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Open Source Software in a Windows Environment?
brennan73 asks: "Like many people, I work in a Windows NT/2000 shop that has absolutely resisted bringing *nixes into our environment. Everyone has their reasons - my boss has resisted because it would be more difficult and expensive to find a replacement admin if I leave, since said replacement would need to be able to administer both Windows and *nix boxes, which I can understand. But I'm still curious...has anyone out there replaced major pieces of Microsoft software with open source equivalents in a medium-to-large business environment, while still running on the Windows platform?"
"Like many people in such shops, I've just about had it with IIS's security problems. I'm also highly unimpressed with Microsoft's new licensing schemes. In other words, between security and money concerns, I can see good reasons for businesses to look for alternatives to Microsoft's standard offerings, for apps and utilities if OSes are ruled out by management.
So, I'm thinking of replacing IIS and Office with Apache and StarOffice for Windows, and I'm open to other examples on both servers and the desktop. Why did you switch? How painful was it for both you and the users? Any experiences that anyone could relate, even failed experiments, would be great."
Lots of people run it on Windows.
HTH,
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
Does anyone know of a good open-source / free software equivalent? I haven't been able to find anything. For that matter, I haven't been able to find an open-source calendaring client that works with Exchange -- Ximian Evolution and some of the KDE software can apparently handle peer-to-peer vCalendar messages, but they can't do the conflict checking and whatnot you get with the centralized system.
I'm dreading the day when they come around and say "okay, we're tired of not being able to schedule developers for meetings; you all need to switch over to Windows and Outlook." Anyone have any useful ideas?
-- Some things are to be believed, though not susceptible to rational proof.
There is little open source software for windows, because authors of open source software do not want to support microsoft.
Apache and Star Office are exceptions, because they want to become standards and that means being available for the most popular desktop platform.
IMO Open source software is usually harder to use for the average microsheep. People like GUIs are are willing to pay for them. It seems that that is what the linux world is lacking at the moment.
Functionality is not always more important that ease of use, at least that's how most users think.
- PS. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R where eliminated.
I work at a pretty big company, about 7 locations all over europe and canada. We have a running windows nt 4 network and we replaced all the DNS servers with Redhat, this was pretty painless. We are currently investigating replacing our IIS servers with apache and possibly our VPN servers with PoPtOp.
It isn't much (yet) but I am pretty fanatic about migrating more and more so, we probably will have more open source software.
I must say replacing office with staroffice is pretty impressive. How did your users react?
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
Staroffice and open office (witch nearly is the same thing) works very badly in general. Works different on different machines, crashes, messes up the desktop and so on. The other open source packages are quite much in the same state really.
If you do manage to switch office you face all the interchangable problems. The open source office packages often says they can read office-documents but my experience is that they rarly read them correctly.
So, there are not any serious alternative I'm afraid.
Why does this issue keep coming up? There was an article not too long ago about this very topic. It spoke in general terms and was pretty much un-believeable.
Mod me down as flamebait/troll or whatever the crack smokers choose this morning, but please!!! This topic has been beat to death.
I predict that people will say that they have snuck in *Nix boxes to be Samba servers without official permission. DNS servers anyone? Probably some "secret" ones at some facilities... OpenBSD as firewalls in offices?
No big surprises, move along people, nothing to see here.
I work for one of the major phone companies. After the recommendation to move off IIS came out, the management started a project to do just that. Phone companies tend to like and trust Unix, since that's where unix was invented. With the recent virus', worms and trojans, microsoft has really damaged their reputation with CIO and CTO's. High level executives don't like it when they look bad, especially when there are good alternatives. Most of the support, admin people I know have been negative about the new licensing. If they don't change it, Microsoft will hurt themselves.
The obvious example is one of the most frequently used. I usually suggest that people use Mozilla as their primary browser and mailer. It's still pre-1.0, but tends to be less buggy than IE, support standards better, provide more privacy features and overall saves a lot of headaches for user and admin alike.
I use the Gimp under Windows, but it's a bit clunky (especially in opening and saving files), so I would not reccomend it to everyone.
> my boss has resisted because it would be more difficult and expensive to find a replacement admin if I leave
:) why would you leave if you like your job? isn't it a way of saying "I want to be on the safe side if I throw you out" hehe...
Sounds like the reverse-excuse
Yeah maybe alarmist, but you can install BSD or Linux on the same hardware that runs windows, so if you'd leave you could always offer to put the system (or the parts you changed, i.e. probably Email firewall and httpd) back on a windows platform for the next person that would replace you... Normally when you give your 2 weeks (or more depending on the terms) notice, you have time to train someone for the basic stuff and fix/tweak the last things...
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I work in a government building in Brussels, .be
I never worked with Wintendo NT and 2k machines before because I use Linux and other *nix systems. Now I have the feeling that one day, I'll have to learn Wintendo too...
I guess I can only hope that before I go into M$ deeper, Wintendo will be replaced by Linux or so.
But this is utopia in reality: the M$ lincenses cost a lot, but it might cost even more to switch everyone on Linux, just because they'll need training.
Sad, but I guess I'm not so far from the truth... at least not with some of the people that work here.
42 + 1 = 42
Well...
We just completed a StarOffice 5.2 rollout.
This was in direct response to some very threatening letters we received from the BSAA (Business Software Association of Australia). In hindsight, it was just a scare-campaign to fool us into buying more software - and it half worked. We bought Win2000 licenses for MOST PCs. And we bought Office XP for those who absolutely needed our legacy VB code in Excel. We use Access (developer) to create and distribute our database front-ends - the developer version lets you distibute an Access 'viewer' type package without having a license for Access.
The most interesting change for us though was StarOffice - about 85% of our staff who were using Office 97 are now using it, and we have 2 people trialling StarOffice 6-beta.
Also, I recently bought Borland's Kylix (www.borland.com/kylix). It's Delphi for Linux (Rapid Application Development, for those who don't know). I am half-way through creating our first Kylix-based database front-end (I'm presently testing it out at home, talking to M$ $QL Server on Win2k running under VMWare!!! Ha!). We are about 6 weeks away from our first Linux box on the desktop. It'll be running Netscape 6.1 (it has a spell checker for email - what can I say?), StarOffice 6-beta, and my Kylix-based database front-end. Oh - by the way - Kylix is available for FREE download if you only create open-source projects with it (I bought the Desktop Developer anyway...).
If all goes according to plan, I will start on the (very) long task of rebuilding our database front-ends under Kylix, but as I said - it will take time... I estimate that in 5 years (and my boss backs me up on this) we will be running a fully Linux-based office, and the only commercial app we'll be using will be Kylix.
Another free (as in beer) office product for Windows is Software 602. People who I know that have tried it have really liked it.
There was a recent Gartner article that recommended abandoning IIS that you could use as justification for that part...
We replaced all of our IIS on WinNT with Apache on NT (I think it is an IBM version of Apache). Even our NT guy liked it a whole lot better.
Dan Barber
Mojolin: Linux Unix and embedded jobs and resumes. Perl, PHP, Mysql, Apache and more
I am forced to use W2K for my job. Having Cygwin installed gives me almost a complete *NIX environment (Openssh, Bash, Perl, Python, Postgres, Xfree, etc) that runs seamlessly in a Win32 system. It is completely awesome.
...is convincing the new *NIX admin to not hit ctrl-alt-delete.
...is reminding that the root user cannot log in from telnet.
...is getting accustomed to a CLI.
If the admins can't adapt, they should be fired. I guess an MSCE cert didn't get you very much after all.
A fair number of people run Apache and PHP and maybe MySQL on Windows.
I've been thinking that porting a significant amount of free software onto Windows might be an excellent way to introduce people who otherwise wouldn't know anything about it to free software. It may even ease the transition to a free OS later on because people wouldn't have to give up the programs that they've been using on a regular basis. It allows them to try it without the commitment of repartitioning their hard drive or learning a new OS. A friend of mine uses GIMP on Windows on a regular basis and is interested in other free software on the platform. Another benefit of releasing free software on Windows would be that it could possibly help supplant proprietary standards with open ones. Many free software programmers say screw Windows, so that 95% of the users out there on Windows never get exposed to good free software. Writing more free Windows software could even help with compatibility problems. Take Samba, for example. If people put more time into porting open networking protocols TO Windows and making easy installers for Windows, then Windows and other operating systems would be able to interact more cleanly because the protocols didn't have to be reverse engineered. In that case, we wouldn't be a step behind Microsoft when they decide to change their protocols again because we wouldn't even be interacting with Microsoft software. I think AbiWord is a good example of this idea of porting free software to Windows in action. Once it matures, it will be more than sufficient for home users who just want to print nice letters once in awhile, and it's a lot cheaper than even Microsoft Office Small Business Edition.
I replaced MS Word with GVIM 6.0. Works much better and faster and doesn't have nearly the bloat. I tried to run StarOffice under Windows but that honestly wasn't much better than Office 97. I don't like the whole idea of the StarOffice desktop when I want to run just one thing like a word processor.
What's there to manage in Windows, you just click, click, click and boot. Isn't that what Bill has been telling us time after time?
CVS is an easy and useful replacement for source safe. I didnt see this mentioned anywhere, but it is about the only case I know where open software actually does better than (or even as good as) pay software.
Our corp moved the webserver and mailserver to linux. Nobody noticed except that mail worked and the site was not down.
the use of knowledge is highly overrated
We're been quietly replacing several NT file and print servers with a Redhat 7.1/Samba solution.
Managers are beginning to discuss replacing all the publicly available web servers with Apache (currently IIS).
We are deploying two new web servers in November, and both will run Redhat/Apache.
Myself and others are testing the StarOffice beta, on Linux as well as NT.
There's beginning to be a discussion about how to move our Visual Basic applications over to something that M$ can't orphan.
The big push for 'Active Directory' seems to have died,
The Novell guys are talking about Novell/Linux on the same box, but I'm ignorant of the details...
I work in a small MS shop.
:)
We use windows because our customers use windows.
We use office because our customers use office.
As for development, we use the best tools we can find. For C++, we use Visual C++. For Java we use NetBeans (fyi: OpenSource).
In general, when we need something we look for the free solution, if there isn't a quality one, we open up the pocketbook.
Both management and customer love that approach.
For the record we use tons of MS products, and we never seem to get hit by these viruses/skiddies/etc.. (we do web development among other things)
Maybe its cause our SAs actually do their jobs
If you are bored with the look&feel of the windows shell/desktop/taskbar you could replace it with i.e. litestep or some other shell replacement. check this nice site for a list of shells and other related stuff & news about the subject.
Don't think it's something you would deploy company-wide, but with a good theme it sure would impress your co-workers and it's also great for *nix people that are familiar with i.e afterstep, windowmaker and the like.. Last time I checked lots of the shell replacements (if not all) are open source in some form or other..
- No tears, please! It's a waste of good suffering!
While some developers undoubtably want to yield no quarter to Microsoft, I doubt that's the real problem.
Have you ever looked at code that truly supports Windows platforms? Microsoft may claim that it's a common platform, but the extra work required to support different Unix platforms (Linux, BSD, Solaris, HP/UX, AIX) is trivial compared to the extra work required to support W95, W98, WinME, NT4, W2K and now WXP.
