Slashdot Mirror
Constructing a Windows-Less Office
joewakeup writes "This article at CRN analyses why today is the best time to consider building a pure Linux information system, from servers to... desktop. Among all the arguments, one of the arguments is the low cost of Linux offerings compared to Windows based-solutions. Worth a read."
2001: Most Linuxes have a very friendly desktop, with lots of productivity apps, but I swear to Linus, it's about twice as slow as Win2K/XP on the same hardware.
I'd love to have Linux running everywhere if it didn't require massive hardware to run smoothly.
I have been using only Linux at home for everything but certain games. To bad i still have to use Windoze at school. The administration doesnt know a good OS when they see it. Thats why they run mostly Win95 on a Novell network.
P.S. First... no i wont say it...
/usr/games/fortune
The article failed to mention the cost of support to Linux platforms. Heck, I'd like to see windows replaced in the work place myself. But the fact remains--windows based sysadmins are a dime a dozen, and most of the sharp linux/unix admins don't want to be resetting passwords for morons.
It would be hard to find enough linux admins willing to do this kind of work.
-- yawn. --
low cost of Linux offerings compared to Windows based-solutions
Linux is cheaper? Really?
I wish that writers would make other points. This one is blatantly obvious, and every linux user knows it. How about some other points that most IT Managers don't know?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
"People who are used to Windows will undergo a learning curve. This is no different from the changes necessary in moving from Windows to, say, a Mac."
Do people actually move from Windows to Mac's???
I feel that Linux would be a good desktop for the normal user. But it still does have a few shortcommings. One area that could use a lot of improvement is installing software in Linux.
I work in an electronic music studio. I'd love to use Linux, but the apps just aren't there.
The fact that there's almost no development community addressing this potentially enormous market amazes me to no end.
But, until then, I'll use Windows. Not because it's great, but because it has the apps I need.
is an understatement.
Windows cause sun glare in everyone's monitor, hence decreasing productivity.
"Linux is only cheaper than windows if you don't value your time" - I don't know who said it, but it is true!
What is the intrinsic value of "easy to learn"?
If that were true, why would people work on their own cars, or modify them to make them perform better?
Are you saying that if physics were easy to learn, then it would be better?
Better than what?
The 'ease' argument is only valid for the marketplace. In that context I would agree that Linux has an extreme uphill battle.
But to question the validity of studying something due entirely to its ease of use?.....
Then why study anything?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
I can't help but think that this is all stuff that everyone reading slashdot already knows. Nothing new or exciting here.
As always, the real trouble is simply overcoming consumer momentum("but we ran our LAST network on Windows") and overcoming the support problem("but were is the analogous army of MSCEs?"). Linux may be the best solution, but that doesn't mean that people will choose it. On the other hand, it's always nice to see a little exposure: No such thing as bad press, and all that.
I can already hear the people complaining about the article not mentioning Debian.
lysergically yours
The article was served by IIS.
Somehow I doubt the average office worker would have higher productivity if they used a Linux solution instead of a Windows one? I think not.
As reported in Slashdot this morning, Evolution 1.0 Released and ThinkFree Office an MS 2000/XP Office compatible suite that works in Linux. Combine these with the TransGaming's WineX software, there is no longer any reason to use MS on the desktop.
"I'm The Bounty Bear. I will find him anywhere. I'm searching."
I think we're still beating the dead horse on this one - Linux needs consumer oriented apps that work the same as the microsoft ones. There's not going to be a Windowless office until consumers adopt linux, which means consumer oriented software, not just stuff for geeks. Why don't people use StarOffice on Solaris - because is too bloody hard to use.
Well, here are my own personal reasons why I have a Windows box in the middle of my shelf of Linux boxen:
I love Linux - it is the best all-around OS I have ever used. Linux isn't the problem; third parties are the problem. Microsoft made the brilliant move of leveraging its monopolies to reinforce each other and it has worked like a charm. I'd drop Windows in a heartbeat but M$ gets my upgrade dollars because I really have no choice. And I suspect that any office that tried to transition to Linux will fail miserably for the same reasons. Linux just isn't ready for widespread desktop use.
~wally
Ease of use is important because time is a limited resource and different people have different priorities, asshole. DUH!
Then don't waste your time on it.
But don't expect me to waste my time on working on *your* problems (natural gas exploration, nuclear waste management).
After all, using your logic, only simple things should be useful.
Somehow I doubt the average office worker would have higher productivity if they used a Linux solution instead of a Windows one? I think not.
Is it fun arguing with yourself.
I've never advocated EVERYONE moving on to Linux.
But that is hardly the issue, is it?
Posting as an anonymous coward means never having to defend your assertions.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
When a company switches to 100 percent MS free they might have very much problems to exchange data with their customers.
This will give their competitors very much advantage and they'll finally die in the end.
Also there are very much legal problems with the GNU license and people are not sure if they must distribute their own work for free. This might be ok with open source but you must keep in might that a company cannot distribute their confidential data all over the world because their competitors would use their customer lists and have very much advantage.
And there is the problem with reliability on open source systems because a single command: umount can wipe out the whole harddisk.
A linux guy told me lately that you must do always umount to halt your computer, so a operation system which can't be switched off is not good for a company especially the running computers use much power all over the night and this is very expensive and bad for the environment, too.
So you should stay with Windows which has not these problems. And the service is very much better from microsoft because of the programs which are installed on your computer and send every you do to microsoft so that they can help you all the time.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
linux is better, but only in some points. if you are an end-user then linux would absolutly not work, because it does not support all of the drivers for different devices windows does, and you end up lossing what makes a pc better than a make - the ability to make addons.
This is OK for a small office, but what about a larger company? Many companies have deployed MS Exchange server partly because of the integrated global address list and the fact that you can store the email in a central database instead of downloading it to the PC like a POP3 server. Is there a Linux based mail server with these features?
You're absolutely right. Most of the "Linux for Office" freaks don't realise that Unix applications simply aren't ready for prime-time because it takes goddamn lot of time to learn to use the apps in the first place.
I like to hack on my own time. At home I've got a dual AMD and Sun Sparc to play with.
However, when I want to get things done at work I...
The owls are not what they seem
"The single biggest problem at the enterprise level is politics," said Leon Brooks
Amen. I think Plato said it best (I think it was Plato) "those that do not engage in politics will be done in by it".
Use it, or lose it + do unto others before it's done to you.
Many things were done on 'nix workstations before the move to NT. It used to be full support for 'nix os's, min for NT, now the roles are reversed..sigh.
Even the machine operators clamor for the 'nix days from time to time.
But of course, I am prolly one of the few that think StarOffice 6 not being put out on the mac was a big mistake. I'd have chosen SO6 beta whatever over office v.X for os X out of principle and sanity reasons...but alas, twas not to be.
Funny, that you get the same title with Mac OS X and if SO6 was here it would still be a "Window less Office".
Huh...I'll be darned...who'd of thunk it?
Cheers,
Moose.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
All but one of the servers they were using ran Linux (the remaining two were running Solaris and NT for software requirements). I worked under the network admin, and during the whole time I was there we never even had a glitch with the network.
All of the engineers were using Linux on their desktops and it worked beautifully. The remaining desktops were running Win98 for the HR, marketing and finance groups because the software they were using required it.
It's not quite the Windows-less office that the article was discussing, but it was pretty close. I've seen the wonders of the Linux-based network and I like it.
There is no escape from The Muffin.
My office is now 100% Window-less as of about 6 months ago, but we're instead 100% Mac OS X (currently 10.1). It's great. I don't miss Windows at all, and the myth that you "can't get applications for the Mac" is such a load of cr@p.
In fact, the new Office for Mac OS X is, in my opinion, much BETTER than the Windows version.
Networking has been faster, too, and that's important to us. You'd never believe it, but it's cheaper too. No more calling for technical support or having someone on duty to fix problems with our systems. You just don't need it with a Mac because the hardware and software is so well integrated.
The machines themselves have been CHEAPER for us. $1199 iMacs as clients and G4s to handle some of the heavier loads. It's worked great.
And by the way... that 22" Apple flat screen is not only beautiful for working with, but it impresses customers too. I know it seems like a detail, but people have gotten the impression we're an upscale successful business because they see those screens and comment on them.
I know I seem like a troll ranting about this or that, but I just want to get the word out, because I'm a very pleased Apple customer... and I'm laughing at myself for ever having used Windows for so long.
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
One important component I still find missing is a free desktop database a la Access. This is a very important tool for every company, and it will be missing from Open Office 6.0 (not sure about Star Office 6.0). There's a commercial contender called Rekall from theKompany (and a port of Paradox 9), but only a couple free beta apps. This should not be that hard to write, though, since scripting languages, database backends and form designers already exist in free versions.
That runs fast enough for me on moderate hardware (a standard 500 MHz sort of box). If Mozilla runs too slow for you, run Opera. FVWM may not have the nice desktop graphics of KDE or Gnome, but it doesn't have the overhead either. And learning to tweak out your .fvwm2rc file is half the fun!
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
Depends what you mean by "productive", doesn't it?
I certainly wouldn't advocate yer average business user switch to Linux. Then again, I wouldn't advocate they use Windows 2000, either.
-- clvrmnky
Why is everyone trying to shoehorn Linux into something it's bad at? I use Red Hat Linux exclusivly for my web servers. It scales well, I'm happy with it's security and it simply works helluva well? in that capacity.
However, I use exclusivly Win32 on the desktop. I have a digital studio box that uses Me, and will soon be upgrading that to XP. A couple dev boxen with 2000, and an older box with 98se. For my needs Win32 works helluva well? on the desktop. (Not to mention that I like to play games).
