoke up someone's ass to get an insightful rating. Go Linux! You rule. Linux wins hands down and is better than all other OS's. *sigh* That's what the moderators want to see. This site makes me sick how lame it has become. It's honestly worse than comp.os.linux.advocacy was in 1996.. at least then you could voice a dissenting opinion with factual counterarguments and get people to admit the platform is lacking (and has been since then!). Show me a good Office desktop replacement (Staroffice 5.2 isn't it) that doesn't mangle Office2000 documents and I'll be one step closer to using it fulltime.
Guess this one figured out os fingerprinting, woot. Go back to playing counterstrike on yer lyenux box
The entire building is either duel or runing VMware. I would guess 100+ machines. The only reason for the MS connection is that the goverment requires .doc format. GRRRRRR.
Here, at EPITA, we have 500-600 NetBSD's desktop.
-- Et Dieu dit "M-x lumiere" et la lumiere fut. --
All of the sixty-nine workstations and servers in the Mathematics Local-Area Network at Grinnell College run Linux. (Twenty-two of them can also boot into Windows, but even those run under Linux most of the time.) We support about 1200 users.
I'm the network administrator for a silk screening shop. We have a network of 29 computers all of which I'm proud to say are some flavour of the Linux OS. Mainly because we're "experimenting" (ie. I know but they don't) with IPv6 and it was either nix.. or win2k and I
on previous versions of windows try "winipconfig" and it's graphical...
:)
It actually should be "winipcfg". I will let it slide this time
we have 5 desktop machines here and 3 servers.
2 of the 5 desktop machines run Linux (1 SuSE and 1 Slackware) and all 3 servers run Slackware Linux.
According to Linux Format (lxf18 sep. 2001 p. 7) Ford Motor Company are moving its 33.000 desktop machines to Linux. That would be some victory for the Linux community. Go Ford!!!
Well, Mozilla doesn't often BSOD (illegal operation, perhaps, but that's not the same thing). But I've had BSOD's pop up occasionally while running several different applications. And most frequently while the computer was sitting idle with no major applications running at all. I've always assumed it had to do with system virtual memory and garbage collection. (Disk pointers getting mixed up, etc.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Sixt car rental in Germany works with Linux as their default desktop having installed some 600 seats. There are large Linux installations in universities and research institute. As far as I know DESY, a nuclear research institute in Germany, uses plenty of Linux.
Linux distrubutors should be able to give more reference sites with numbers.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/10/25/dog.fur.ap/
Real community minded they are.
It hasn't happened yet, but Ford europe is planning to move to an Open Source Solution. 33,000 desktops.
A UT H=21046&14001REQSUB=REQINT1=45449
www.silicon.com/bin/bladerunner?30REQEVENT=&REQ
In the early part of 1998, I installed 660 desktop Linux boxes into various places in the Interprise division of Qwest. Some of them have been replaced.
At that time, I believe that was _close_ to the largest installation; I could find no larger.
Just because you're too fucking stupid to set up a viable workstation config for the secretary doesn't mean that I am, or that anyone else is. Fact is, I can and have done it on numerous occasions; it really isn't that difficult if you don't waste your time dreaming about having ol' Bill blow his wad in your mouth.
Linux really isn't that tough, especially for an experienced sysadmin doing the install and making it easy for his or her users. I've been using it since 1993 and really can't see how an IS department could have any difficulty putting together a desktop environment that's easy to use, simple to learn, and virtually unbreakable (it's infinitely more configurable than Windows). Unless, of course, it's stocked with a bunch of MCSE incompetents who can't find their ass with both hands.
Finally, it's rather amusing that my i.d. number is of some importance to you. Clearly, if slashdot account age is something you find of value then perhaps you should look into getting a life.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
My company has set up ~100 Linux boxes for a bank in Paraguay (plus an additional ~70 in over 10 branch offices). Whatever nightmare you are describing must have been caused by an attitude problem.
Those 100 boxes are used by bank tellers, accountants, auditors, secretaries, executives, and everyone from the lowest to the highest positions across all areas. There are less than 20 Windows machines in the remaining network and those are a dying breed in this scene.
The transition impact was absorbed in two months and bear in mind we are talking about KDE1 which is nowhere near as refined as current environments; even though I describe the transition as an impact, the bank fully operated every single day of it. After the impact, knowledge critical mass was reached and users pretty much supported themselves.
What nightmare are you talking about? How is it possible that your scenario, so close to what I have experienced, failed despite generally higher technical education standards (US is education lacks in philosophical areas, but is strong in technical areas, specially computer-related).
Reality is a strong argument. In an environment of common non-technical users, the Linux workstation has succeeded brightly. Consider this happened despite that the environment was translated (which is never as good as in the original language) and that parts of the system are not in Spanish.
In general, these users wouldn't choose any other solution and they constantly praise the stability of the system (specially those who come from other banks that use conventional solutions.) I admit, nobody likes it at first, but who needs a BonziBuddy or other useless entertainment software when you have no work frustration to placate?
The company is called Hewlett Packard. They ship a number of workstations with Mandrake 8.0 preinstalled, and even have fire-and-forget CDs for wiping some of their boxes and installing a fresh Mandrake 8.0 system with no user intervention.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
According to recent news from a Finnish TV channel, 20-30 other cities may follow Turku if it chooses GNU/Linux.
If this happens, it's great, but I think nothing compared to, say, China.
My spanish isn't good period.
My point was the article felt the need to point out that the software was free as in beer (gratuit) as well as free as in speech (libre).
If Home Depot isn't a big-enough installed base, I don't know what is... Check out this ZDNet article.