The only reason most shops can get anything out the door is the fact that there are tools designed to hide this inconsistency. Few people program in Xlib directly, but it's accessible to those who need to do something Athena/Motif/KDE/Qt/et al don't do. But the last I heard, nobody (except maybe some games developers) gets within three or four layers of the Windows API. That makes the cost of cross-platform development extremely high, since the abstraction layers are so different.
Of course, low level programming still interacts with the APIs directly. But I remember shocking a former boss speechless when I gave him a copy of the Linux parallel printer driver. It was about 5 pages, and everything was done once. He had written similar device drivers for Windows and basically had to write the same code four times.
On a related note, this is why I continue to insist that Windows is a toy OS. The most fundamental requirement of an OS is to hide hardware and system details. I should not have to rewrite code so it works with Zip disks in addition to floppies, or SCSI drives in addition to IDE drives. Yet programs can't access NTFS disks unless the programmer recodes them. They can't migrate from Windows API to another unless extremely thick abstraction layers are used.
In contrast, with the "toy" Linux I have routinely migrated work between Solaris and HP/UX systems at work to Linux boxes, and back, creating an extremely flexible development environment. The required source code changes, if any, can be localized into #ifdef blocks. With autoconf, I don't even need to worry about different Makefiles.
If you're paid for your work, the significant extra work required to support Windows makes sense. Or if you're a major project, like Apache. But for somebody who is doing this work in their spare time, supporting Windows means that a lot of other things won't be done.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
KDE runs on Windows. It uses the Cygwin POSIX emulation layer (they claim they only had to change about 100 lines). Currently it requires an X server, but they are working on eliminating the dependency.
I also remember an older project, using a non-free POSIX toolkit. Can't remember the name, tough.
Sadly, even Microsoft has a solution to your problem:
They have a product called Interix (it isn't their's, they bought it from a startup). It runs under Win2k or NT4 and basically provides a *NIX environment for an NT system. All the GNU stuff is there (shells, gcc, make, etc etc) and the source to them. (source CD is sold separately for $20, or download from their ftp site). Should be noted that the only code there is the code to GNU products, not the actual Interix code.
it isnt free. It does cost something on the order of hundreds per copy.
[disclaimer]This post is not an endorsement of Microsoft or their products.[/disclaimer]
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
And if I REALLY need to get into windows there's no need to reboot. Double click the VMWare icon and load the suspended image file of Windows. No more than four seconds and I can do whatever I need to do in Windows. The only thing that's still problematic is integrating samba browsing in Nautilus in a good way. KDE is of course a good alternative, but personally I don't like that environment.
I got some screenshots up at my site.
We have a couple of Linux boxes running now on the back end. Our firewall is running kernel 2.4.x to get the improvements netfilter brings. gShield is a great tool for firewall control. Don't edit the config files with Notepad or Wordpad, though.
We have a dedicated PC at our hosting company, a RAQ4 w/Apache.
On the desktop, we are stuck with MS. Most of the software we use for our business, (insurance) is provided as part of our contracts with the insurance companies. We don't rate and quote insurance with the software they provide, they don't do business with us. We are stuck for the moment. In the future, though, we may be able to make some changes. Many of hte companies we do business with are moving to "web" apps, or Metaframe/Terminal Server scenarios.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I work for the worlds 5th largest ASP (citrix junk) and since I started we went from 0 Linux boxes to a total of 5 today (4 purely for DNS, another for some pop3/qmail stuff)
Morphing Software
My friend's company of fourty two people just moved all their desktops to Linux and their servers to Mac OS X. It took only four hours to do, which was amazing. The move from Windows NT/2000 is projected to save about $12,000/year in costs. He moved from Word to AbiWord, which was pretty painless. They are happy.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
I've done it. At work, we had need of a web server for our team, but the Powers That Be didn't want to make part of the Intranet available to us mere peons. I downloaded and installed Apache for Win32 on my NT 4.0 box and had it up and running in about 15 minutes (10 minutes spent reading the manual). It runs quite happily on my NT box serving my team.
The next thing we needed was a SQL server for our bug tracking database. Our database was originally a MS-Access 97 application. The shared datastores was an Access MDB on an NT file server supporting a team located at two different sites. We discovered the hard way that Access was not designed for network operation :-)
We couldn't get a license for Microsoft SQL server from Management, so I downloaded MySQL for Win32 and installed it on my NT box. I also downloaded the MySQLODBC driver and several MySQL tools (e.g., the Access to MySQL server migration utility). Within a day, we had created and deployed our bug database as SQL server based MS Access application. Yes, MS Access app connected to a MySQL backend. No problem.
So at work, the NT machine I do my development on runs Apache and MySQL supporting up to 8 users without a problem.
On a bigger scale, the big corporation I work for is a MS shop. For the project we're working on, we insisted on and got UNIX servers (IBM machines running AIX). FastConnect from IBM was screwing up constantly, so we bugged the IT department enough until they installed SAMBA -- we dragged them kicking and screaming into it, I might add. No problems. NT and Win9x workstations connect to and use an IBM AIX as our fileserver.
This happens all the time, guys. Most Win32 ports of Open Source apps have very nice installation packages. Both Apache and MySQL come with automated installs which, frankly, are some of the slickest installers I've ever used. Apache and MySQL require a minimum level of competence to set-up and maintain.
Oh, and how did Management react when they found out about my Apache/MySQL server? Very, very positively. I was commended for my initiative and resourcefulness. The Dept VP said he loved the choices because it cost nothing to the department.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
As a regular user, you can add a Windows `Send To...' option to your menus which make it available as an editor. Also, when you open the File Types menu, if you choose the Advanced options for a TXT text document and change the program used by the `open' action to gvim, you can make it the default text editor.
If you are really lucky and have registry access, you can make it into the default source-code viewer for IE.
Not having to look at Notepad has made me a much happier (albeit still reluctant :) Windows user.
CJW
That's an excellent question: People who like (or have to use) Windows can find open-source replacements for most of the closed source apps they run. In fact, that's a nice way to fade a Windows house to a Linux/Open-Source house: Changing the operating system and consequently all the applications is way too drastic for most houses. Cross-platform open-source software are both cost-effective AND non-MS (which means you have a choice).
.NET stuff later).
/Office XP box (a 'hasn't crashed,ever' combination)... You might want to try out GIMP for Win if you're into that kind of stuff, or Mozilla as a replacement of IE (can't think of a reason to do that, though).
One of the downsides is that for some of the applications, you really have to adapt the Unix Way Of Thought & Work (and realise that not everything reads it's config from the registry). That's not really a downside, but it's one of the reasons people are afraid to jump to Linux in the first place! Another downside is that GUI open-source software have a way of looking,well, unfinished, as opposed to the exoterically polished MS software.
Now, let's see... IIS to Apache shouldn't be too painful, unless you have an site based on MS technology (or plan to use
MS Office to StarOffice... Well, I don't like StarOffice and I love MS Office but I guess this is a matter of taste. Get rid of Outlook though if you don't use Exchange Server (question: does an open-source Exchange Server-compatible alternative exist?) . If it's pre-2002 version (which at least blocks any executable attachments), it's going to cost you a lot.
Personally, I also use GCC and the command line tools on my Windows XP
There is no such thing as 'world peace'.
You have NEVER used Staroffice longer than 5 minutes, I bet.
Many of my colleagues have switched after using both MSWord 2000 and SO-5.2 for a while.
SO is just better for big documents.
Moritz
You really should try out perforce, it just superb.
I run a Linux users group and I also advocate Linux for what it is good for. I personally believe that every platform has its use.
However, I have a problem with insipid people like yourself that need to show how immature they are by using "M$" or "Wintendo" instead of calling the products by their real names. Personally, I am not fond of Celeron Processors, but I don't go about calling them "Celery" processors. I am also not incredibly fond of Microsoft's business practices, but that doesn't mean that I need to refer to them as "Micro$oft"
The OS Windows, is not personally the best choice for all jobs, calling it "Windoze" or "Wintendo" simply shows that you are closed-minded about things.
If you wish to advocate or intelligently discuss the merits of your OS of choice, which is my OS of choice, you must do so in a mature fashion. Going into the offices of any business, to sell your wares or skills talking like that. May not only get you laughed out of their offices, but will surely keep you from getting their business or that job.
Furthermore, to call something, that you have admitted to not using, "Wintendo" simply shows your lack of mental width. As for myself, I am studying to become a Linux+, RHCE professional. I am also training to become and MSCE. Why would I do that? So that I can properly determine what is indeed the best solution for my clients or job to get their work done. If the client asks for Windows, they get Windows. If they ask for Solaris, guess what? They get Solaris. If they ask for Linux, they get Linux.
I am also becoming an MSCE so that I know the shortfalls of the Windows platform. The same holds true for learning all I can about the Unix and Linux in general. One thing is unable to be all the things to all the people. That is why you need to know all the things or enough that you can properly explain the benefits and the shortfalls of those systems.
--
.sig seperator
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If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Maybe I should add that perforce is not open source but it's not very expensive, very much worth the money!
I'm the sysadmin at a Windows shop. I dropped MS's Proxy Server in favour of OpenBSD - performance went up noticeably.
:)
I put together two server boxes using OpenBSD and Zope for next to nothing ($30-odd for the OpenBSD CD). at the same time i prepared an estimate of the equivalent Windows servers - saving $10K.
Every once in a while I post the uptimes for the OpenBSD boxes. Then the same for the NT boxes - they're pretty stable but all the security updates force you to reboot. Then point out the effort involved in maintaining the OpenBSD vs NT servers.
Money talks.
can't you get domino / notes server for linux? that i beleive is exchanges main competitor in the world. get it running on a linux box and there is your solution.
look somewhere else for a sig... *** ** *
We recently did a big roll out in a Govt dept (Can't tell you which one tho. NDA!) using 2000 boxen, running MySQL. It was a freaking joy to behold.
MySQL runs like the clappers, and *assuming you don't need row level locking and a few nifty things like that* slipped right in where MS-SQL once reigned.
The MySQL odbc drivers all worked charmingly and allowed the VB-drones to make their crufty little db apps as seemlessly as if it was Ms-sql.
Apache works pretty sweet too if you need a *real* PHP host. I've been told the ASP on it works moderately ok if you really must. (Which you may if management heard that Gartner recomendation).
Of course none of it reeealy compares with the using linux as the be-all-end-all windows service pack! But that goes with out saying really.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
The Perl scripts replaced proprietary tools such as Informatica for data warehouse ETL (Extraction, Transformation and Loading) processes.
In my work, we use too many 3rd party specialized applications for Open Source software to be a viable solution. These are usually software products from small software houses than only run on Windows, but that are critical to the type of work we do.
However, I've made it a priority to install and use some Windows equivalents of unix software. I'm slowly learning nmap for NT from eeye, and it's a great application for testing network security.
I'm going to build a linux box as sort of a network analyzer right off our DSL Modem/Router.
But you know what the most reliable piece of equipment at my office is? My Dell NAS 705N Server.
I specically chose this 160GB RAID 5 array system because it ran a unix type variant OS. I chose it over a Maxtor system that ran a Win2k variant.