Now, *I* use win32, because I have a choice and I pick win32. But that's not why I think this is a bad (and stupid) idea.
Show of hands, how many of you have parents and grandparents could go to work tomorrow and use *nix without a hitch instead of Win32?
Business want their workers to be *productive*. And yes, I know you can argue that many of the powerful features found in *nix desktops make a user *more* productive. But only the top 5% or so that will ever figure them out. I'd venture to guess that 99% of *windows* users never figure out *it's* features.
Right clickable context menus are something that the average secretary or insurance broker or customer service rep has probably never heard of.
The file structure on win32 is a mystery to these workers. If their copy of word somehow winds up pointing to a diffrent working directory than C:/My Documents/ then half of them will have no prayer of navigating back to where it was and will declare their files "lost". Until someone comes along and fixes it for them.
It all boils down to this: If I gave my mother a Porche 911 Twin Turbo tomorrow, I know that she would drive it to work every day exactly the same as she drives her Subaru Outback station wagon. It's only certain people that will take advantage of the extra power. This analogy isn't less applicable to computers, it's MORE applicable.
The point? Win32 is easier than *nix. And Win32 is STILL TOO HARD for the masses. Yes, I am well aware of the fact that your average geek can use it. Your average IT guy can use it, but they're not 99% of officeworkers world wide. So why would you want to take a step backwards and make these poor saps use somethign that will make them hate computers even more?
It seems a lot like cutting off your own nose to spite Microsoft's Face to me.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
I'm all for fully Unix/*BSD/Linux systems, including the desktop (although I still think MS Office, as much as I hate it is more user/idiot friendly than most offerings like StarOffice or KOffice).
A business running all *Nix actually not to hard to achieve now, provided that your business is the type that isn't heavily reliant on users who must use Office like their lives depend on it.
Unfortunately, most of the struggle is getting Linux/*BSD/Unix systems integrated with existing networks and programs - especially those which have been touched by Microsoft's embrace and extend philosophy, or run on a closed protocol, or use closed file formats.
Many businesses are not going to start from scratch with Linux/*BSD - and are more likely to want to move piecemeal away from Windows if they decide to do so.
As much as we'd all love Microsoft to open up their "standards" they know exactly what they're doing, and the anti-trust case doesn't look like it's going to help all that much.
It's a bit of a Catch 22 situation, and one with shifting goal posts - but easier integration with existing systems - with projects such as SAMBA and Ximians Vapourware Exchange plugin for Evolution might are the sort of thing to persuade PHB that moving to Linux/UNIX/*BSD is easier.
This post seems to be yet another anti-Microsoft rant - but in most cases these are the sorts of things that make life hard for people to shift their IT intrastructures - vendor lock-ins.
But yes, moving to Linux (or other free *Nixes) has probably never been easier.
It's been done.
Most geeks work in offices without windows. The window offices are usually reserved for upper level execs.
i am not trying to create flamebait, but linux, with its current UIs, will not be successful in the desktop market.
it is clunky, inelegant and unsophisticated. secretaries will like it even less than windows.
go get it
The single biggest obstacle to Linux everywhere is specific Windows applications with no direct portable equivalent, like AutoCAD or MS-Publisher.
These are only tip of the iceburg for linux
I cant imagine the majority of linux types i know racing to support the linux desktops in there organisation. Telling a user to read the man pages doesnt suffice in most businesses
..because I've lived it.
A year ago I was working at a smallish startup. Cheap was king, so linux was the desktop of choice.. except for a couple PHB's who wanted their Outlook and were running NT.
It was a hassle, day in and day out. In the interests of brevity I'll leave out details, but suffice to say that linux is NOT the best choice. This isn't to suggest that there's a "best" choice out there, I'm just saying linux is still too unstable and too quirky to make life easy for a desktop support guy.
What you save in software costs ends up in costing support staff more in terms of headaches. "Cost" is not always defined by how hard something hits the pocketbook..
My "boss" (read:wife) won't consider switching to linux unless I can show her something she can use that is equivalent to Macromedia Dreamweaver. Netscape Composer didn't impress her.
Any other options I can look into?
Software Wars
Constructing A Windows-Less Office
.Net services have many SMB customers clamoring to solution providers for inexpensive alternatives. Although Linux's corporate inroads have primarily been on the server front and questions remain about the profitability of a Linux-powered desktop, a select few solution providers are already closing deals and reaping rewards from selling Linux-based solutions.
By Franj J. Ohlhorst
Tired of doing Windows? Well, there might be no better time than now to consider a pure Linux environment.
The flat economy, rising software costs, shrinking technology budgets, and Microsoft's licensing and pricing gambles with Windows XP and
To get a firsthand look at the viability of a "Windows-free" solution, the CRN Test Center built a Linux network consisting of a server and five workstations running various distributions of Linux. The goal was to create a reliable network that could be used in a typical small-business environment.
After constructing a practical solution, the Test Center reached the following conclusion: Linux and associated Linux applications can accomplish many of the same tasks as the Wintel standard at a much lower initial cost,in this case, for 93 percent less than the software cost of a similar Windows-based network,and without many of the licensing hassles presented by traditional software platforms.
And a legion of solution providers agree. "For most business uses, Linux desktops and available applications can perform the tasks people need, reliably and efficiently," said Evan Liebovitch, a partner at Starnix, a Linux-centric VAR based in Toronto.
So far, however, Linux has been a tough sell for many solution providers. As an open-source platform, Linux has faced some hurdles in penetrating a critical mass of businesses, not the least of which is the end user's willingness to change.
"The biggest single challenge, in my experience, is inertia," Liebovitch said. "People who are used to Windows will undergo a learning curve. This is no different from the changes necessary in moving from Windows to, say, a Mac."
What's more, many potential clients simply haven't recognized Linux as a viable platform. But that is beginning to change. With major vendors such as IBM and Sun Microsystems touting Linux's capabilities, solution providers now should be able to demonstrate the platform's practicality to customers.
"The single biggest problem at the enterprise level is politics," said Leon Brooks, director of CyberKnights, a Perth, Australia-based network integrator. "Many managers either don't know that anything besides Windows exists or have been snowed into believing that Windows is the best answer to every problem."
Similarly, a perceived lack of applications has hindered Linux's acceptance, solution providers said. "The single biggest obstacle to Linux everywhere is specific Windows applications with no direct portable equivalent, like AutoCAD or MS-Publisher. Some people are unwilling to substitute near-equivalents," Brooks said. "Alternatives are arising, and I expect that by 2003 there will be polished, open alternatives to MS-Publisher, Adobe Illustrator, MS-Access, AutoCAD and the like."
Although many software companies don't develop native Linux applications, customers' needs often can be met with the plethora of open-source and commercial Linux applications now readily available.
"Most of the common desktop work,including Internet surfing, e-mail, spreadsheet, word processing and presentation software,has arrived with a comparable level of quality [in Linux] as software found under Windows. This wasn't the case three years ago," said Gael Duval, founder of Mandrake Linux, an Altadena, Calif.-based Linux distributor.
Moreover, the need for a Windows-based application isn't necessarily a showstopper. Commercial products like Netraverse's Win4Lin let users run native Windows applications on a Linux desktop, and VMware's VMware workstation can be used to create multiple virtual machines running Windows under Linux.
Another possibility is Wine, an open-source application that enables some Windows software to run under Linux. Solution providers also can move a customer's Windows applications into the ASP realm. Using off-the-shelf hardware and commercial applications such as Netraverse's NSSE or Citrix Systems' MetaFrame, solution providers can provide remote access to Windows applications via thin-client technology.
One of the most perplexing choices with Linux is deciding which of the numerous vendor distributions to use. Many Linux solution providers work with several distributions and pick those that best fit a customer's needs. Still, some do have their preferences.
"Most of our clients run either Mandrake or SuSE on their desktops," said Anthony Awtrey, director of integration at I.D.E.A.L. Technology, Melbourne, Fla. "The advances in the KDE interface and the easy system maintenance provided by both SuSE and Mandrake provide a solid client desktop that Windows clients can't touch."
Starnix's Liebovitch agreed. "For an all-around desktop distribution, my current favorite is Mandrake. Red Hat is better-known and has the biggest services organization. But I find Mandrake to be a better non-techie user package. I would also note that Caldera, while it lags behind other Linux vendors in techie esteem, is still the most channel-friendly distribution by a long shot."
The Test Center's "non-Windows" network included Linux distributions from Red Hat, Mandrake and Caldera for the desktop and server implementations. To reflect the mishmash of equipment usually found in a small-business environment, the Test Center used a menagerie of hardware to gauge various Linux configurations. This included computers ranging from older Intel Pentium II-based systems to systems based on the latest Intel and Advanced Micro Devices processors as well as storage devices, such as SCSI and IDE hard drives and CD-ROM and DVD drives. Broadband Internet connectivity was supplied via a cable modem linked directly to a Linux-based server or shared via a Linksys broadband router.
Test Center engineers found the installation of the various Linux distributions surprisingly easy. Caldera, Mandrake and Red Hat have gone to great lengths to simplify the process, and their products generally had no problems identifying the hardware and successfully installing Linux on any of the test systems.
Caldera's OpenLinux Workstation, however, refused to install on two of the test systems, offering only a cryptic "system not suitable" style of message. Further investigation of the install logs showed incompatibilities with a generic video card and an older Adaptec SCSI controller. Conversely, Mandrake's and Red Hat's installation wizards demonstrated that concerns about hardware compatibility might well be a thing of the past.
