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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?
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.
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
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.
I really can't believe a user experience like this is new to you. The very fact that you're hearing it now will hopefully clue you in to what life is like in the non-optimal real world.
Wide-scale Linux deployments have worked for, primarily, two reasons:
1. The new Linux installations were, in general, not designed to replace a totally-flexible Windows configuration. Generally, these installations are more akin to point-of-sale operations, or for configurations that have a very limited range of use and do not need a huge application base for their users to be productive.
2. Those Linux implementations were well-planned, well-thought-out and well-engineered. Generally a small team went through, selected a list of the appropriate applications, built a custom distribution or post-installation checklist and custom-tailored the OS to their environment. Most large corporations even do this with Windows.
Your experiences with FreeBSD and your non-tech staff are not necessarily representative of everyone else's. Just as you find it difficult to believe the original poster's story of difficulties, I find it difficult to believe a moderate- to large-scale conversion to FreeBSD or Linux as a Windows desktop replacement (for all-purpose tasks) as you're describing would go without a hitch or a noticable loss of productivity.
That doesn't mean I wouldn't consider your comments valuable. Clearly some people are having successes in some configurations and others are having problems in other configurations.
Funny but true.
Our site has ~300 RISC (Sun SPARC) desktops that we'll probably replace with Linux boxes due to the superior economics.
Not only that, but our boxes will likely come from HP, because we're looking for a company with UNIX support experience (eliminating Dell as a supplier, who gets a lot of the NT/2K business here).
So, the upshot is that things are changing fast.
In a nutshell, the expensive UNIX workstations are being squeezed by cheap Linux boxes.
For small and medium servers, Linux is great, but our heavy lifting is still done on Sun ES10K machines. I don't see that changing for a few years.
Your question is really appropriate, though, as more and more enterprises, particularly technical oriented shops are looking at desktop Linux seriously.
In my mind, the big questions are: ease of management of a Linux LAN, managing users, system upgrades, interoperability with the rest of the enterprise, whether the video card options support hardware OpenGL to the level needed for scientific visualization, and whether various commercial applications are available (PATRAN, ProEngineer, Framemaker, Purify, Quantify, etc.).
Generally, I think the answers bode well, but we're all looking for an example site with hundreds of users for some feedback to confirm our optimism.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
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
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