Well, the results speak for themselves. Whereas the NT domain controller will need a reboot every 2 weeks or so, my Dell NAS server runs like a clock....i haven't even had to reboot the thing in 3-4 weeks. It provides a huge amount of options for me- I can connect with windows, mac os 9, os X.1, and unix boxes.
This, IMO, is great for small companies with no budget to hire you expensive unix sysadmins. Make superior UNIX technology invisible to me and make it work seamlessly in a Win32 environment, and I'll buy it, learn how to manage it, recommend it to my friends who are in systems management, and tell the world about it.
Been there done that, worked at a 4 places in the last 7 years or so that had the same concerns, but as always the biggest selling point was CASH $$$$, cash comes in many ways, saving, less downtime, etc , Sure youre going to pay more for a copetent admin that can admin both MS and *NIX, truth is I am still unsure how someone can call themselves a SysAdmin that cant handle both, BUT the saving can be significanty more , and there you have
the offset you need. Its not too painful, Samba, Apache, sendmail, whatever else you need and hell go buy a copy of ChiliASP for legacy Web stuff to detailed and end of life cycle to migrate.(I know you still have to tweak it, We did this to a 900 ASP page insurance application the damm code printed was like 80 pounds !) Took 2 weeks to migrate to ChiliASP , mostly stuff that wasnt proper to start with) Youre still way ahead of the game, One office I was in had a ton of basically data entry people that like to fancy themselves as developers, I should also state I am first and foremost a developer, that has to perform SysAdmin functions nearly everwhere and have always ended up as head of the dept, (at all the last 4 places) because the existing SysAdmin didnt have a clue about *nix enviroments and that was where we needed to be.
On the desktop side, sell it, explain to the users, hey this is current, this is cool, this is where its all going, you are groundbreaking man, crap like that. There were and are some that cant be migrated, legacy apps, graphics apps, (And before I hear one more IDIOT preach Gimp, be quiet it does NOT do what it needs to and does not output formats our Direct to plate presses can handle, or the RIPS, or anything) So those people still live in what I call MacLand. You know how Apple people are anyway, 90% dont have a clue how a coputer actually works, and that ok, it does what they need it to. Star Office 6 is pretty good stuff, The biggest single problem is with legacy stuff no one cared enough about to create filters for.
Its not hard, and after while it becomes kinda old hat, Migrating the first time is always the hardest, not because you are new to the technical details(Im assuming youre competent to make the migration) Its actually in the people managment skills, How to handle the bosses, and how to handle the users concerns and suggestions, truth be told first migration was small scale and went near flawless, but the uppers were ready for it and thats why I was brought in, the second one I jammed down their throats, overwhelemd the users with new toys(intentionally to keep their mind from the real problems, it worked) and when all was said and done it was beautiful, so beautiful in fact when their DotCom bubble burst their "Fixed Assets" were purchased by another NOT-COM that wanted nothing more than the charis desks, and infrastructure, they move in a branch office and the lay on the land remains the same a year later.
'Accidental' killing of civilians, my ass.
HP's OpenMail for your mail server. It provides most of the same functionality as Exchange at http://www.openmail.com/ this application is apparently being phased out or something but we use it and like it. For office type apps I would use StarOffice it really isn't that bad. Most everything else office wise should be easy to find as far as the utlities go. Also for webservices go LAMP Linux Apache MySQL PHP. The only caviate to this is if you don't know security you will be in the same boat as your NT solution. People always have these tendencies to configure things so they work and never look back. This means if it is something they have not used before the first time they configure it they will probably make the same mistakes as others leaving ther systems open to various attacks. The moral here don't convince everyone to jump ship before you really understand how to keep your network secure.
We are a small company in South Africa, and we run vritually everything on Open Source software. on the server side we have:
.....
... we will see about that soon ...
3 Linux Mandrake boxes:
1)Samba PDC and main fileserver (also NFS), openldap server,
2)Postfix/UW-IMAP/amavis virus scanning mail server, apache web and webmail, Star Schedule Calendar server.
3)Samba/CUPS printserver, intranet server
The only proprietary software here is the Star Schedule server, which we are looking at replacing.
1 Windows 2000 Server/MSSQL 7 server/IIS
This box is for the ERP/Project Management software we use (don't blame me, management didn't even consult IT).
On the desktops we run mostly Windows 2000 or Windows NT with Star Office, GIMP, and Netscape. We will be deploying Mozilla and OpenOffice to replace Netscape and StarOffice.
Openldap provides a convenient shared address book, and allows use to use linux on the desktops as conveniently as Windows boxes joined to the domain. Password authentication on linux is done with pam_smb, account info by ldap -> one account and one password. Star Schedule povides calendaring, although it is not that robust. We migth migrate to phpgroupware
There are a few people who have MS Office (since they claim they can't send (Star|Open)Office to other companies
Other proprietary software we use is Pro/Engineer and Wave (from Ricardo). Pro/E does not run on linux (yet), but Wave does.
So I took a little initiative and got in trouble for it. Thank god I am out of there.
Funny thing is that this law firm specializes in Intelectual Property (Patent and Trademarks) and is way out of compliance with their MS licenses.
That's what we are using to automate our windows environments ! windows has no embedded scripting language as for example OS/2 with REXX. We use it for nearly everything - automated installs, login scripts, database management, system administration, etc. It makes life a lot easier and extensible, and the support (newsgroups, internet) is excellent. If you try to do this with a microsoft method, you would have to learn several different programming and scripting languages, pay for compilers (VB), click a lot around, and would require much more personel, and have a crap support !
The simple fact is that apache is slow as a dog (for better unix-based stuff see thttpd and zeus).
IMO, the _only_ advantage to running win32 is that iis is really fast. win32 + apache gives you the worst of both worlds.
if you're using pptp vpn's, please don't replace them with poptop. maybe now is the time to move your users to IPSec? it's quite a bit more secure, and isn't so trivially easy to decrypt/read.
that being said, it's not so easy to get everyone playing on the same IPSec field, what with win2k and their stupid L2TP/IPSec tunneling crap. crack smokers. blah.
EOM
And your nothing but an anonymous troll who forgot his prozac. I don't think anyone was saying SO is better than any of the current Office product lines. I think they were just saying some parts of it are. As a whole I think the MSOffice suite is probably the best. At the same time however SO is fastly closing in. By not focussing in on such lameness as a paper clip to present help on the prodct or autocorrection that undos what I was trying to do everytime I do it. SO is just a simple office package that lets me get my work done and isn't so abstracted that one has trouble figuring out how to do anything productive. I wouldn't say this is for everyone. Some people are so obsessive that they can't put down a package until they understand what every menu item and every short cut key they can think of does. Power to them they will probably never switch from MSOffice. For me I just want to whip up reports do some spread sheet action and the occasional presentation. SO Works great for me. Your inability to except that shows a lack of understanding and life experience.
TOra is an awesome database utility that runs on Linux and Windows that could be used to replace SQL Navigator. It can connect to Oracle and MySQL.
Ok, so what you're saying is that IE screws up when rendering some HTML/CSS. But if Mozilla crashes randomly, while IE randomly screws up some rendering (and so does Mozilla since a lot of pages are coded for IE)...which is worse?
Right now, sad to say, IE's winning.
Thanks for stereotyping Open Source software developers. Unfortunately you are wrong. Many people who become involved in Open Source software do so because they want to share software with people and not because Micro$oft sux0rs. Simply because most of the posts on Slashdot typically mindlessly bash Microsoft and call it the Great Satan doesn't mean that people developing software that they want to benefit users of software will divorce themselves from the Windows platform.
What makes you think that Open Source development is restricted to users of a certain platform? Open Source Developer != Linux user even though a lot of them are.
Apache and Star Office are exceptions, because they want to become standards and that means being available for the most popular desktop platform.
Exceptions, huh? How about
This was your problem then. You should know better than to migrate an office of people who are not familiar with a product if you too are not familiar with that product. No simpathy here. One can only hope you learned the appropriate lesson from that experience.
The domino server runs on Linux, but the
Notes client doesn't, AFAIK.
The main point with Notes is that is more flexible since you can write Scripts and/or access Notes databases via Java/COM/Corba.
Those who work in engineering and/or scientific research may find SciGraphica a most useful tool for preparing publication quality graphs. In particular, if you have previous experience in using Microcal's Origin, you will feel at home with this open source program.
I think a lot of folks are doing stuff like this. We did it a little at a time. MOST of our users haven't noticed anything different except that things tend to run a little better. The firewalls/proxy servers went to a Linux box three years ago. Web based access to corporate mail moved to an open source Linux solution last year. Hardly anyone realizes that the last three years of corporate transactional data (we're a financial institution) now resides on a sub $1,000 Samba box. Can't even remember when I moved that....certainly over two years ago.
/proxies. Outlook is history..replaced by Pegasus Mail (I know.....not open source or Linux friendly but works great) which will soon host a Python scripting engine for all the stuff that VB does in Outlook.
This year, we bought some insurance agencies to add to our holdings. BEFORE we bought them they were MS everything....from the mice up. Seems that most of the insurance business likes Redmond a lot. AFTER we bought them, they have Win2K on the desk, Samba as a server, and Linux based firewalls
The stuff runs great. The people don't know the difference...they just say that they're glad they all have a new "computer system". A few suits have trouble because they only know "names" like Exchange or Outlook. They also expect to see a calendar in their e-mail software....although they can't explain why it belongs there. I always have handy, an expense report on what the stuff cost us and a quote from CDW on what it WOULD have cost us using NT Server/Proxy/Exchange, etc. I also remind them that their way would probably cost us more IT staff too.
None of this was hard to do. None of this was technically difficult. None of this hurt our business.
All of this worked. All of this helped our people. All of this saved us money. All of this was the right thing to do.
Pick a project....think it out...do some research and get it done. You'll be happy you did and your company will be better for it. I did it in a very conservative financial institution that HATES to take risk. And now I work for a better company because of that decision.
Also the software development guy and code-monkey - all wrapped into one.
... 12(?) employees including me, and by looking around I think maybe I could switch the secretary from Windows to Linux/FreeBSD. The rest of us are stuck using windows. Why?
:-)
:-)
We have what
Let's see:
Autocad: Windows Only
LON-Maker: Windows Only
ER/Studio and Describe: Windows Only
Some other important software: Windows Only.
I've been talking to the bosses about swithcing away from Microsoft Office, mainly because of the horrendous licens scheme, and they are open to suggestions - my suggestion is Open Office or Star Office 6.0 when/if they include an email and calendar program (think Outlook). May still be on Windows, but it's still cheaper (and hopefully better)
The server is an entirely different thing. Been talking to my local unix-geek, and the only problem he can see is getting a replacement for Exchange, that will work seamless with Outlook in a "groupware" environment. I've been looking a bit at Bynari's Insight Server, but I don't know anyone who's used it, so I don't really have a clue, if it will be usefull (or even if it will run on unix - yes, I'm to lazy to read the specs
Any suggestions are welcome, but the suggestions like "fuck windows, find other programs" will be ignored more than me in a singles bar.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Yes, it was my mistake. Quite stupid mistake actually :)
:) but it still just isn't (by far) a viable alternative.