The inclusion of automated disk partitioning eased installation of all three distributions. In the past, partitioning hard drives to accept Linux was a big installation hassle. Unlike DOS or Windows, Linux requires multiple disk partitions and doesn't use drive letters to identify those partitions. Automating the partitioning process reduces the confusion. Partitions are conceptually similar to the directory structure used in the DOS/Windows world.
A major decision faced by Linux installers is choosing a graphical user interface (GUI). Gnome and KDE are the two most popular Linux GUIs, and most distributions include both. Test Center engineers found KDE the friendliest and were impressed with the array of KDE-compatible software. In fact, the Linux distributions tested all included a vast amount of software. Most of the included software is based upon open-source licensing and can be distributed without additional licensing fees.
Installers will want to seriously consider deploying Sun Microsystems' StarOffice, a user-friendly office productivity suite (word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications) that's compatible with Microsoft Office file formats. Users familiar with Microsoft Office would find the transition to StarOffice easy. Other office suites also are available, including KOffice, which is integrated in the KDE desktop. Though not as polished as StarOffice, KOffice can meet most users' needs.
And Linux's software flexibility isn't limited to office suites. An array of open-source and commercial applications are available for most any business situation. For advanced graphical editing, for example, users can turn to GIMP, an application that brings Adobe Photoshop-like capabilities to Linux. For personal financial management, users can opt for GNUcash, an open-source, Intuit Quicken-compatible product. And on the accounting end, Appgen Software's MyBooks products offer all the bells and whistles normally found in products such as Intuit's QuickBooks, and for a fraction of the cost.
For situations where legacy Windows applications must be supported, solution providers can turn to commercial products such as Win4Lin or VMware Workstation.
Test Center engineers installed the latest version of Win4Lin on Mandrake Linux Standard Edition 8.1 running the KDE desktop and on Red Hat Linux Professional 7.2 running the Gnome desktop. Win4Lin offered a straightforward install and true Windows 98 compatibility. The product creates a virtual environment to install an actual copy of Windows 98, and the wizard-driven installation offers customization features. The Win4Lin version of Windows 98 allows the installation of Windows applications and can run the software with Linux concurrently.
Test Center engineers encountered no stability problems using Win4Lin, but there was a performance degradation. Still, Win4Lin offers adequate compatibility to serve most Windows application needs in the Linux environment.
VMware Workstation 3.0 offers another legacy solution and comes in Windows and Linux versions. The product lets users create multiple virtual machines under a host operation system, allowing multiple operating systems to be run concurrently.
The Test Center tested both VMware Workstation versions. The installation was straightforward under Windows 2000, and Test Center engineers were able to quickly deploy multiple instances of Linux under Windows 2000 using the virtual-machine setup wizards. Each instance of Linux can run in its own virtual machine (installers will need plenty of disk space and RAM to create effective virtual machines). VMware includes detailed instructions for most popular distributions of Linux; Red Hat and Mandrake Linux were tested under the Test Center Windows environment.
VMware's Linux version proved more complex. Test Center engineers installed the product on a system running Red Hat Linux Professional 7.2 with the Gnome desktop. The RPM install utility was used to install the VMware package, and then the setup wizard was used to create a virtual machine running Windows XP Professional under Linux. The virtual Windows XP environment proved stable, but there was a performance degradation.
In the Linux realm, solution providers also can craft custom applications for their customers. As early as two years ago, Linux desktop applications remained out of the reach of mainstream developers, and most of the open-source tools created were written primarily for C programmers. But that's starting to change.
KDE is the most actively developed Linux desktop and has the most tools. Solution providers seeking KDE desktop open-source development tools should go to www.apps.kde.com, which has ratings on each product, including feedback from the user community. One of the most promising tools at the site is KDevelop, which includes a wizard that generates skeleton code for an application and runs a number of compilers and object linkers through its IDE, hiding most of the complexity from programmers.
Several months ago, the introduction of Borland's Kylix language marked a new chapter in Linux development. Kylix is based on the popular Delphi language, Borland's version of object-oriented Pascal. The language now includes XML SOAP-based Web services, a cross-platform development framework and a number of RDBMS mapping tools. Like most modern rapid application deployment (RAD) tools, it includes a top-of-the-line IDE and source-debugging facility.
Despite the various distribution, application, deployment and development routes solution providers can take with Linux, they'll often find that the proof is in the pudding when selling solutions based on the platform. Linux's low cost, unlimited distribution and elimination of licenses can be a big catalyst in sales pitches.
"My clients are very impressed when they see my proposal with its inexpensive hardware specification, and they realize that the price includes all software," said David Lane, director of Egressive, a Christchurch, New Zealand-based network integrator. "Also, potential clients finally comprehend that there are no licenses, and when they talk to my existing clients, they find that in addition to everything else, Linux is more reliable and needs almost no maintenance."
MARIO MOREJON contributed to this story.
Laugh at my ignorance while I learn Rails - a Real ne
It seems like every year I get infected with the pro-linux bias of slashdot and rip Windows off my machine.
I ripped Windows off at about the same last year and installed Linux. I wasn't impressed. The desktop managers seemed slow (I was running a P3-800) and the web-browser sucked and generally, the applications weren't as good as their Windows counterparts. Not to mention that I managed to crash the system and have ext2 throw away some files.
So, this weekend I tried it again. I ripped off Windows 2000 and installed RedHat 7.2. In one year, Linux (and Gnome / KDE) has improved ten-fold. The KDE browser rocks, KMail is very good and the ext3fs filesystem is much better. However, it still took me hours to get ADSL PPPOE and a VPN client up and running and the soundcard (VIA 8233) and tv-card (Brooktree) still don't work. Apparently, the concept of writing a device driver without patching the kernel is still impossible even though Windows/Mac have been doing it for many years. And the system (now an Tbird-1.33) is still slower than Windows 2K (ex., the mouse gets jerky when my apps thrash the disk).
I'm a developer, so I'm thinking of writing support for some of these things (such as an easy VPN installer). Or, maybe a universal driver installer that would automagically patch the kernel and say 'You must reboot now', ala Windows. But the thought of having to support different distributions and versions makes me cringe.
Alot of the problems in Windows can be attributed to Microsoft trying to be backwards-compatible. But with Linux, the kernel and major libraries (ie. glibc) are always changing underneath your feet. This is a major design flaw that I not sure can ever be rectified.
Jason.
I worked at a small (60 users) office who had 2 applications that about 80 percent of the work revolved around. Unfortunately it was based off of Windows OS. There are only 3 companies that make a database that did this work and all of them used some form MS proprietary format and the other one was a docketing program that was also only Windows based.
most college grads cs or not are getting some linux exposure these days, those that arent are getting it in the work place.
the fact is, linux isn't that hard to administer and someone with basic experience can do a decent job; especially for an in house lan which doesn't get too much traffic or exposure.
your comment about unix admins not wanting to reset passwords for morons, represents a very windows centric view in my opinion. i've been around windows enough to know that it is so frustrating when things continually don't work that you just end up venting a lot of that on the users because your time is so limited and the repeated duties (rebooting, patching, etc.) are so high.
frankly, with linux/unix, while everything is far from perfect, most things are designed better to begin with. reset passwords? write a quick shell script, or just set them to expire. it's really not that big a deal, and neither is anything else you will think of.
saying there is lack of experienced workers is just an excuse, and a poor one at that. people are realizing that linux is quite friendly to admin, more so than unix, and allows the organization to save on upfront licencse and hardware costs as well as ongoing maintance and headache costs.
linux is a win win, period
windows clients, i can live with it. however, samba has evolved to the point where it's a better domain master than NT, so NT is gone. all of the other misc servers (mail, a few databases, web) are linux. everyone can use the databases from windows with the simple ODBC drivers and our custom VB (ack) programs. everyone is happy. i am happy.
"Linux is only cheaper than windows if you don't value your time"
Wrong. Both in the quote, and in your assertion that it's true.
The quote is actually something like "Linux is only free if you don't value your time."
Windows costs much, much more, both in initial purchase price, and in administration costs. (Downtime, fixing problems that shouldn't be there in the first place, etc.)
this is getting old. how many times are we going to go over this?
- the people reading slashdot are not the ones who need convincing, this audience is well aware of the capabilities of linux.
- if you need articles like this to convince your boss, you don't know enough about linux and wouldn't be able to implement this type of solution.
thank you, good night.
I think the users would be more productive if they can look outside once in a while instead of being locked in a dark office.
Here is my setup. I have a roommate that hardly ever uses the computer for more then surfing, email, and IM. My main computer (750mhz, 512ram) is in my room and he doesn't really want to set on my computer and surf the internet, so what I did was get ahold of a p133, got ahold of a tv-out card. and plugged it into the TV. I used the Linux Terminal Server Project's files and turned it into a X Terminal. With Afterstep, I just put the apps he needs into the wharf and away he goes. It works just fine, since all the processing is done on my main machine, the puny p133 just has to handle the display and input. Cost me about $300-$400 dollars. Not bad for basically creating an extra machine that is the equiv to my other machine. Granted he can't play OpenGL games because it uses the machines graphics card, but who cares.
is getting it to work with all the hardware. by the time i got all my stuff configured on my own systems, my head was swimming. hunting down drivers on google and editing config files by hand was very educational, but not particularly speedy. when i imagine doing the same for every machine in even a small organization, my head wants to explode.
of course you could just buy a machine with linux pre-installed, but then you get the choice of a dell latitude model X, or dell latitude model X. and installing linux on a machine that came with windows on it rather mitigates the lower cost argument, since you've already paid for the windows license. or you could buy individual components that have linux support and form a santa's workshop to assemble machines. again, not particularly cheap or speedy.
so, it's not the lack of windows app alternatives that's holding linux back in the workplace, because staroffice, gimp, etc., cover 99% of what your average user would need to do. it's also not the vaunted inertia that everyone makes a big deal out of, because the interfaces for open source alternatives almost completely mimic their windows cousins. believe me, the learning curve is no higher for telling people how to use the OSS version of a spreadsheet program than the windows version itself.
imho, once it's as easy to get linux running on a given machine as it is windows, the major obstacle to moving your business platform from windows to linux will be gone. until then, all the security, stability, and financial arguments in the world are not going to outweigh the perceived headache of having all your tech staff running around for years trying to get the workstations config'd properly.
