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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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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
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
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!
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 (~$350k) by switching to Linux and Star Office. This was during the uproar about MS licensing.
--ALex
My Poor Sig.
-- My hovercraft is full of eels.
The CS department of University of Helsinki has to my quick estimate about 500 Linux workstations. Naturally most of the servers run Linux too. Maybe someone from the staff could give more exact figures.
Try http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/news/ pressreleases/2001/zseries_koreanair_pr_071601.htm l instead.
science is a religion
Telecom business - international company with 100.000 people (you can see the name of the company in the adds...) .2 cents.
We have a research site, 1700 people working here, around 4000 machines.
Amongst them, we have 300 "repertoried" linux cpus, with around 80 desktop and some servers. But apparently this will soon ramp up.
my
[Pruneau
My university has at least 5 major public access PC labs configured with to dualboot linux and Win98. I'd say roughly 180 desktops on linux, not counting the dozens of CS and engineering faculty PCs and servers running linux.
These labs are managed by the CS department and user accounts are actually shell accounts on the CS linux/unix server cluster, so you can log in at any station and your desktop travels with you. Each machine has a linux login screen with an option to reboot into Win98 after logging in.
The engineering department has a similar system using MS networking (with no dual boot linux desktop option), but I'm pretty sure the ENGRNT domain controller is actually a Samba box.
Christopher
Mozilla
I have here Linux deployed on 45-50 desktops (r&d) and about the same in Win2K/NT4 desktops (Sales, Marketinng, Management, etc)
BUT, All my servers here, including R&D test beds.. all run linux.. about 300 Machines.
Cheers.
Status of machines
No, I did not count them.
Thanks for the offtopic mod ;)
Here is a link to some Case Studies that IBM has done on using Linux that I should have posted above.
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
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.
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.
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.
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
Cheers,
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.
Yes, but there are technical issues as well as cost issues with a thin client solution like this.
1) You need 100 mb switched networking
2) The server needs to be on the same subnet as the clients. (in the supported configuration) This is a problem for large enterprises.
3) They are not good for video streaming or multimedia. i.e. a CAD user would probably not want to use one.
I personally don't like thin clients that much because you have no local computing resources to take advantage of. I think that linux on a pc is better b/c you have local resources that can be taken advantage of, and during the evening you can make them part of a compile cluster using something like LSF. Of course, this assumes your user base consists of software and hardware designers.
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.
How do you make money developing drivers for windows?
I'd guess you make money the same way you always do...by working for an employer who pays you. If you're a programmer, and you're hired to write windows drivers, then you can make a living doing it. I think the poster's question was more like, "Where can I get a job writing drivers for Linux" rather than "windows drivers make money why don't linux ones."
The clear implication is that windows drivers COST money. The development cost for either kernel (Win32 or Linux) is probably comparable, but I'll bet the maintenance cost for Linux would be lower. Regardless, that's irrlevant to a person who'd like to make money by writing Linux drivers but who can't find anyone to pay him to do so.
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
> 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.
The URL you posted actually lists IBM *server* implementations, not desktop ones. And from a presentation I heard 20 September at the Oregon Graduate Institute given by Gerrit Huizenga &
Larry Kessler, from IBM's Linux Technology Center to the Oregon IEEE/Computer Society meeting, IBM will be focussing on the server side, NOT the desktop. (Huizenga actually said during his presentation that Linux on the desktop was dead.)
You can find the pdf of the slides used at this presentation at http://ieee.or.com/pastprograms.html, first entry at the top.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
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.
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.
They have a government sponsored distro there called Red Flag linux. A web search didn't readily identify any stats as to how many copies were installed, though I found one article that indicated that 10% of new PCs in China are sold with Linux preinstalled and that in 2000 about 40,000 copies were sold in software stores. But as you noted, the number of copies sold =/= the number installed, especially in China.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
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
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.
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
The "Washington" in Washington Mutual refers to their home state, BTW.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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."
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
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.
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
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]
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...
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.
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.
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/
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.
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.
Precisely why it's so hard (as you observed) to make a living writing linux drivers. At best it's a hobby right now, unless you're lucky. And being lucky is not an effective life strategy (although it works for a lucky few :)
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
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
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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
If Home Depot isn't a big-enough installed base, I don't know what is... Check out this ZDNet article.