I have evaluated star/open office many times since then (on my own computers now
I deal daily with a nontrivial program coded directly to the windows API (no MFC or anything of the sort). It runs across several flavors of Windows (98, ME, 2000) though being developed on 98 and never targetted to 2000. Additionally, it was developed without MS tools using an open source (though not Free) compiler.
Bleh!
Let the MS execs make fools of themselves.
As for hearing Linux Torvalds talk. I have never had the chance to be anywhere near him. I have been far to busy learning all I can about IT, working 2 jobs and hunting for a home to be able to attend any conventions.
Hopefully, one I have completed my training and certification tests. I will be able to take some time and really work on properly advocating Linux. If I had the time, I would do my very best to become a vocal leader in advocating Linux the best I can.
In the meantime, I will do my best to battle immaturity in the ranks.
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If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
NoteTab is one of the best programmer's text editors available, and the Lite version (which has 90% of the capability of the Pro version) is free. (The Pro version is only $20, and is worth much more than that.)
The name is similar but NoteTab is just massively useful (compared to Notepad, which is a joke).
See www.notetab.com
sure the clients could be on osx but the server would still be m$, which is what the poster wants.
When Star Office 6 Beta came out, I downloaded it and installed it on my Windows machine and a co-worker who uses Office on a daily basis. I asked him to use SO instead of Office until I told him
to stop. In the last week, I have kept hearing his rave reviews of SO, and every document he has produced has been fully usable by others in the office using Office. In fact, he actually seemed to like it *better* for certain tasks, and considered as good in most others. He is not a techie, but a marketing person. I am in a small office, so my experiment is a small one, but I plan to expand to some of the others next week and see what happens. I also admin an IIS server and an Apache server on Linux. Apache is WAY easier to administer, even for a newbie, because I was taught by the old admin to do this stuff. I have been using MS products a lot longer than *nix products, and I find IIS a bigger pain in the butt than Apache. I have more trouble adding users and getting FP extentions to work properly,
something different goes wrong everytime. On Apache, the steps are simply executed, and it goes smoothly every time. It takes me twice the time on the Win2K server to do anything. An admin shouldn't just know Windows or Unix anyway... you should at least be aware of everything..I can't imagine a *good* sysadmin that didn't know how
to use a unix machine...how can you secure your network if you don't understand the tools that the
enemy could be using? That goes for knowing Microsoft problems and Unix problems, and the way both can be used to exploit said problems.
Plus, I think companies are starting to learn the
dangers of being too dependent on one companies' products. With this new licensing of XP products, I have already been asked by customers what alternatives there are for them. With the economy showing a slowdown, companies are more likely to try something new that is MUCH cheaper than to fork out alot of money for an 'upgrade' that they really don't need expect for the fact they are being told by MS 'do it now or pay for it later'.
Ok, maybe somebody can help me out. We currently run a half-dozen Win2K Server boxes at a co-location facility. The recent viruses hit all of our boxes and hit them hard. So, my techies decided to simply blow away the drives and re-image them from scratch and try to "make the boxes more secure this time".
Obviously, I think that they're not quite as capable as some of you. They absolutely insist on continuing to use IIS simply because it allows them remote access for server management. They are too "busy" (read: "lazy MFkers") to walk the one block to the co-lo facility.
So, my question is: what will allow remote access, provide good security, and allow us to run linux boxes??
Yes, I'm posting AC because I know that some of them cruise this site...
Yes, they are discontinuining it, but they are supporting it for at least 5 more years and I wouldn't be surprised if they would open source it at the end of the ride.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
Those same PR psychologists also apparently know how to make Linux Advocates look like a bunch of immature, unwashed freaks. Which is what we all look like when people go about spouting "Mickeyshaft" and other inane false names.
When Microsoft execs do it. They are simply looked upon as visionaries that are making valid comparisons that the "common" man is able to understand. So, there is a diference and you aare simply feeding into what they want us to look like.
You sir, or madame, are making me look bad. I advocate Linux. So, I look like an unwashed, immature social retard that is unable to clearly and concisely get across my points. The second I open up my mouth and mention Linux. People think in their heads, "Not another one of those immature morons."
Of course, if I started downplaying Linux and using Microsoft's words. I suddenly look like a genius! Why is that? Well, it has a little to do with PR. Something that Linux users, advocates and contributors really need to learn how to do.
Once we learn how to look like we are suits. Then we can say all the "truths" we want to say. People will then take notice and say, "Those people that use Linux, they are so awesome." Until then, mention Linux to most people and you look like a unclean heathen.
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If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Here are just a few of the tools that are considered traditionally in UNIX/Linux/BSD territory that are available for Win32. In all actuality, there's enough out there to get as much of Linux running on Win32 as Win32 running under WINE.
/ ruby-install.html
t ml
i ls.html
s .html
XFree86: http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/xfree/
KDE: http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/
GTK/PHP/Libglade: http://gtk.php.net/download.php
Apache: http://www.apache.org
PHP: http://www.php.net
PHPTriad: http://www.phpgeek.com
Perl: http://www.activestate.com
Ruby: http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/ruby/downloads
Python: http://www.python.org/download/download_windows.h
TCL/TK: http://www.pconline.com/%7Eerc/tclwin.htm
MySQL: http://www.mysql.com
MySQL ODBC: http://www.mysql.com/downloads/api-myodbc.html
PostgreSQL: Included in cygwin (only works on NT)
ATT's U/WIN* Unix for Windows: http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/uwin/
Cygwin: http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/
DJGPP: http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/
Native UNIX command-line binaries: http://www.wzw.tu-muenchen.de/~syring/win32/UnxUt
vi: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~tmgil/vi.html
Emacs: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/voelker/ntemac
OpenOffice: http://www.openoffice.org
Mozilla: http://www.mozilla.org
GIMP: http://user.sgic.fi/~tml/gimp/win32/
List of GNU software for Windows: http://www.gnusoftware.com/
And so on . . .
There's a list over at DMOZ.org of a lot of this.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
When time came to upgrade the Oracle database we run for one of our apps we also moved it from NT to Linux. The result - improved performance (this is not measured, just an impression) and easy administration. As professional dba I would highly recommend Linux as an OS for small to mid size Oracle databases - I am very happy with the move.
I work with another database on Linux and do not have any problem or issues with any of the databases. I will never use NT/2000 for another database server again.
Using SSL IMAP got us away from exchange. I still
don't have a calendaring solution (which hurts
really!). Outlook will do IMAP, but with a fairly
large (microsoft admits) bug in the implementation
where a thread collision occurs between the
automatic polling of the server for updates and
the manual send-recieve button.. it's a lockup.
Anyway, my smtp/imap server has 400 days uptime
on it now.
A very good way to assuage the fears that you
are irreplacable (you probably are!) is to make
your own RPMS. get source rpms for the stuff
you use, modify the conf files included, rebuild.
I keep a repoisotory of them which are basically
my modifications against RH62 (older servers) or
rh71 (newer ones). This makes disaster recovery
also very easy (which you should have anyway! the
admin leaving the company is also a disaster!).
After the large amount of IIS exploits, a co-worker and I wanted to switch some webservers from IIS to apache. The servers ran some weird custom collection of perl scripts and JSPs. When we did the apache install, we expected it to pretty much work out of the box. It didn't.
After some investigation, we found that the perl scripts had a line in it like
where something.pl was in the parent directory. This seemed to be fine for IIS, but not for apache. Also we noticed some oddities about environment variables after perl execs in apache. We didn't have the time to resolve these issues (mostly b/c the app was sloppily written) so we switched back to IIS.So, if an app is sloppily written and deployed on IIS, it might be somewhat of a pain to export to apache. Just a word of warning.
garc
Where I work I got a linux box (500Mhz K6-2 128MB RAM), which on top of being a router, and filesharing/backup, has a MySQL databse. We have Access frontends at the various sites around the island (jamaica) for the entry of data. When they need to upload all they have to do is connect up to the net, click one button on a the upload form I made and the data is automatically uploaded to the domain set (ala dyndns.com) in the system. Previously they had to put it on floppy and physically transport it.
Samba as mentioned above is great for file sharing... have no problems other than forgetting the sambafs mount option when compiling the first time.
IP masquerading has been great too... now all the machines in the office can use the one (56k) connection. Only problem: my boss is convinced it is somehow illegal... Boss: "does our ISP know we are doing this?" Me: "they don't need to know."
Total cost: $0
I work for a small company that does IT work for hospitals and utility companies. After attepting to run 100% Windows, a few hospitals were sick and tired of all the down-time due to corrupt databases and other software problems. They asked for a solution and Redhat was the solution. They now have 2 Redhat servers and may be moving one more in the near future.
A utility company had an old Alpha box with Digital Unix on it running their billing software. The company switched to a Windows platform and now their are slowdowns all the time and the company is on the machine 2 hours a day clearing corrupt info and running maintenance on the program. I don't think that it is long before they switch back to *nix.
All-in-all, I have seen more and more people moving their systems simply because they have realized that it doesn't take an IT specialist to point out the fact that the longest uptime on their NT servers is 3 months and they are always worried about them, where as they tend to forget that they have a *nix box in the building because they never have to touch it.
HOWEVER, almost every attempt I've made to move to Linux or open-source software on the workstation front has been met with absolute failure. The only real open-source program we use on a regular basis on the workstation side is PuTTY, really. Every time I tried moving a user to Linux as their OS, for example, or switching them from MS Office to Star/Open Office, they end up complaining loudly that it's too different, and their boss ends up making me switch them back to what they normally use. They're extremely resistant to change; they may be willing to try something brand new, but not switch to something that's different and replacing what they've used before.
So, that's where it stands at my company... we've done the switch to open-source, but only as much as I can switch without the users noticing the real difference. Otherwise, I can't get them to try something different. This is the main problem we face in getting the OSS alternatives in, IMHO... not the MS monopoly enforced by their strongarm tactics, but end-users too unwilling to use something else.
Just my $.02...
I am using StarOffice 5.2, Opera 5.12, Borland Delphi 6 Personal edition with all good freeware components I can get from www.torry.net, I used Borland JBuilder and in Linux environment, I am downloading Kylix personal edition. All development tools are free. And for email, I used Netscape 6.1. My OS is Win2K, btw.
Everything works fine. And I believe there is bunch of open source alternatives from sourceforge.net.
"Cygwin is a UNIX environment for Windows. It consists of two parts:
The Cygwin DLL works with all versions of Windows since Windows 95, with the exception of Windows CE."
Interix claims to be faster than other eumulated Unix environments, but if performance is an issue then why not install a reliable BSD or Linux distro? Check it out here.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Just rolled out our new company web site for taking online loan applications and doing reporting using Tomcat, Velocity and JADOZoom for SQL access. We are (were!) an MS-only shop and my choices were looked upon with great suspicion at first. Not anymore! Bossman has been impressed with the quality of the tools and the cost. Even my die-hard cubemate, with whom I've gone round and round about MS, is starting to think there may be something to this open-source thing after all. Especially when I pointed out the Tomcat-user mailing list one day and read him an exchange between a couple of the developers and someone with a problem. You just don't get that level of interaction with commercial wares devs unless you are paying through the nose, if at all. Well, that's my 2 kopeks worth anyway!
LEXX
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
This is a very timely discussion!