Pretty Good Article on How to Replace Windows2000 Pro with a viable alternative
MailOne is a descendent of MailWORKS from DEC. Not only does it do what you want, it also has POP and IMAP servers and will talk Exchange/Outlook via MAPI. The only thing missing (which you don't mention you are looking for) is calendaring.
www.openone.com
324006
It's a good open source project. The initial version doesn't have to support animation, but design in the hooks, and it will probably be added by others. Perl code to read and write Flash exists, so there's something to look at. A good student programming project.
I think in general, Linux is more efficient and faster. X however is a different story, and it has nothing to do with the fact that it runs over a network.
X windows sends a refresh event every freaking time a damaged window is revealed. this doesn't make sense, and it means that switching windows and creating menus looks sluggish and cumbersome no matter how fast the hardware.
other window systems like plan9 simply store the overlapping layers and let the server (read the display) do the work rather than sending a refresh event.
now, there is work being done to resolve some of this. Keith Packard is implementing this in X as we speak, but it takes time, X is filled with a lot of cruft from years of being pulled in many directions.
unfortunately, for now - X is just not the best example of Linux's effeciency. so anything that runs on top of it is going to be slow and big, at least compared to windows. then again, the killer feature that windows simply , can't do, and it shops should drool over is the fact that you can run it over a network! so all in all, I think it is a fair trade off, though there could be a better solution, granted.
in essence, i think it's pretty much implying that this company's not going to have an HR department.... they're just going to complain without IE...
and people arent going to be happy without MSOffice for their technical docs....
my blog
Windows is only esay to use because people don't know any thing else exists. I been using linux for 2 years, and now even my mom and my little sister use Linux(Gnome) with no problems at all
Apologies for the off-topicness of this post, but check out this thread:
4 875
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=24310&cid=263
This is a thread about a Slashdot user being visited by the Secret Service for some comments that were made on another Web site. In the course of the past hour or so, every comment below it has been insta-moderated down to zero (or below.) Presumably, this was done to ensure that none of the "offending" comments get archived.
Is there any member of the Slashdot crew brave enough to explain this? For a "user-oriented" site, Slashdot seems to have very few qualms about trampling all over its users.
Let's face it. Most of us aren't in a position to force ALL the end users to run linux on their desktops. In my environment, I have a mixture of Redhat/MacOS/Win2000. The management types insist on having "outlook-like" functionality across all three platforms so they can share schedules, contacts, etc.
Does such an "exchange replacement" or "domino replacement" exist that supports non-linux clients? Evolution seemed like the ticked, but it only supports linux clients....great for the tech guys like me, but will never get past the "business users" and artists.
Anyone have any suggestions? Have I missed an obvious solution?
The main problem is financial capital. First off, most companies lease their offices, and I'd expect, can't afford not to. Larger companies that own their campuses are less likely to try something so radical, unless there's a specific purpose to doing so (testing light sensitive products or something-- but why in an office setting?).
If the money is there, simply give your contractors that are either modifying or building your office building instructions not to include any windows.
More economically, you could try putting tin foil over the windows. If you put the foil on the inner panel on the inside and the foil on the outer panel on the outside, you can even open the window if you wish. If that defeats your purpose, put bars on the windows.
If I'm wrong, PLEASE let me know. I'd love to get rid of my f*&#ing Wintel box...
Mr. Ska
Linux, in most cases is current just not ready for the desktop, or rather, the desktop isn't ready for linux.
Most universities now teach Java to comp sci students (well they do here in the UK), and java is multiplatform, so hopefully when these java knowing people start to filter down to writing apps, there will be a few more platform independent apps.
A lot of very user friendly systems I have seen designed, have been done so in java, including the software that powers those absurdly expensive quiz games you see in bars these days, although they run it on top of win2k (i know this cos I crashed one and watched in reboot), it could quite easily run on java.
I think machines in general are fast enough to run java software and a decent pace now- and this could be very beneficial for linux (also note IBM are big advocates of both java and linux).
..Barny
Our small initiative started out using systems that could no longer support the corporate desktop. Our workstations run Linux, as does the main server (uptime of 132 days BTW). Our Firewall, VPN Concentrator, and IDSs are FreeBSD. Our lone, non-opensource system is a sparc/solaris DB server. We still keep dual boot laptops around for PowerPoint (StarOffice still doesn't render PPT well), although I cannot remember the last time I had to boot into Windows. Linux and FreeBSD have migrated to the local corporate side of the house too, recently replacing the mail server, web server, name servers, and BDC. It seems the biggest obstacle facing our admins in getting Linux to the local corporate desktop is a true standards based document exchange.
www.sguil.net
The Analyst Console for NSM
WHAT?!? NO MORE WINDOWS? What will I do without all those games? Work?
I have a corner office and found that thick canvas curtains provide a decent substitute for a windowless office.
I worked very hard to get a corner office. Why on earth would I want to get rid of the windows. ;-)
Help fight continental drift.
We run 500 redhat workstations with only one admin. It is so hard to administrate that I had to pinch myself to keep awake this morning. Quit spreading FUD, if it is hard to administrate it is because you are using a MCSE as a linux administrator.
Riiight...
When will you stuck up geeks realize that 90% of "REAL" office workers (those that work in education, state agencies, insurance offices, etc.) are still confused by e-mail.
My god, just the other day it took me 45 minutes to explain the difference between Outlook and Eudora to a guy.
Most people barely understand the concept of a left-click and a right-click. Calling Linux or ANY of its desktops user-friendly is complete bs.
Do us all a favor and keep Linux on servers where it belongs.
"They just cannot handle the truth. Remember, some people have better things to do than to read 900 page Unix tomes all day."
You know I never had to read a 900 page unix "tome" but then I guess you have to state the truth to get the truth.
it's called a cubical.
"2001: Most Linuxes have a very friendly desktop, with lots of productivity apps, but I swear to Linus, it's about twice as slow as Win2K/XP on the same hardware. "
That's really impressive to me any actual hard numbers? Remeber there is *much more* material that is avaible in a linux distribution than a windows CD you know.
The article mentions lower total operating costs, but then goes on to say that they installed win4lin / vmware to get windows compatiblity.
Think about that for a moment.
How can windows + linux be cheaper than just windows?
Prevent linux based DDOS's!
http://linux.denialofservice.org/
I can't say that disappoints me really, I personally hate AutoCAD. Granted, it's as easy as anything else once you've learned it, but it's the most difficult software to learn that I've ever worked with, and I've never been able to get the alleged 3-D design tools to work. All in all, I can't say no AutoCAD is a bad thing. I know AutoCAD has it's place, but for what I do (mechanical design) it's only the tool of choice for Engineers who are too old to learn a new software package. I do like the option of a CLI, but that's the only positive point I can think of.
I recall, though, that AutoCAD used to be available for Unix, and many of the CLI commands are named after standard *nix commands. Is this not still the case?
I haven't used it since R14, so my info may be a bit out of date...
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Apple macs...... They make linux for them too!
I think that the major hurdle to overcome in the transition to an all Linux office environment is the office worker who does not want to learn.
I have actually heard people say that they "can't use Macintosh, because I only have experience with Windoze".
Equating lack of knowledge with lack of ability is a fallacy that many users allow themselves to fall into.
Managers are aware that their is a learning curve, and a lack of desire to learn, so they will often avoid making changes that may cause the lowest common denominator (office drone) to stress.
The fact is, a Unix system administrator might cost 50% more, but you'll need half as many - maybe even a third or quarter as many, maybe even less than that if you take the approach that West Palm Beach did (thin clients). I won't rehash that story, but you can find it here if you want to refresh your memory.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
"They are probably Jews if they are willing to break everyone else's backs just to save a few pennies."
interesting even though that is nothing but a common sterotype
I'm no dummy, and if I couldn't make it work, you can forget about an entry level person doing it. This same "read the man pages, compile modules, try again" philosophy extends to the entire OS. Even the most recent distributions of Linux expect WAY to much from any user who wants to do more than word processing.
By all means, if you have a competent admin, put Linux on all your servers. Mod me down if you want, but frankly, you're deluding yourself if you think that it's ready for the desktop. As an intermediate-level computer user, Windows allows me to do MUCH more.
if you wanna give out your source then all that's needed:
./configure
make
make install
you're done. of course, if you want to distribute binary only, that's another story. I wish there would be an easier way to do it.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
It's called:
Cu - bi - cle
"What is the intrinsic value of "easy to learn"?"
that which is not more difficult than a certain percentage within a standard distribution
"If that were true, why would people work on their own cars, or modify them to make them perform better?"
work on cars dosn't really fit within that area I don't think
"Are you saying that if physics were easy to learn, then it would be better? "
after taking engineering physics and barely escaping with my life I would answer yes
"Better than what? "
better than what is there I assume
"The 'ease' argument is only valid for the marketplace."
or for the practically minded
" In that context I would agree that Linux has an extreme uphill battle. "
Linux has had more cute and friendly work done for it I think that if someone really tried to set things up right the first time there would be little to do. At worst it's about at the level of 3.11 and people got throught that ok.