:(
My company is in a pretty tight situation. Changing over to Microsoft's subscription based licensing scam is expected to increase our costs by well over $200,000 per year in an industry with already razor thin margins. The verdict: No bloody way.
So we are very much looking for alternatives. Thankfully the management (so far) does not seem to be very biased nor can they afford to be with one of our major competitors already making a switch to a *nix based system.
However, we have been having real difficulty finding adequate commercial quality open source replacements. My recommendation was to take a "modular" approach: don't look for the one solution to fix everything and don't try to replace all at once.
The easiest to switch over will be the Web Servers: Heavy usage but it's over TCP/IP rather than hands on. Switching to a BSD box running Apache with our "existing" JRun enterprise server slapped on top should do the trick. Goodbye IIS!
Workstations is where it will get ugly. We want to keep our NT boxes for now and concentrate on finding software to replace Office/Outlook that will run on both NT AND an alternative open source OS to ease migration down the road when M$ finally pulls the plug on NT. Backwards compatibility with M$ document formats is also a must for both internal and external reason. So far - not much luck. Open Office is really nice, but its a replacement for MS Exchange that's gonna suck. Tried StarOffice and simply was not impressed. I should also point out that the vast majority of the employees are NOT in IT so Windows look&feel is also required to mitigate resistance.
One of my recommendations has been centralize everybodies personal folders on a central filesystem running Linux/BSD and using Samba to integrate it seemlessly with the rest of the NT based LAN. Coupled with tighter restrictions on who can install software on any given desktop should help to pull us away from NT.
BUT... It's the database backend that is going to be really hard to replace. Currently we use SQL Server but years of bad programming habits resulted in software that is tightly coupled to the existing system. It's gonna be hard to break that link but we're working on it. SQL Server was chosen because of its costs (free, believe it or not) but now its gonna be one of the biggest contributors to the increasing costs because of the new stupid client access licences. Does anyone know of a database system fairly compatible? Needs to handle stored procedures of course hopefully similar to Transact SQL. Heavy usage, transaction support, tight security, and all that are also requirements. Oracle was suggested by management thinks its far too expensive. And of course - it must be stable. Knock MS all you want but SQL Server has worked for us well so far.
Since the parent post didn't go into details about how to make your editor of choice the source code viewer for IE, I thought I would explain. It's easier than you think, and doesn't require registry hacking.
:)
.html or whatever file type you just edited.
.pl.)
(The following instructions work for Windows 2000; if you're using 98, please adjust slightly.
1. Go to Tools/Folder Options in My Computer or Windows Explorer. Click the "File Types" tab.
2. Scroll down until you find HTML, PHP, or the file type you are currently viewing in your browser.
3. Click the Advanced button.
4. Edit the "Edit" type, or create a new type called "Edit."
5. Browse until you find the application you want. (I use EditPlus, which does source code highlighting for PHP/JSP/Perl.) Make sure the "Use DDE" box is unchecked.
6. Click OK until you are out of all of the dialog boxes.
7. Make sure the Edit button is showing in IE's toolbar. If it's not, make it show up by right-clicking on an empty area of your toolbar and clicking "Customize."
8. Open a new browser window and go to a URL that ends in
9. The "Edit" button should show up, and you should be able to edit the page in your preferred editor. (Note: for Slashdot, you have to edit/create a file type in Windows for
The real advantage of this is that you can set different types of files to open in different editors. For instance, I set HTML to open in Dreamweaver, but I set PHP to open in EditPlus.
HTH,
Erica
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the definition of "open-source software" imply easy portability? OSS is a philosophy, not the Linux OS.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
There was nearly the same discussion some month ago at askslashdot, but in fact in was more desktop/en-user focused.
I think there a lots of open-source applications for Win 32 systems (more than it might be good): Ogg Vorbis has utilities for Windows; CDex is a great open-source CD-Ripper/Encoder; and with VirtualDub Windows users have the powerfulst video-editing/capture software.
The list could go on nearly endless just think about all those open-source javaapps (Limewire, JCDSee...) which run under every platform...
X
Boycot? Blackout? Subscriptions?
I don't care!
This person is really training to be MSCE. Otherwise known as MS Windows CE. Down for 12 hours at a time and when up, it doesn't make sense anyways.
Rather than take a theological approach to software, we work in a diverse Win32, Solaris, and Linux environment. Many of our staff are cross-trained on various products and platforms. We use Windows where it is the logical choice and Sun and Linux where they make sense. We also use cross-platform products like mySQL and PHP to build web-based apps. This enables our staff to pursue their interests in terms of learning, growth, and development, and it allows us to provide our clients with the best possible solution given their requirements.
My company is a fairly large globally recognized International Telecommunications Corporation. (Yea the one with the BIG advertisements in airports) We have recently started a pilot program in one technical department using Linux desktops running Red Hat/Ximian Gnome/Star Office. Results so far are mixed. Some like it, some don't. Problems are still being ironed out but there have been no show stoppers. We agree that it would be easier a year or two from now, but if everyone waits, Linux on the Desktop will be as common as the Amiga.
Unless your boss is a complete moron, the only place that an open source rollout is easy is in the backend.
Anything the users can touch taste or feel needs to remain Windows/Office/Outlook - but behind the scenes is different.
I worked in a few environments where the smtp transport to the exchange server was Linux/Sendmail based. And file/print servers based on Linux/Samba. And with the Gartner Group adverisies (remember, Gartner Group is why it took most Windows 95 didn't get rolled out in most corporate environments until late 96, when 95b was available) it should be a no brainer to get off of ASP/IIS/MSSQL to PHP/Apache/MySQL
Basically, here's the reasons:
1. Security
2. Low Cost of Ownership
3. Security
4. Free
5. Security
Just like Mr. Scott said in STIII : "The more they overtake the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain"
I work in a small web development department for a large call center company. The company does customer service/support for some of the biggest telecommunications and software companies.
:-)
The web development that we do is mostly internal support for the different projects. This is mostly database with web front-end using MSSQL/IIS/ASP
For over a year now we have been working on moving and re-designing badly written applications to new W2K servers (there wasn't much choice since 95% of code was ASP). The problem is that these applications will take another 6 months to 1 year to be re-written. We have looked extensively for free ASP code as to speed up this process, since there is no need to re-invent the wheel. However, it seems that any joe that can code 10 lines of VB wants $50 for it.
We are now turning to Apache/MySQL/PHP and the large amounts of existing PHP code out there. We have sold this idea to the boss, and to a small extenct, upper management. We are using PHP Triad which intalls Apache, MySQL, PHP and phpMyAdmin on a windows environment. Hopefully we will have a beta version of an internal communications site within a couple weeks.
I am hoping this will be just the begining
Well... If you want to know a way to use MS OSes without selling your soul to Mr. Satan, do what I do (when i'm not in Debian, that is...): :)
1. Use a simple Windows base... no XP/2000, just use Straight Clean Win95OSR2/NT4+mebbe some SPs here and there
2. Use some good clean OSS win32 compiled apps: Apache, Gimp/Win32, Mozilla, Abiword, all come to mind. Everything else that matters comes with Win95 (Calc, Sol, Minesweeper, and a non-IE explorer (rocks!))
3. Make your mouth form an Evil Grin (c) as you pop your Half-Life cd in and download WinAmp
No matter where you go, there you are; even before you arrive.
VI is nice to have around. Thanks for the VIM tip. I've been using VIW from Watcom.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Well, I worked on a project 10 years ago that scanned classifies (major us cities), ocr'd them, spell checked, then saved in a central db.
.. I'm done. You can have the soapbox back.
Ever since I was educated at a university, I have liked the *nices much better.
Most things that I did with win32 were at best, embarrasing hacks. I can't believe they were passed off as commercial softwares.
What bothered me the most in the whole situ was this: In order to do something really useful in win32, then I would have to use ms' libraries. Ms libraries have poor documentation, they work sometimes, sometimes corrupt the rest of the machine. If I (or someone else whom I purchase a library from) makes something that is truly useful, then the code faces danger of being broken by ms' whims. If I pay (wtf?) for ms support in fixing the problem, then I eventually have to show them the code so they can help me fix it. Once they saw the code, then it is legally theirs'. Optionally, my code would either be included in the next version of Windows' 'features' or enough impediments would be placed so that such code would not work until ms had it fully developed for themselves.
So eventually, coders may make a lot of $$ in wages with win32, but they are most assuredly giving up all ownership of their code, their ideas and their future choice of career and direction.
To make it plain and simple, as a coder I have to beg ms for permission to do anything on 'their' OS and in return I give them everything I create for free. Its not really such a good deal.
On the other hand, most Linux people share their ideas and code, generally care more about their work, and are a little argumentative. Being honestly argumentative is good, it is what makes democracy work. (There's a barb against Mundy's GPL anti-american rhetoric)
Ok
Notes/Domino 5.08 is actually very robust, and more secure than Exchange/Outlook. Domino was designed and built end-to-end with security in mind, and is available for NT/2000, Linux, and the IBM iSeries. It's fast, solid, and has some *very* cool features.
Back at an old employer (name removed to protect the privacy of their management
Instead of purchasing additional (expensive) licenses from MS, we decided to give mySQL a try. We used it for things like log processing and analysis, telcom system call modelling, and other fun stuff. It worked *beautifully*, and they're still using it fairly heavily today (according to an old-coworker who's still there now).
I think a great place to start is with information handling and processing, stuff that databases and scripting languages (i.e. Perl, PHP) are designed to do. There's a lot of MS shops out there starting to experiment with using these solutions in lieu of MS-based alternatives (such as ASP or customer C++/VB apps and MS databases). My advice is to start there and move forward
I'm one of the school tech dudes,
and recently the Cad teacher came to me and asked to have Word put on one of the NT boxes in the Cad lab so he could type out a letter.
So, instead, I put on Abiword, he used it, liked it, and I haven't heard a word since.
Do you really? How can you look your boss in the face and tell them that they do not have to replace Outlook and the platform it runs on? I would rather resign than misslead my company that way. My advice may be ignored, but it will always be honest.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
2. never ever tell your boss. keep a dinky win box around so it looks like you use windows. use it to get into your unix boxes.
"i was saying gnu-rd"
It is MUCH easier to find qualified UNIX support than it is M$ support. Half the MCSE's out there crammed the night before and haven't a clue what they are actually doing. Software support is MUCH better for UNIX as well. I've never had Sun tell me that the solution to my server problem was to re-install my OS either. While WIN2K is a step in the right direction, I still gotta believe in the long run UNIX hardware, software and support is cheaper and more available.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
If you intend to completely replace Internet Explorer from the desktop, I highly recommend using IEradicator (http://www.98lite.net/ieradicator.html) first. This free program totally wipes out IE and frees up lots of space.
When IT people at one of my clients, a company with about 200 employees, were saying that they had heard bad things about Microsoft's Proxy Server 2.0, I reinforced that and explained to them how bad Windows is in general when it comes to Internet-related stuff, and why Unix-based systems are better. I suggested that they could use a Linux box with Squid as their proxy server, and that since it would be a dedicated-function box, it wouldn't have large maintenance overhead. I explained that Squid is used by large service providers and can handle big loads.