"But to question the validity of studying something due entirely to its ease of use?..... "
not just for ease of use because that is a modifier, an adjective.
"Then why study anything?"
I firmly believe that almost anything could be taught to almost anyone with the proper work done on it. Even quantum mechanics for dummies, etc.
Things "get into" the office environment when they make business sense to do so. Which happens when the benefits exceed the costs, the reward exceeds the risk, and when these are exceeded by an amount greater than the next best alternative.
In the case of office platforms, the big "corporate IT" issue re this analysis in representing the complete true costs - Total Cost of Ownership - which includes the relative expense of good Unix sysadmins or the cost of retraining Win admins (clue injection), the cost of managing the environments, the cost of supporting moronic end users, the costs of reduced application availability (sure you can have a nice GUI, but where's the Linux industrial-strength Accounts Payable system?), or of building interfaces to whatever the rest of the world uses (eg., the cost of reverse engineering .doc format for word processing). The actual cost of the OS (free beer) is almost irrelevant.
On the risk side, corporate IT departments value stability of the infrastructure above all. So, the corporate IT folks are herd-following conformists. No one will move to Linux office until everyone else does. And there will have to be a huge TCO advantage before that inertia gets overcome.
It's actually a rational position, but not very cool or fun. Sticking with the herd, and moving en masse with the herd has advanatges. The herd is big enough that it gets what it wants: robust techinical support, business applications developed for the platform of their choice, peer groups and conferences in Boca Raton, whatever.
Of course, you lose out on the advanatges of doing something different/better than competitors. It all depends on what you value more.
(PHB off)
Just kidding of course. This was posted from a Linux system hiding in a 50,000 person company.
I'm surprised the article does not even try to address the basic issue of file compatibility. Fact is, a normal office would have tons of documents in MS Word or Excel files. Excel is a complex and powerful piece of software: people write applications in it complete with menus and buttons. I know document conversion programs exist, but they never do a good job even with simple documents, let alone mega-apps-in-Excel and such. In addition, your business partners, suppliers and clients will want to collaborate with you using Word/Excel/PowerPoint files, and you are not in a position to dictate what they use. This is the reality of business. Even if you want to switch, and even if suitable Linux apps are available, you may not be able to.
Besides, StarOffice is a bloated monster.
It's so XP Office compatible it even requires a subscription (~$50/y IIRC) to use it. Now that's what I'd call full compatibility.
-- MarkusQ
"What's more, many potential clients simply haven't recognized Linux as a viable platform. But that is beginning to change. With major vendors such as IBM and Sun Microsystems touting Linux's capabilities, solution providers now should be able to demonstrate the platform's practicality to customers."
I don't remember hearing Sun push Linux more than Solaris. I actually thought that Sun was more interested in selling it's own Unix products...
Coupled with the actual content of the article, somehow that's one of the sadest things I've seen.
sic transit gloria mundi
But I don't want a window-less office. I happen to enjoy sunshine I want to be able to look outside and see the whole world that exists outside of my office. Then I can look out the window and think "wow, I should eat lunch outside today", or "look at that snow fall, it is going to be rough driving home tonight".
Oh wait, the article is about an office without MS Windows... sorry.
-
The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -Einstein
Both OpenOffice Impress and kpresenter are stable mature applications that can do most things a rational person would ever expect in a presentation.
So if you write
" There's no open-source software replacement for PowerPoint."
you are right. There is not one, there are TWO GPL apps to replace powerpoint.
Now if I look at the fact that SVG is a vector format (not a presentation format) and the fact that openoffice641 opens all ridiculous powerpoint stuff I get mailed by people, I think you should look harder before you propoese new projects to other people.
See http://www.openoffice.org and http://www.koffice.org for the apps.
Moritz
Please do not argue that Microsoft will never be supplanted because people do not like to switch operating systems.
In order for people to use Microsoft, they had to switch operating systems (waaaaay back when).
The "trick" is to aggressively market a superior operating system which promises to improve productivity while reducing costs. That's what Microsoft did in order to arrive where it is today(although one can argue that the promise was a lie). That's what Linux, Macintosh, and any other Operating System vendors need to do.
It's not impossible, just difficult.
It only works for them because you're there to administrate it for them. Have they every tried to add a printer? An external hard drive? A sound card?
If it's all setup for you ahead of time, Linux is about the same as Windows for a user that just wants to surf or word process. But you're assuming that someone 'manages' that computer for them - 95% of people DON'T have a sysadmin to take care of Linux hardware and software installs for them, they have to do it themselves!
Can you imagine mom reading the man pages and recompiling the kernel to get her USB external hard drive working? I can't. I can, however, imagine her following the Windows instructions: "plug it in, and a drive letter will appear". See? Linux COULD be that easy, but certain people have acted to make sure that it ISN'T.
Right clickable context menus are something that the average secretary or insurance broker or customer service rep has probably never heard of.
context menus are *the single most useful thing in GUIs*, yet most users don't know about them and avant-garde techies pleasure themselves to thoughts of the next great interface paradigm
Also, it's a sealed environment, so you don't have to have OS-level user accounts for mail users -- a security bonus.
I am a software developer who has the joy of working in a window-less office. Unfortunately, this is only because they recently moved us to the basement, and we have no windows. I'm not sure which I would rather - Linux on my desktop or natural light. :-)
The Office is still there in your office.
90% of the population? You do realize that when you buy almost any Intel PC, other thana clone, you have bough an MS uni-license. I'd say fewer than 30% of the copies of the various Windows flavors running out there are actually pirated.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
We need some kind of super light window manager. For example take a window manager, like PWM my current wm, running on DirectFB. No bloated Xserver in the background and no bloated window manager just a simple frame buffer and a 2meg window manager.
With DirectFB though no old Xwindows dependant apps could run, but if you're using Gtk or some similar widget set for your gui then porting the widget set to DirectFB should be all that is needed to use your applications on DirectFB.
With that little overhead companies can use virtually any hardware to run their office applications. Beat that windows!
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
WTF is a cubical? It that something like per-seat licensing for a cubicle?
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
Windows is only esay to use because people don't know any thing else exists. I been using linux for 2 years, and now even my mom and my little sister use Linux(Gnome) with no problems at all.
Can they run all the games that are released each year, even low-tech stuff like Roller Coaster Tycoon? Can they run all the kids' software available at Toys 'R Us? Can they shop at Internet Explorer-specific web sites? Can they run Photoshop and Premiere, if they needed to?
The bottom line is and always has been this: People want to be able to run the software that's out there. That's it. That's all. I've been a Mac user in the past, and it is frustrating any time you have to do something where all users are assumed to be running Windows. It's not worth being idealistic about it.
Linux will never be as easy to learn and to use at the workplace than Windows. They just cannot handle the truth. Remember, some people have better things to do than to read 900 page Unix tomes all day.
The end-user wouldn't be using Linux, they would be using KDE (or gnome if you prefer, but KDE is probably easier).
The end user doesn't even need to know that linux is the kernel underneath the gui somewhere.
FUD: To use Linux you have to read 900 page Unix tomes - Hahaha.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
Gidday
:) I have also run up another very low end box as a firewall / gateway, A 486 DX4 100, and it has relieved a Win2000 box from its wingate dutys, and with it, pleased the owner.
:)
Linux is a LONG way off being close to a reasonable desktop for normal users, IMO.
In windows I can rely on the same key shortcuts between apps, eg, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V. Not so in Linux, its completely spack. Way to many inconsistencies, and not to mention, *gasp*, bugs and crashes.
Something else I found when I was trying to learn about linux, A lot of linux geeks I seeked help from, seemed to be complete prats, whom think that because im a newbie, that they are smart and I dense, and knowledge ( or "clues" ) such as theirs shalt never fall unto me in any fashion. Some help did come from others, though, and whom seemed not to have their heads in the clouds. Those people are not a majority. Overall, It were a very negative experience whilst trying to climb up learning curve.
Win32 owns Linux as a desktop, but i don't know about XP though, I have not tried it yet.
The above is not to say that Linux is not very coolies and very powerful as a console, i have me a 386 gateway ( 56k ) running potato with 2.2.20, and its always stable and idle, and waiting for something to do
But Linux is still a Joke as a mainstream desktop
The wonderful thing about a recession is that you can find good people to do almost anything. You may have to promote them when the recession is over, but you should be fine for a while.
You should have some Linux admins currently since Windows can not run a firewall to save it's market share. The IT staff will notice when the Linux people are getting promoted faster and they will all learn Linux. It's not really any harded then Windows.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Of course, anyone who's ever worked in a company with computers knows that's a load of crap. It doesn't matter what type of computers you run, you're going to have to hire people to take care of them. Your IT department deals with OS installs, hardware failures, virus eradication and miscellaneous end-user issues.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...because office space regulations state that anyone has to have a clear view of the sky (aka windows) at his desk.
SCR
+++ath0
People are ashamed of using VB, but it's really not that evil.
I realized this a while back while working on a standard data app. They wanted a look at what the screens would be like so I drew them up in VB (because drawing screens is easy in VB), with the intention of doing it for real in VC++.
Then all the sudden the prototype was done, and it worked, so I stopped. No complaints.
It might not be the language to use when you want to be proud of something your hands have made - but it works good for removing things from your desk.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
first. . . i don't hate linux.
i'm a linux user since 96 and freebsd since 97. my first version of freebsd was 2.2.2, stable ok, fast ok, but not for a desktop. today a freebsd system is perfec for a common desktop tasks and remains fast and stable. why all te "non-microsoft" initiatives are focused on linux?
StarOffice seems to take an eternity to load, but once loaded it runs fine
I read somewhere that you can speed up the load time (and perhaps the runtime performance) by not installing the Java component. IIRC the Java component slows it down big time.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
This sounds like a page out of the official MS astroturf handbook
www.linuks.mine.nu/workstation it's already there, and i use it, at home, at office.. heck even my aunt uses linux
Windoze not found: (C)heer, (P)arty or (D)ance
I work in an electronic music studio. I'd love to use Linux, but the apps just aren't there.
The fact that there's almost no development community addressing this potentially enormous market amazes me to no end.
On the linux-audio-dev mailing list, many things are discussed and software developed such as Ardour, digital audio workstation software for Linux, JACK (JACK Audio Connection Kit), a low-latency infrastructure for connecting audio applications, and several wave editors. Dave Phillips maintains a list of Linux sound applications--many are not that advanced but some are.
Work in this area is progressing, and many smart people are involved. In particular, Paul Barton-Davis, author of Ardour and the main force behind JACK, seems to be pursuing commercial possibilities of selling linux-based sound workstations under a company named Linux Audio Systems. You can read Paul's slashdot comments to see some of his opinions on the situation of Linux audio.
My second one was a 486/66 with 16MB of RAM. It ran X and netscape and a few X games (Netrek heh heh heh) pretty well. The libc->glibc conversion was pretty painful though. I reinstalled for that. They introduced these newfangled kernel modules about that time. I still don't trust those things, though folks tell me they work pretty well.
My third Linux computer was a Pentium 166 with 64 MB of RAM and a diamond monster 3D card (With the pass-through.) It played GL Quake nicely, ran X quite well, ran Netscape quite well. They did some cool things with those newfangled kernel modules -- now you could have the system automatically monitor devices and insert the right kernel module when you chose to access one. After you stopped using the device, the kernel module would go away after a couple of minutes, freeing up a little memory. Taligent was supposed to do that. Taligent was supposed to do a lot of things.
My current Linux computer, which is getting a bit old now, is an Athlon 700 with 390MB of RAM. It's pretty snappy for everything except Tribes2 and Mozilla. I'm looking at upgrading to a dual one with 2 GB of RAM in the next few months.
I've been Microsoft free at home for about 7 years now. I finally managed to persuade my room mate to stop asking me Windows questions too, so I don't have to spend 5 hours cursing windows and trying to reinstall !#%! video drivers every time she installs a new game.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I finally have a job where I can use Linux on my desktop, it's quite nice but ironicly, my cube is on the inside of the building and I have no windows.
I used to run Windows but I have converted my desktop over to Linux. What users need to understand is that with Linux, they need to use different tools for different types of jobs; the diversity of software for Linux discourages a "one-size-fits-all" solution like the Office/IE duopoly and encourages specialization. For instance:
Mozilla and Konqueror are both excellent browsers. But I use Mozilla for fast rendering of W3C compliant pages (and avoiding KDE library overhead), and Konqueror for better IE compatibility on pages that break standards. Instead of picking a favorite, users should learn both and use each when appropriate.
Koffice and StarOffice are both good at certain things. StarOffice is much better at handling Word DOCs than Koffice, and Koffice is much better at handling PPT slides.
This is not unique to Linux. Windows systems have MS Word, Notepad, and Wordpad preloaded. Users learn that Notepad is good for text files, Wordpad is pretty useless, and Word is good for word processing.
If you know your software's abilities and learn to use the right tool for the job, you can use Linux in just about any office setting without incident.
-sting3r
Right, but every time I look into this stuff I always see the same key phrases:
"in development"
"plan to release soon"
Meanwhile, apps like Cubase are on version 5.x and going strong. The Rewire protocol is on version 2. VSTi and DXi software synthesis is created FLAWLESS emulations of commercial historical synthesizers.
When I can do THIS in Linux, I'll make the move.
1. Use Macs.
2. See #1.
I think that the main advantage in productivity I can get is by going away from the "office thinking" that is nothing else than generating a lot of documents that serve only the purpose of being printed. We are still lightyears away from the paperless office and all office tools give us just a metapher that enables us to handle the paper in electronic form.
My employer (a big PC manufacturer) is suffering a lot from thousands of technical docs that are in *.Doc and can only be re-used by copy & paste. In fact the technical documentation is a mess since there are no tools available in the MS-Office suite that would enable the user to write content instead of layout.
I can imagine that we could solve the problem of outdated documents, wrong information buried on NTFS servers and so on easily by migrating our way to think from "preparing paper" to "preparing content" by using XML for example. And here Linux comes in with a wonderful set of tools to get the job done.
Unfortuantely changing also the way of thinking requires more ability to learn and that's why its so difficult to convince people of the advantages. Well, I've given it a try and I didn't regret it so far.
why is it that every time someone posts something saying that they have NT/2K/XP running smoothly and that linux didn't work for them, they get attacked by people saying that they obviously know nothing about linux and they should learn to configure correctly before they criticize? isn't this a sign that linux needs to be made easier to configure, when trained sysadmins screw it up regularly?
Weird... I have *really* cheap (almost 4 year old crappy k6-2) with 128 megs, and it runs Linux 2.4+GNOME/enlightenment(primary)+KDE(some apps)+netscape6(ugh!)+staroffice 5.2, all at the same, and pretty decently.
It surely runs 98/nt pretty well too. But forget about win2k. Too much bloat for the old k6. Tried once, no luck.
``If a program can't rewrite its own code, what good is it?'' - Mel
a Microsoft salesperson making a pitch.
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
I didn't say you should switch to Linux today. I was only providing evidence to show that there IS an active audio development community.
There's nothing negative about the terms "in development" or "plan to release soon." I think the same things could be said of the Linux kernel, but people use it in production every day. In particular, the snd editor "snd" is very powerful and mature, and Ardour is very capable right now. The latter isn't ready for casual users yet, but that doesn't mean it's vaporware--very substantial functionality is already in place, if anything it's the difficulty of the build process that keeps it from being useful to the general public.
Again: you don't have to switch to Linux if you don't want to. But don't claim that there's no development community or no useful software available, because that simply isn't true.
I work in a small business environment, and, much as I like Linux as a server, I'm not going to be putting it on desktops anytime soon. Win4Lin isn't going to work for me - if I have to buy a licenced copy of Windows anyway, I'm just going to run that. Yeah, 98 sucks, but 2K is fine - I can leave my 2k desktop running all week with no crashing. Most small businesses I've dealt with don't use just Office & e-mail, there's often an industry specific app that they're wedded to, & it's usually for Windows only. It just doesn't make sense to jump through too many hoops to get away from that.
It is possible to duplicate an M$ Echange server with lots of stuff out in the Linux world. I haven't used them all but Bynari TradeServer and Communigate Pro come to mind. I can The last place I worked I set up a Linux box with Apache, LDAP, Samba, and Sendmail. I used both IMAP and POP3 to connect Outlook clients running in Internet Only mode. The users shared thier Free/Busy files on a Samba share. I set the Outlook clients to publish and search their .vfb files to the same shared folder. Worked like a charm for those wishing to set up meetings with others. I also set up shared calenders with the main phone person to do a group calender for our deparment. Save as a web page to same server. Everone could see if someone had the day off, was in class, or on the road. All you had to do is bookmark it. It Worked Good. For a address book we coded a script to pull a CSV list from the AS/400 used by payroll. Fresh Address Book Daily on demand. It was formatted to import directly into Outlook. That worked well, but I left before I coded a LDAP import.
Bottem line is Suits still use Outlook and Office. I still think we can show a major ROI by useing OSS tools to replace MS in the glass house. Too many companies still can't relace their desktop OS at all, time is too important. They want something to set up fast and go.
It looks like Ximin wants to sell a M$ Exchange MAPI connnector for Evolution.I say, Good for them. The fat MAPI cliient is a bit more complicated, is a bitch to code for, and must have taken a few months to get working. Kudos.
Hopefully most businesses will see they don't need M$ in the server room, and then they will try it on the desktop.
My 2 cents.
I may be bad with names, but I'll never forget your IP address
Congratulations Sir,
You are the exact kind of person that Linux needs in the Desktop.
A non-Ubergeek who uses Linux for everything they'd otherwise do on a MAC or Windows machine.
Your statements are exactly what more people need to hear, and what the uneducated need to know.
Thank you for posting. No doubt Bill Gates will send the re-education squad to your home to beat you into submission for daring to say Linux is easy to use.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Does it really take more time to learn LaTeX than Word? Sure, if all you want to do is print typed text Word might be a lot faster. My experience with Word and large reports is not so good however. Word has it's own way of messing up things especially with pictures/objects. LaTeX takes some time to learn but once learned it's the fastest for creating big reports IMO, especially if you have lots of equations. I think LaTeX usually looks a lot better too. There's got to be a reason why most academic papers/reports use it...
and the number of secretaries you've spoken to with relevant experience? none? thought so.