They went for it, and have been running Squid on Red Hat for some time now. Pressing my advantage, I suggested that they could switch their use of SourceSafe (version control) to CVS and getting much snappier operation across the Internet when developers are working from home. I demonstrated this to them, and they were convinced. They now run CVS for version control, too, using the WinCVS client.
The same company tried out Jitterbug for bug tracking. This wasn't as successful. There's now some talk of trying out Bugzilla. But I no longer have to evangelize this stuff, they're sold. They've received the threatening license letters from Microsoft, and have even gotten to the point of considering replacing Microsoft Exchange with an IMAP server. The only thing holding them back is good centralized calendar software. Anyone know anything good? It doesn't have to be free.
Another area where this company has moved in a more open direction is switching from Microsoft's ASP for web apps, to Java-based JSP. By now being thoroughly sold on the benefits of Free Software and Open Source (since they have developers and even admins who have been frustrated by Microsoft's lack of openness), they picked the Resin application server. Their intranet and extranet applications are now capable of running on either Linux or NT.
When their Windows-oriented vendor came to them with a $18,000 proposal for a Checkpoint Firewall-1 firewall, the IT manager said no thanks, we're thinking of setting up a firewall on one of our Linux boxes. This vendor was one of those who had been complaining of problems with Microsoft Proxy Server, and guess what, they're now showing interest in Linux also.
This company may even switch their file server. There's been some talk of this, due to Microsoft's per-seat license costs for accessing a Windows file server. It probably won't happen soon, but I have the feeling that it'll happen in the end.
Switching the desktops, though, is not considered a serious option, although it's been discussed more than once.
The important thing is to get a foot in the door. Figure out a reason to install an Open Source package - even if it's Apache on NT. Once people start having some familiarity and comfort with the idea of free/open source software, the possibilities become obvious, and it sells itself.
www.linuks.mine.nu/workstation
really it works well, i'm using linux as a workstation os since two years at home.
and now about a year at work too!
Windoze not found: (C)heer, (P)arty or (D)ance
http://www.fefe.de/nowindows/
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
Get them to send HTML files - it's more of a open standard than word doc ever will be, with editors and viewers just about ubiquitous. And it handles 99% of business documentation needs.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
I think that porting open source project to closed source OS like
Windows is bad idea. Let me explain why.
In current world, success of operating system is defined not only by
its technical merits, but also in big part by selection on software
running on it. It is clear that user will not be using system, no
matter how good it is if it does not have application software he
needs. In this way, each time you port Unix product to Windows you
extend Windows software selection on Windows.
One may ask, so what? Extending windows selection does not hurt Lunux
users - it's different users, different market. Unfortunately it is
not true. Each company producing popular software title decides which
platform to support. The more widespread (some call it "standard")
Windows become - it is less interesting for the company to spend
resources porting it to Linux.
So if you have your popular open source software title running on
Linux or BSD, think twice before porting it to windows.
I've been the admin of a Unix-style development environment on Win32. Basically, we've got a single Linux box running Apache, Postgres, and CVS (our bug tracking and CM tools), then all the clients are running Cygwin. This has been very effective for a team that was once around 30 developers, and I would recommend it to anyone. (Just make sure the Linux server has got the fastest hard drive you can find.)
There were definitely growing pains, however, and I still haven't come up with the a comfortable solution of automated upgrades of everyone's Cygwin environment. Upgrading the different Cygwin-based OS applications is a bit of a pain. I've considered writing a Windows Installer version of the Cygwin installer, or attempting to get all of those tools in some kind of rsync setup. I haven't found the best setup yet.
On the flip side, we're now porting some of our apps to Linux (and eventually Solaris when we can afford it). The build environment has got around 50-60 different scripts or so, and I've only had to customize three of them. That kind of portable environment is probably worth looking into this kind of tool setup if you're interested in cross-platform development.
Know that's really sad? A few years back, there was a GUI OS (ok, a GUI shell that ran on top of an OS) that was really popular that included a scheduling program, a mail server, a pop-up messenger tool, and an instant-messaging tool. They worked well, though confined to the LAN.
Do you remember what it was? Windows for Workgroups!
Microsoft took these features out so they could sell the unstable, unmanageable behemoth that is Exchange.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
First, I'm a developer nont a sys-admin but, In my office of 900+ people we have a mix of systems, most of the servers run Linux but, a few are on Solaris or Windows. The desktops are mostly a mix of everything. Designers prefer the Macs, most Developers prefer Linux while most of the office staff use Windows. There are even a handful of BeOS boxes around. I really like the freedom this provides. And of course, because of the mix, the few virii that have made it in do very negligible damage, and even hackers are very limited because its too hard to know the details of so many OS's.
The only problems have been the "new" WinXP and Win2K machines that don't play nice with samba but, we've made a patch for the Win boxes to handle it.
Just some input from an old programmer, not everyone lives in MS Land.
Like I started with we're not just a mom and pop shop with over 900 people and revenue in the black by quite a few million.
If you can get away with replacing all your server software without anyone noticing (or getting yourself sacked), go for it.
;)
However, I think a better approach is to use OSS solutions for one project/area, and demonstrate to all the decision makers how good the solution is, and all other advantages over standard MS and/or commercial alternatives. Mention cost savings - bosses like that
I'm presently doing this - I've been tasked with finding/creating an appropriate remote support method for our clients. I've presently integrated VNC and Zebedee (secure tunnel software) on Win32 coupled with a linux-based tcp redirector server, and topped off with a small custom GUI on the client side. Total software licencing cost: $0. Support via mailing lists (and Google) is excellent, and options abound for future version enhancements. Everyone likes it - even though it's presently beta quality, sales people and execs are starting to demo it frequently.
Just do something positive! One more thing: don't be obnoxious about slagging MS - you'll get tagged as a "whiner". No one likes a whiner.
Glenn
Out of sincere curiosity.. why did they go with OS X for servers, and not linux?
Depending on the number of apps, a very realistic solution, in some cases, is to roll out a few large NT/2000 servers, using Citrix Metaframe, and using the metaframe client in linux. This allows you to permit launching of various NT-only apps from the linux desktop.
SQL server works fine, until you have to scale it.
There's no doubt people have been brainwashed into thinking they need Office. While other things may work just as well, employees may have come to expect Office as a job perk. People feel that anything other than Office is a second-rate alternative, along with crappy office furniture, etc.
I haven't tried the Windows version of Apache. I see no reason it wouldn't work OK. But then again, I don't know why anyone would bother with Windows, when better server software is available!
I have worked at both at large and small Windows-based companies that were agressively replacing their Unix servers (and all desktops) with NT, so I was definitely swimming upstream. But I did manage to put Free software to good use.
No developer's desktop should be without Emacs or Vim. You can write code using Notepad, but it sucks. Even worse is NT's command line and scripting capability. CygWin and Perl are absolutely essential.
One key advantage of Free software is that you never have to wait for the license before you can use it. In one project, I had a large part of our application prototyped in Tomcat/Jakarta before our BEA discs even arrived. In another, we needed to provide our customer with an industrial-grade C compiler as part of the deliverable, so I put GCC on the box. Since we were a small integrator working on a fixed-price contract, that translated into about $5000 that stayed in our pocket.
I don't know if I ever convinced any of my bosses of the value of Free software, but I do know that when I offered to take Linux off my machine at that small integrator and put NT back on it, they said, "No thanks, we'd rather have it run Linux."
Your right I could dig through the help system or I could take a class in MSOffice but that's the whole point all I want to do is write the report I have to or create a nice tabular spreadsheet or put some pictures of information into a slide that I can present. Lots of other programs do this without requiring I type in archaic searches to find what I'm looking for because their software is so bloated and unintuitive that it would make someone like me switch just to get away from it's frustrations. I doubt I'm the only one. Your resorting to name calling shows that there is little substance to your argument so I can only assume I'm being trolled by yet another anonymous poster. But I still feel obligated to let people know that there are alternatives they may not be as flashy but they will let you get the job done and at the end of the day that's all I'm concerned about and I'm sure others out there feel the same way.
A lot of people in this thread are speculating about the difficulty of migrating NT desktops to *nix desktops and the problem of resistance from non-IT folk that don't like "change". So I'll ask the obvious question: what about using OS X as a stepping stone from Microsoft to *nix. Allegedly, OS X has a GUI that's easy to swallow, it's got Office, and it's got *nix hidden inside. Are there other problems with the Mac product line that preclude their adoption inside a large enterprise?
(I am not a Mac user, nor do I work for or with large enterprises, but I'm so alienated from M$ that I'm contemplating taking this route myself.)
Since then I've used a ton of Open Source and Free software on NT. I've played around with Sendmail, BIND (as a cacheing only local nameserver), MySQL, Ruby, Python, XFree86 (with windowmaker, which confused the hell out of my local Linux zealot friend ;) even tcl... I use emacs and the cygwin bash + other apps ports (ssh, GPG, all the time. It all absolutely rocks, and best of all it's got me familiar enough with the basics of developing on and using a *nix system that I've been able to swap onto Linux, Solaris and openBSD with a minimal speedbump, allowing me to concentrate on learning the interesting bits of Unixland (system stuff, IP tables, NAT, IDS and a ton of security software that still isn't available on NT. Although (shhh!) nmap now compiles out of the box... netcat runs,too...)
In short, if you're on windows but interested in checking out Freedom, these ports make a nice comfy way to get familiar with the other universe. Most of it is also far superior (more secure, more stable, more flexible and powerful) than the point-and-click Microsoft provided tools.
The one thing I need now is the strength to have another bash at getting Mutt or Pine working. I love mozilla and use mail & news for everything now, but I'd still like the cheap geek thrills of a non-gui scriptable CLI mail client. Then I can get cron mailing me home-rolled tripwire-like security checks daily...
PostgreSQL has CygWin Support for NT.
Bush's education improvements were
Has a limit on the number of users.
Java is a good way to get O.S. software running on you Windows PC.
:
:
Check sourceforge.net for java based softwares (mostly dev. tools).
Please, don't say java is not yet ready for real app.
Look at the GUI and performance of products like
together http://www.togethersoft.com/
IDEA http://www.intellij.com/
They are real fast, and user-friendly (esp. IDEA)
Another even easier way is java WebStart
- an application-deployment technology -- gives you the power to launch full-featured applications with a single click from your Web browser. You can now download and launch applications, such as a complete spreadsheet program or an Internet chat client, without going through complicated installation procedures.
If you have a fast access, having installed on your PC is just a mattre of minutes.
Once it's installed on your PC, you are 1-click from installing and launching full applications in 1-click. Just find a link to their server, click, and watch
- it downloads from a server all the application required files, cache them on your PC, and launch it.
- later calls will use the cached files.
- when a new version of the application is available, the system will offer you to install automatically.
WebStart apps repositories
http://www.up2go.net
http://www.connectandwork.com/external
http://www.puzzlecode.com/puzzlecode/jnlp
Alain Ravet
Domino (and Notes in general) is much more than just a email system. Unfortunately that is the most common application that people use it for.
Domino is also a database(á la Access), wordpad type text editor, front end (á la Explorer) and even sort of a file server. So using it for just email is like buying a porsche because it can travel in reverse!
If you only want an email server, use something smaller. If you want to pull off collaborated work with something more integrated than ODSN (like combined approval of timesheets, expense reports, and project management), then you can consider using Notes.
More on Notes: http://www.notes.net
One of my Domino databases: http://www.sagmilling.com
-AD
"... Samba as a server, and Linux based firewalls/proxies"
When there are discussions about open source, there doesn't seem to be enough recognition that this is a sure way to use open source, even if it is necessary to run Windows on the desktop.
Bush's education improvements were
I think the best scheduling software is Steltor's CorporateTime. It's cross-platform, robust, scalable, and cheap. You can set up an eval server for free and start playing with it.
Lotus Notes is heads and shoulders above Exchange and it features Calendaring, Email, Discussion Groups, Document Databases, and shared, simple databases across the WAN (replacement for Access over FileServers for simple brainless db apps). Lotus Notes' back-end server is named "Domino" and even runs on Linux.
.I'm just convinced its best in class, hands down, and "Cool, it runs on Linux!" )
The Front-end is either Windows or Web (although I run the client over Wine on Linux and am amazed by how well it works).
Lotus administration is a bit "abstract" and requires a windows app to accomplish all configuration functionality, but the Linux backend server is ROCK SOLID. This is not a one-day install, but is a great product once you get through its unusual administration. The Windows front-end takes a little getting used-to, but that's partly because it does so much and is a little bloated (memory intense).
As long as Lotus Notes exists, I would never, ever try Exchange again. Lotus Domino is so much more stable, so much cheaper (long and short term), and offers so many more features, there is no reason to even consider Exchange.
Give it a try if you want enterprise calendaring in a Windows environment with Linux on the back-end.
(Note: I'm not an IBM/Lotus employee and I don't love "notes" . .
I'm not sure if this is actually open source, but I do believe it is free as in beer. I have pondered migrating all of our employees off of the Microsoft Office Suite, and moving them to Star Office, which is, in my opinion, a very good equivilent.
I haven't looked into this too much, but if I'm wrong, and star office DOES cost money, god knows it'll still be cheaper than microsoft licensing.
Dat al die Amerikanen onzin posten op Slashdot is al tot daar aan toe.
Maar om te zien dat een Nederlander/Belg dat ook doet... volstrekt belachelijk!
Doe toch eens een keer normaal, niemand heeft behoefte aan mensen als jij!
Funniest post I've read all day. :-)
The most interesting change for us though was StarOffice - about 85% of our staff who were using Office 97 are now using it, and we have 2 people trialling StarOffice 6-beta.
Off topic though it may be, why substitute an ungrammatical, barbarism such as a "verbed noun" like "trialling" or "architected" for perfectly good words like "testing" and "designed?"
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
We used to be primarily VC++ with a little BC++B but now we're using a moded lcc with cygwined gnu make.
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
MSSQL is derived from Sybase. The TSQL procedural language comes from Sybase. I don't know how much MS has changed it since forking the code. Sybase is probably your easiest migration path.
Many people would run various UNIX emulators on top of VMS, mostly shells and command line tools that gave the system some semblance of rational design. And with NT, people are doing it all again: Cygwin, the UNIX emulator from Bell Labs, and a few commercial ones. Ultimately, it's futile: you can't completely hide the underlying problems. But if you just use NT or VMS systems casually, it helps.
Another irony is that Cutler's operating system have frequently been uninstalled to run free stuff. People bought the PDP11 to install v6, v7, and 2.8/2.9BSD. The VAX was the primary platform for BSD UNIX for many years, and more VAXen were probably running BSD than VMS. And today, everybody buys PCs with various versions of Windows preloaded and installs--Linux or BSD.
There is a San Diego based company, whos mani business involes changing out Exchange E-mail systems for Sendmail. They had to roll their ow calendering program to work with Sendmail and Outlook. The don't know if they are going to Open Source the calendering program yet.
Though I'm a server jockey, and working on mostly server apps that are deployed on linux, I am currently being forced to use W2K at my office for development, which are then ported to linux for deployment. Screwy engineering process, but one I've learned to cope with because other developers have felt our pain, and made life better for everyone by porting the best of the open source tools.
I use Cygwin for most of my CLI tools. It provides a bash prompt and an incredibly useful set of tools such as grep, find, diff, ssh, tar, gzip, autoconf, automake, make, gcc and others. Beyond that, many other useful tools have been ported or are easy to port because of the services provided by cygwin. I have had problems getting cvs to work correctly. I have also had problems getting emacs to look correct in the console window.
I also use emacs for all of my text editing and devlopment needs. Not only does it give you a powerful development environment in conjunction with visual c++, it can also be hooked into cygwin. I tried VisEmacs and didn't like it (YMMV) as much as simply setting the proper environment variables and churning out programs with emacs 'compile' set to run nmake.
- You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!
I've got some people at school using AbiWord & StarOffice, for just word processing, they tell me "This is great, now I don't have to spend 500 dollars on Office"
Does anyone know where I could get an image of the cdrom that came with the book "GNU Tools for MS-DOS" several years ago ?
This was a very nice package of perl, bash, emacs, gcc, awk, grep, and all associated common GNU utilities, for DOS and Windows. I used to use it to make Windows useful, now I have need of it again to use on DOS (this time I'll be able to use it on a GPL DOS, see freedos.org.)
My only copy of that cdrom is now scratched or otherwise corrupted, a few key files can't be read. I even thought about buying a cd polishing kit in an attempt to recover it, but they were charging 30 dollars for them.
I work at a fairly large company with a bunch of Solaris workstations (for engineering) and MS-Windows on all the other desktops. I've found that people that work with Unix, be they admins or end users tend to "grok" and have no fear of using Open Source tools when appropriate.
I recently transitioned to a position where I now work with the NT admins. They're actually pretty good people, but Open Source is foreign to them. I tend to look for an open source solution first. They see what MS offfers, then go from there.
Anyway, I've started talking to one of the more savy admins about the benefits of Python as a scripting language. He's pretty excited and sees the huge benefits of it compared to VB and Winbatch.. (pretty easy sell actually).
Anyway, my point is, educating the decision makers in the trenches can help your cause.
It might not get Linux/Open Source on all the desktops, but get it in the mind of the power users and admins and you might be surprised how it spreads,
We are evaluating Mioga, a GPLed groupware application that runs under GNU/Linux/Apache/mod_perl/mod_dav and includes shared folders, calendar, workflow and other features..
it's was written by Atrid, a french company, and was just translated into english.
The initial reaction in most (70%) of cases was "WTF is this. How do I start my Excel?" Actually people STILL refer to StarCalc as Excel :(
Most people slipped into using it quite well. The biggest question was "Where do I find xxxx?" and the answer is usually "That menu item is over there now...". There haven't been any requests for features that StarOffice doesn't have - it's just a matter of locating the feature, and most people are fine doing this themselves.
There are of course a few people who insist on calling me every time they can't find what they want, and for those people I make a FAQ web site, and direct them to it. If they still give me problems, I complain to their supervisor, and they are told to pay attention and stop wasting time. This group of people represent probably 3% of users.
On the flip-side of the coin, there are probably 40% of people who admit regularly that StarOffice 5.2 is actuallly BETTER than Office 97. I get comments like "It's much easier to lay out columns", "The help system is better", "The formatting features are more powerful", "Things are where they should be" and such... I expect there are a further 40% who really don't care / notice the difference, which leaves 20% of users wishing they still had M$ Office, and I just remind them that 1) we are saving a LOT of money, and 2) a new version is on the way which addresses most of their issues (what happened to my desktop)
The general nature of the business? Well everybody does a little word processing, which is actually a large change for us because 2 years ago we employed 2 Word Processors full-time. This is fairly basic stuff - 2-3 page reports to clients. Our account managers use StarCalc for their own internal calculations, but MOST spreadsheets we send out to clients are produced by Excel (see below) by the analysts. Our accounts department is running StarCalc, and our billing department is about to switch (ETA 2 months).
For those interested, our business NUS Consulting: http://www.nusconsulting.com is a utilites cost-analysis company. We analyse our clients' energy, fuel, fleet and telecommunications costs, find them savings and form consortiums to give our customers some bargaining power.
Our analysts, as I said, are quite dependant on legacy VB code in Excel, so they are the only ones stuck with it for now, but we will HAVE to get them away from that, because we are outgrowing it. Most of our Excel workbooks will initially be replaced by Access / SQL Server, and eventually Kylix / MySQL.
There is no mention of prices on the meetingmaker's web site. That's usually not a good sign...
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
If you're concerned about a steep learning curve in setting up a Unix machine, it really isn't as bad as you think. FreeBSD, for example, is an excellent OS and comes with extensive beginners documentation on the CD (in the form of the FreeBSD Handbook) as well as on their website that will explain all of the basics to you. Picking up an O'Reilly book like Essential System Administration and/or Unix In A Nutshell is quite helpful and will slash your learning curve to bits. Unix is really not that tough, but it does require a slightly different way of thinking.
But I digress.
In short, if you're serious about dumping IIS and want to go with something else, strongly consider Apache on Unix and not Win32. If you absolutely need to stay with Win32, you might check out Roxen which I've also had pretty good luck with, is super-easy to configure -- an area Apache can certainly use some help with -- and seems pretty solid. It is free under a GPL license, but the company that writes it also sells service contracts for it if that interests you or your bosses at all.
When I used to do NT admin work, I found Perl to be pretty handy. Unix admins have been using Perl and other scripting languages to automate repetative tasks for years. NT admins by and large don't seem to be very familier with the concept, but it is doable.
GNU Cfengine is another great sysadmin tool that's also has an NT version. If you administer a lot of systems (Unix or NT) this a fantastic tool to have. Your fellow NT admins will be completely befuddled trying to figure you how you installed that latest IIS patch to 50 machines before lunch!
Firewalls are another good place to start introducing some free software. I frigging LOVE OpenBSD with IPF (or the new PF) packet filter as a firewall.
Start will small changes like these. They won't require any user training or major changes for your end user. They also won't require much buy in from management. And they'll make it easier to put more free software into place later. When the inevitable objections to a larger, more visible free software related project comes up, you can confidently inform the objector that the company has been using free software for years!
We recently completed a Windows-based system that uses open-source CORBA implementations (TAO and omniORB) instead of DCOM or other Microsoft-centric distribution technologies.
We had a requirement to provide an "open architecture" to that other vendors using other operating systems could join the system.
I think our manger has overlooked the fact its dam hard to find good UNIX admins let alone someone experenced in a Samba/Windows enviroment.
My place of work has around 1000 Windows PC's. We also have 3 DEC Alphas that run a 24/7 system. we also have 4 remote sites connected via WAN links. recently we got a go ahead to put in a couple of Linux boxes with Samba. So far our own IS dept runs on a Samba file server and one remote site runs on a Samba file server.
Linux/Samba might be free, how ever it can be more time consuming to setup etc, also employing poeple to admin it would be/is more costly as your looking at someone with at least UNIX experence. I feel that the corner cutting/price saving of moving away from NT will catch up to our Manager in time as the other UNIX admin guy is leaving soon (hes fed up with the corner cutting) and I aint planning on hanging around for much more than a year as I am also fed up with the corner cutting practices and slack pay.