- "The biggest single challenge, in my experience, is inertia," Liebovitch said. ...," Brooks said
- "The single biggest problem at the enterprise level is politics," said Leon Brooks
- "The single biggest obstacle to Linux everywhere is specific Windows applications
I think maybe we should agree on a single most imporant thing, or agree on the collection of most important issues. Who wants leadership that can't make up their mind?
...I don't have enough faith to believe in the "big bang"...
My grandad's dead, thank you for reminding me. You faragin barstiche!.
As it happens, my parents can't use Windows either, so no I can't say that Linux is an option, but then neither is windows.
Much to the chagrin of Linux zealots everywhere, many companies choose Windows and will continue to do so because support by third-party companies is much more plentiful and cheaper than support for Unix- or Linux-based solutions. Our head of IS was an MCSE for the sole reason that there is no major, recognized certification for the Unix or Linux platforms, Brainbench and other small, web-based or obscure ones aside. Perhaps one of the greatest drawbacks to Linux is what many people consider one of its most endearing qualities: lack of centralization. However, if it is ever to become a major force, progress will have to be made on this front.
Vilk, from the ranks of the freaks
I am a student at one of the finest engineering schools in the country and we are mostly on sun Blade 100's or Dell systems with dual boot. Honestly I really like solaris and have used linux since around the 2.0 kernel release, know i have migrated to OS X as I previously was a Mac User back when all the other OS's were not nearly as nice on the desktop. while I am throughly comfortable on all of these systems sometimes GNOME is an impediment and sun blade 100 are very slow. Most other users have no idea how to use Unix or Linux and easily get lost in the OS. It definately hampers productivity, but i think Apple could deliver the first Windows free Office. OS X and MS Office are definite alternitives and actually easier to mantain and use. Windows though from my experience is a pain in the ass to admin, i often see the dells with signs on them, "DO NOT BOOT WINDOWS, MACHINE INFECTED WITH VIRUS, RED HAT ONLY". Also I have seen my fathers Office where they have fewer than 50 PCs and cannot get the network to be reliable.
Why would a sys admin at his school want to use that? There are courses and certiciations for netware and the guy already knows it already. Why bother to paly around some wanna-be-ware, when theres the whole package ready?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't like Windows. They let to much of that "non synthetic" light in. They interfere with the Christmas lights hanging in my cubicle. They cause glare on my monitor. The remind me of those days when my mom told me "you should go play outside, it's nice today". Now I'll never feel bad about staying indoors on a beautiful day because I won't know the difference. It's dark when I get to to work, it's dark when I leave.
Oh, you meant the MICROSOFT kind. I don't like those either.
im trying to find a cheap g4 right. I like the idea of stable BSD based system with *cute* gui and decent software base
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Sure, linux may have made huge leaps and bounds in the last several years, but it's not quite to the level where that monkey down the cubicle isle can actually get anything done with it. I consider myself pretty adept with computers, but I spent the weekend (the _whole_ weekend) trying to get a Sun SPARCstation 5 to run Mandrake Linux 7.2. I had so much difficulty with "the idiot's linux"... I woke up this morning ready to hunt down that stupid grinning penguin!
Get real.... Linux is prehistoric garbage... I'd rather use Windows. Or, if you want to be different, OS X is cool.
To me, the major cost would be the retraining necessary to use free software. So, determine how much money would be saved over, say, two years and offer to split the difference among your employees. This gives employees some incentive to learn the new software and the company can start capitalizing on the savings in a couple years.
An unrelated point: if you install Windows on a virtual machine, you still need to pay the licensing fees.
-Dan
I agree that a Linux console is a beautiful thing, but what do you reccomend to host a desktop other than X? What about all the user-friendliness that Gnome / KDE offer?
I like using Linux, and I enjoy the freedom it gives. However, every time I watch the whole screen flicker and flash when I switch windows, I have to simply take it as the "cost of running Linux." When I watch a Konqueror window take 5s (or more) until the text stops moving around new images, I have to simply take it as the "cost of runnning Linux."
In big business, productivity is a very big thing. Although not scientifically sound, Linux starts to look a lot more expensive when you multiply 5 s lost here and there by the cost of many developers' salary. It gets even worse when you watch guys run around the office on a sneaker net because they can't figure out how to resolve \\server1\shared_dir
It all goes downhill from first post
Hancom is about to release their Linux/Win32/MacOS X office package very soon. It's all build with Qt meaning it will blend in very well with the KDE environment (cut and paste, etc...).
Given the cross platform nature of it, it is also very likely you'll see it stocked on shelves where as pure linux apps tend to be neglected by retailers due to their low sales. Hancom Word is a very mature application and is quite popular in Asia. The pro package a will contain applications from theKompany who contributes to open source(especially with their very usefull PyQt). Even tho it isn't open source it should be a good thing for linux in general.
Ahem. I suppose you are unaware of the Debian Multimedia Release. No? How about the hundreds of applications that people are building that form the foundation of that release? If that's not a large enough community, I'm not sure what is. A quick google search will turn up plenty of sites about movie making and sound editing on Linux. It's only a mater of time before it becomes much easier to use. But, until then, I'll use Windows. Not because it's great, but because it has the apps I need.
Woops, you are a troll. If you really cared about sound, you would be using a Mac. Dr. Watson? What's that about? I've never been able to make all the Windoze multimedia trash to behave and work together. The one computer I tried to work with M$ on was unstable, half working, and produced inferior product. I suppose I was just not leet enough to spend enough, but something makes me think my experience was more typical than the adverts at CompUSA.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Im assuming your wife is a deisnger or something like that. What these people dont realise is the point of making the site is to match it with the original design. And about elegant code or what now, WHO CARES? people wanan see the output and theres noone browing thru your html sources
"Here's something interesting...
My father-in-law and I went to get him a computer. As it turns out, Best Buy is about the only place in Cedar Rapids where you can find a computer anymore. Normally I think they have over-priced junk, but we bought him a Sony Vaio (desktop, not laptop) with a dvd player, burner, 60 gig hd, 256 mg ram, nice trinitron monitor, for $1400, before a few hundred dollars in rebates (which I never trust) so anyway, I was pleasantly surprised.
...but not as surprised as when we got home and I had to set the thing up. Because XP came preinstalled, I didn't have to call MS to activate it, which was nice. It correctly figured out there was an HP printer attached, and configured the correct driver. It is pretty flamboyant when it comes to Passport though...I couldn't figure out whether it was required or not, but it is definately integrated into the OS. Wanna see what's on your hard drive? Good luck. If you dig through enough menus, you can find windows explorer, but gone is the MyComputer icon. As for being a multi-user os, umm...not exactly. For starters, when you create users, by default they don't have a password. All users have administrative rights by default, but some seem to have more than others. In other words, some resources seem to be shared in common, but others are not, and none of them seem to work correctly.
XP is pretty, but it seems to have taken a lot of flexibility away from the user. But, for the most part, I felt that I could live with it if forced to. Unfortunately, XP was the least of my worries. My father-in-law was one of poor guys who got switched from Qwest to MSN as part of a deal between those two evil powers. Since he was given 1 year of free service from MSN as part of the purchase of a new computer, he wanted to make use of that too. So, we cancel his old account and set him up with his new free MSN account.
Three phone calls to MSN tech support, during which only one of the "support engineers" was able to converse in reasonably English, I still was unable to configure the "MSN Explorer" correctly. Essentially, the situation is that to use MSN, you must use this MSN explorer software, which is a specialized version of IE, that also forces you to use it as your email client. Yes, that's right...according to support engineer #3, you cannot use Outlook without downloading a patch. As in, he wouldn't/couldn't give me the smtp mailhost - you have to download the patch. No word from him on whether you could use IE (the non-MSN version).
Since there are three members of that household (ma/pa-in-law, plus sis-in-law), I wanted each to be able to log into XP separately, and then connect to the internet using their own username/password. If that wasn't possible, I wanted them to at least have separate email accounts. Makes sense huh?
But NOOOO. Not only could I not make MSN Explorer and XP play nicely, but none of the support engineers could either 1) understand what I wanted to do 2) help in any way. Think about that for a minute...if you have been to the mall or an electronics store yet this holiday season, you have probably seen the computers, stereos, etc. that are flying out for stores. My father-in-law and I waited for an hour in the computer-only purchase line at Best Buy, so that's a pretty strong indicator to me that people are buying computers. Presumably, lots of those people have families, which means they have more than one person in their household using that computer. As such, it doesn't seem like having separate logins for XP, and separate internet logins is such an unusual task.
As near as I can figure out, you cannot configure MSN Explorer to actually work for each XP user account. You can set up multiple email accounts, each with a password, but each member in the family would have to use the same XP account. There is also a really nice bug in the installation software for the newest version of MSN Explorer where it asks you for the internet administrator's (you) username and password, so you can add email addresses, etc, but there is not text input box! "Support engineer" #2 failed to acknowledge this, instead stating "WinXP is specially customized for you, the end user." ummm...
So, what I'm getting at here is that MS, in their effort to control their users, has even made their software incompatible with themself! The interesting thing about this story is this comparison, which represents my experiences with setting up linux+getting on internet with WinXP+ getting on internet:
Linux: no experience with the SuSe distribution, limited experience with cable modem. Time from installation to internet: 45 minutes.
WinXp: no experience with WinXP, plenty of experience with dial-up 56k modem. Time from turning preinstalled XP machine on to internet: 4 hours.
Moral of story: I will never, ever, ever install WinXP on anybody's machine, or recommend it to anyone. And, MSN may offer a free years subscription with many new computer purchases, but you get what you pay for."