"So, that's where it stands at my company... we've done the switch to open-source, but only as much as I can switch without the users noticing the real difference. Otherwise, I can't get them to try something different. This is the main problem we face in getting the OSS alternatives in, IMHO... not the MS monopoly enforced by their strongarm tactics, but end-users too unwilling to use something else."
Have you researched the upcoming MS upgrade/liecense issues for your shop, and made a case to mgmt that they're going to Pay A Lot if they don't switch the workstations? The users don't want to change, sure - the relearning period is Downtime to them, and unless their schedules get adjusted for that, it's not any fun. BUT, if their managers go for it and put up with the short-term loss of current-level productivity in exchange for the longterm savings, then everyone wins..
Dude, it's BORLAND! Delphi is a very mature product, if Kylix (the Linux port) is anything like Delphi (Windows version) then all these amateur languages are toys in comparison.
It's not a scripting language either.. dunno where you got that from.
I work in a smallish office (15 people) who range from rabid *nixers to 15 year win vets. We have tried migrating all of the staff from office to star office. Interestingly over time most people migrated back again. The reasons were interesting. Everyone except the people using redhat as their environment hated the way star office takes over. The accountants loathed the lack of spreadsheet functionality and after a good play I had to agree with them. Star is simply 3rd or 4th rate when it comes to replacing excel. The word processor is OK but is just not nearly as usable as word. The HTML editor is fine provided that you want to write vanilla HTML. It isn't a patch on Dream Weaver. In our environment we have stabilised on a windows desktop and a mixture of RedHat and free BSD servers together with Win2K servers for running the database. We use MS SQL Server. It is big fast efficient and very very easy to administer. We played with Sybase under Linux but it is a pig to set up and a pig to administer. Being experienced as a DBA with both I can set up a Sybase dbms on *nix woa to go in hours, why because I need lots of *nix knowledge which I don't have. Once it is set up then I can connect to it with the various horrible applications that come with Sybase. MS SQL Server on the other hand I pop in the CD, click click click and 10-15 minutes later I have a working database and a plethora of tools to work with that database. For other platforms to really succeed as well as Win2K they have to get the ease of use down to what the win 2k products do.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Like many people, I work in a open source shop that has absolutely resisted bringing Windows into our environment. Everyone has their reasons - my boss has resisted because it would be more difficult and expensive to find a replacement admin if I leave, since said replacement would need to be able to administer both *nix and Windows boxes, which I can understand. But I'm still curious...has anyone out there replaced major pieces of open source software with Windows equivalents in a medium-to-large business environment, while still running on an open source platform?"
yes, notepad, that most useful of windows utilities, has recently been forgotten on my computer, thanks to gvim. checkit out, very nice.
At the newspaper I do some tech consulting for, we substituted during the summer the NT 4.0 box serving as mail server with a FreeBSD 4.3 system with sendmail. We added AntiVir MailGate for FreeBSD (http://www.antivir.de/) for antivirii protection, NOCC for webmail, and everything has been working wonderfully since then -- uptime is approaching 100 days on this low-to-medium traffic server (about 6000 mails a week). The next step would be to exchange IIS with Apache, but that takes more time. The rest of the newspaper is running a proprietary Windows-based editorial system. -- CP.
in an article linking to this
I can understand the firewall replacement (Proxy server -> linux based system), but replacing sourcesafe with CVS? True, over the internet the plain sourcesafe solution isn't up to par, but the integration in visual studio is seemless, it works very ok and dont get me even started about wincvs... CVS is a good versioning system, but when it comes to useability... it's hopeless.
There are a couple of solutions for using visual sourcesafe over the internet though, fast and reliable, with all the benefits of VSS: integration in visual studio's tools and visual browsing of the database. Two things CVS will not bring you.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
My Mom's conpany (I know it sounds bad), has about
12 machines, all running Windows (despite the samba server) and all running StarOffice.
Our users NEVER complained about it, and now, it's like the "Standard Office Suite".
It's a great product, I can said that based on experience.
Check out our big URL giveaway, includes a year's free hosting, on one of our secure/dependable linus boxes.
fud is dead.
AbiWord has to be the most underrated open source product available. I have had excellent experience with it so far. It is just sad that AbiCalc has not yet been started. A Word Pro on it's own is of limited value these days...
After struggling with duel-boot and trying to migtate from windows OS to Linux for several years, this old dinosaur has given up and purchased a new CPU with RedHat 7.1 pre-installed in a server configuration. Now, I can work with it to learn to administer my own linux server on my LAN. I run DSL to the LAN thru a NetGear RT314, but the 314 has failed me. At this time, my LAN has been broken down and this windows box is running alone on the DSL. As soon as I can, I will purchase a Linksys router for the LAN. If this does not work, then I shall work to use my Linux box its self, configuring it's second ethernet card for NAT, but at this time, this approach is beyond my knowledge. I strongly recommend that dinosaurs do not try duel-boot, rather, that they purchase a linux server and run their windows boxes, using samba, apache, ttssh to VNCviewer. We dinosaurs MUST be able to smoothly move from the familiar to the new and better. The learning curve for any *nix is beyond our time and experience, for the most part. We must rely on the gurus (IT's and Techs)and these are usually beyond the little dinosaur's finances and budget. I am retired, on a small fixed income and cannot afford to pay you for you expertise, I am at my financial limit now for my computer tasks. BTW, the URL above is no longer valid, I had to leave homestead because they are charging for their hosting of my website. I have learned to code html and moved to http://freepages.science.rootsweb.com/~chtank/inde x.html
Retired dinosaur, simple user, volunteer, guinea pig
At my high school, I worked that at the computer department last summer, all the servers run the Debian distribution. They did this because of the price tag on Windows and because just about anything is more reliable then Windows. The server acts as the mail server, web server and their ISP gateway.
Sir, you are a fool.
At $ORKPLACE we do lots of data hosting, printing of mailshots and other such menial tasks for companys that can't be bothered.
While I'd love to switch to open source alternatives to SQL Server, Office etc a lot of clients like to know that we're using software that they know and (thanks to MS marketing) trust...
Word can't even READ the SO file format. How does it make Word better, that it has an incompatible file format?
.doc files, unlike MSO, wich does not even open .sdw files.
.doc files, I could not care less.
The OFFICE SUITE SO-5.2 is as good as MS Office. I did not say SO is better than MS Office at importing documents from another office's format.
It is though, it can at least do sometthing with
If you CREATE a document in SO, you will find it superior. MS Word might be a better file viewer for
Moritz
Dig up an old 486 or old P90, drop in a couple of NICs and set up FreeSCO...
Easy, painless, secure, and best of all...Free (as in speech and beer).
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I agree about group jargon being used to program and deprogram people. However, in Corporate America many of the higher ups have been so brainwashed into believing most everything that comes out of Microsoft representatives mouths that it only serves to play into Microsoft's hands by using such terminology.
Microsoft tells the CTO and CIO that those Open Source people are a bunch of immature, unclean geeks. Then someone spouts off, "Micro$oft, Microserf, Windoze, Wintendo" and a host of other incorrect names for their products. The Microsoft rep then simply says, "I told you so..."
So, in America, it is important to advocate in an intelligent fashion that appears mature to the heads of corporate IT departments. That would have a great deal to do with the Puritan values that, unfortunately, pervade much of American society.
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.sig seperator
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If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
I just set a Linux based system for a large (1000 users+ !) organization using Sendmail and Samba to support Outlook clients.
.VFB file to the shared folder every 15 mins. Search at this URL is : File:\\Server_Name\Folder_Name\%USERNAME%.vfb . Be sure to use the variable " %USERNAME% " as it will search for whoever you are trying to hook up with. Now users can schedule meetings with each other across the LAN. No more phone tag. This alone was the best thing our users liked.
But first a little background . .
The old system at corporate was running Novell GroupWise and crashed almost daily. It had dozens of Post Offices, one for every branch office. It was a mess. Notify locked up desktops whenever a new message came in, required the problematic Novell Client32, and seemed to just screw up WinDoze in general.
After about 3 years of that, upper management hired a new assistant CIO (He just happened to be the CEO's son). He was all hot about using Outlook at collage. Several other people wanted to use Outlook as well, but it does not play well with GroupWise so it was a either / or decision. Outlook came with Office already so it does not require additional licenses. Outlook is also the hub all of the other Office apps revolve around for journaling, tracking, ect.
I had set a Linux 6.2 box a year ago for a distant division and had about 300 users on it for over a year with about 4 hours downtime total. Users used a mix of Netscape, Eudora, Outlook Express, connected via POP3. Life was good.
So I told our Junior CIO I could set up a Linux box and make it look like an M$ Exchange server. Here's how I do it.
A: Set up a Linux box with Sendmail, Samba, and Bind. Get your MX records set up. Open SMTP and POP3 thru firewall.
B: Install Webmin (great tool!) and get a list of users in CSV format. You can import 1000 users in about 30 mins. Make sure you tell Webmin to add Samba accounts too. Sync passwords for users. Create common shared folder(s) for free / busy files. Make sure users can read all and only write their own files to that folder.
(As a side note you could also use FTP or a WebDAV server, but Samba just seemed like a cleaner install, and this was going to be behind a firewall.)
C: Install Outlook in Internet Only mode on users. This is much lower overhead than Corporate / Workgroup mode and still allows users to share free / busy filles, folders, and common calenders. I/O mode uses standard Internet protocols like POP3, IMAP, SMTP, and LDAP. It works over the TCP/IP transport, and insures communication across the Internet. C/W mode is primarily intended for internal Microsoft Exchange (MAPI) clients, and to provide for backwards compatibility with Microsoft Mail, Microsoft Schedule +, Microsoft Fax, and other services like CompuServe or CC:Mail. MAPI protocols are useless across the Internet from outside the firewall. (By the way, Groupwise also is a MAPI server and uses the "fat" MAPI DLL.)
If you believe Microsoft, some features of Outlook are only available in C/W mode, such as shared calendars, public folders, and message recall. However, most of these services have been duplicated through other means, such as access to shared folders and calendars on the mail server.
Set up Outlook clints to share free / busy files like thus: Tools > Options > Calendar Options > Free / Busy options. Put in this as the URL to publish to : File:\\Server_Name\Folder_Name\User_Name.vfb . This will send a small
Now some will poo-poo that Outlook is prone to virii and vbs trojans. Too true. I install a front end e-mail virus scanner from McAfee (Webshield) on another box and McAfee Virus Scan was already on all of the desktops. Keep Windows update critical notification running on all of the desktops. Inform users how to click that little icon when it goes off, it works.
But in conclusion let me add this as a reality check for our optimistic fellow OpenSource advocates. .
This crap about replacing Office 97 / 2000 with Star Office is a pipe dream. Upgrading to Office XP is not worth the hassle. Most large companies have a office suite that works, and does what they need it to. M$ new licencing model is hiway robbery and shold be investigated by the DOJ, but that's an article for another day. This will save companies a large chunk of change just in CLA's. I guesstimate about 35$ for the NT CLA and 65$ for the Exchange CLA's = $100.00 per seat.
For 1000 users that's $100,000.00. Nice.
Fight the good fight, but don't forget the users are what really count. They pay the bills.