Well, ask yourself: why aren't you developing the open source software you want? That will probably tell you why others in your community aren't working on it either. Most open source software comes about because end users with a specific problem can't find a good/affordable commercial solution and write their own. Then, they share the results with the community.
If the Windows software you are using is cheap enough, good enough, and extensible enough, then there is no need for open source software and you'd be foolish to switch. If, on the other hand, it leaves something to be desired, well, get going and write something better yourself and share it.
Well, I selected (+1, Informative), but for some reason it used (-1, Overrated). I am posting here in hopes that it will erase my moderation.
I'm very sorry.
The KDE desktop and applications work just fine on my wife's 500MHz K6/2 with 128M RAM. By just fine, I mean faster than M$ Office on a nicer machine at work I'm forced to endure. It's faster by a factor of two. XP might not even work. Print services work just fine and were as easy to configure as Red Hat could make them.
For a fast clean window environment, you might check out Window Maker on Debian. Fast, clean, beautiful and functional.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Linux has had dynamically loadable kernel modules since before MacOS even had a kernel. Your standard distribution comes with lots of them; use "modprobe" to insert them. Even third party device drivers almost never require "patching" the kernel, but merely are compiled separately and then dynamically loaded. Device drivers can be compiled and loaded/unloaded on a running system.
I'm a developer, so I'm thinking of writing support for some of these things (such as an easy VPN installer). Or, maybe a universal driver installer that would automagically patch the kernel and say 'You must reboot now', ala Windows.
Please don't. It's pretty clear that you don't know all that much about Linux. You can bet that most of the "problems" you think are there already have perfectly good solutions. Like any other system, it takes a while to figure them out.
Alot of the problems in Windows can be attributed to Microsoft trying to be backwards-compatible. But with Linux, the kernel and major libraries (ie. glibc) are always changing underneath your feet.
You've got to be kidding. Linux has had a stable, fully documented system API since its beginning, an API that is compatible with numerous other UNIX implementations. I can run code from 10 or 20 years ago on my Linux machine with no problems, taking full advantage of the more powerful processors and memory.
Long-term stability of APIs is one of the big advantages of Linux over Windows.
I'm a linux bigot, for sure. But one hurdle that has to be overcome before anyone who's not insane sells this idea to their boss is the utter lack of secure filesharing for a multi-user office. Usernames and passwords, in plain text, in an automount config file is not an option. Experimental filesystems are not an option. NFS is not an option (got root on the client (install cd) you've got access to anything.). OpenAFS maybe, but not exactly a widely discussed or supported system.
NFS4 sounds like the ticket, but the two available open implementations (umich and samba team) are in their infancy.
Until this problem is solved, this whole discussion is moot, as far as I'm concerned.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
I work at a large, international corporation. Our office has no windows at all. It's really quite depressing at times. I miss seeing the light of day.
it is clunky, inelegant and unsophisticated. secretaries will like it even less than windows.
Ximian Gnome is a nicer GUI than Windows. The problem isn't with the GUIs, however, the problem is with the rest of the OS - loading and unloading drivers, compiling things, etc.
As an example, please briefly explain how to add an external USB hard drive to a Linux system. Your answer will likely involve some command line work to load and unload modules, then an explanation of the 'mount' command. You'll also need to do some digging to find out where the USB device 'lives'. (dev/sda1 or whatever). Under Windows, you would simply say "plug it in and watch for a drive letter". Those kinds of problems are much more serious than an ugly gui.
Why not *BSD? Or Solaris? Or a mixture?
Linux is not the ONLY one.
I certainly wouldn't advocate yer average business user switch to Linux. Then again, I wouldn't advocate they use Windows 2000, either.
What's left? A typewriter?
Meaning support from the PC manufacturer for the in 99% of cases alternate OS installed on the machine. In some cases, simply upgrading the OS on a PC negates support until you downgrade to the OD supplied with the PC. Maybe some vendors offer some support, but tech support for windows is hard enough to get. Does your Hp's and Dell's really approve of an OS switch....?
Athlon 500, 160 MB of RAM, runs nice and fast. I'm running KDE, mandrake* 8.0, with the Gimp, xmms, and some other fun stuff all goin. It's not notacably slowing down at all. I think it's all in the RAM, personally, but that system runs nice and fast, with no lags (like win98, also on that box, seems to develop over time...*shrug*)
And speed is fun, but what about maintenance? good grief...It's nice to just let my brothers play on linux and enjoy themselves with games instead of constantly keeping win98 happy. I don't have to worry about one of them forcing me to reboot when they do something stupid, I just take care with their file access and relax.
*I know, I know, don't admit to it on Slashdot, but Mandrake suits my needs.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
I wouldn't advocate anything, at least not without knowing more details. Each company has different needs which would need to be taken into consideration.
Sometimes a typewriter would be the most productive tool some people will use at the office.
The fact is, if you know how to make Linux run for you, you could take it to the office, given a little work.
Everyone else just ends up using the box the IT guys give to them. Most use it badly.
If it was my company, however, you'd be free to use whatever box you wanted. I'd mandate no dependecies on proprietory application file formats, however, and you can guess what the backend would be.
-- clvrmnky
It all boils down to this: My mother is a sucker. She bought one of Bill Gates air cooled VWs (Windows ME) and it pains her to use it everyday. He charged her about 100 times what my Porche costs (Debian), but she would be better off with a Ford (Red Hat), Lincoln (Mandrake), or even a Honda (Turbo Linux), with a few German performance parts (KDE). I wish that I had the time to help her out, but she is fiercly loyal to a few model T parts (AOL) that are hard to come by in the modern world. Bill Gate's junk has been the ruin of two perfectly usable computers she has owned and it makes me sad to think of all the others out there who have suffered like she has.
The point? Win32 is easier than *nix. And Win32 is STILL TOO HARD for the masses.
What's easy about a box that does not work? Most people end up throwing away their M$ computers because the software fails. Trying to make M$ stuff stable and usable is an imposible task.
Offices are the ideal place for linux desktops. They offer low price, security, stablility, and more. The few things that are difficult or "missing" are not really needed in an office environment where 90% of the work are routine reports. It's good to remember that all these "complex business documents" used to be prepared on typewriters and kept in file drawers with little better organization than alphabatized indexes. All the Linux distros are up to this by now, and all long surpassed M$ junk in all other catagories.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Like who? Devfs supports automatic device registration, and I haven't seen anyone yet making an active effort to keep it out of the kernel.
Maybe you just don't know what's out there, because you're so convinced that it doesn't exist, you don't bother to look.
as long as the kiddies do what they are supposed to do. Sounds like your school suffers from user stupidity instead of a bad network setup.
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
What does it not do properly? Does it give access to restricted files to everyone? Does it allow students to save to protected drives? What does it do wrong? You say it doesn't work but you don't say whats wrong.
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
OK, Linux is more secure. Linux is more stable. Linux is easier to use. Linux is easier to maintain. Linux is easier to modify. Linux avoids the data loss propriatory applications cause by changing their formats and interfaces. Linux programs can easily share data. Linux has much better and more flexible foundations.
The article did well to consider a single aspect. Don't we all know that each of the above statements is blantantly obvious? The points must be made one at a time to overcome the billions of dollars M$ has put into adverts and FUD. PHBs will nod in agreement as they consider the world around them, but they lack a basis for compairison. Articles like this build up that basis, while mentioning the other points. Throw them in your PHB's face at once is not polite. No one likes feeling like a sucker.
Reference Neiven's Protector: At some point you wake up and think, "I've been stupid".
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I graduated from college in 1997; I learned Java in 1996. Back then I heard all sorts of fun things about Java being the multiplatform language of the future. "Write once, run anywhere!" That was five years ago. People still hold onto to the Java Fantasy? The Java Lie?
I get more stable, portable code in C++ than in Java any day.
The middle mind speaks!
I think Linux and Windows just have different learning curves, and this can create some confusion about their costs.
On Windows: you learn quickly the first steps, you can manage lots of basic things and you're happy. Your system administrator is happy, too. Once you become a smarter user, you find many lack of features you'd like to see, or you can realize that some things you'd like to do are just very difficult to carry out (think about the Registry, about restoring a complete configuration for your workstation, or simply about file permissions on Win2k). Your system administrator isn't happy anymore: he must care about security, his users aren't easy to manage anymore, he must check file sharings, resource access and so on.
On Linux: you start it. You can't understand what it's doing. You just see tons of senseless writings. You start X. You can't understand why you can't put your favorite app's icon in Enlightenment menus. If you stay on it, you can understand its power. You learn that with some text files (sometimes easy and well commented) you can handle everything (no complicated Registry) and that you can do big things in few minutes (e.g. upgrading Squid and ProFTPd in less than 20 minutes, or reinstalling a full-featured workstation in 2 hours, just importing a configuration you've already made). And, most of all, you don't need a well trained MCSE to do these things.
So, Linux can be time expensive, but only in the first time. This is why most of Linux users and system administration have started using it in their spare time. Once you've learnt the basics, you can save a lot of time. Once you've learnt shell scripting and a bit of programming, you can save weeks of work.
I'm fat, you're ugly. I can get slimmer, and you?
That's really the point, an office will have a system administrator to admin linux boxes and all the rest of the people working the will be doing their work with out thinking about what OS they are running
I am so sick of the financial ass pounding I take from MS, I keep thinking about how to get Linux into my office. A firewall/gateway? Sure. A Web server, absolutely. But in an accounting firm, we have no choices for our audit, depreciation, tax and practice management software. They only come in Windows flavor.
We use Citrix Metaframe, which works awesome over skinny pipes and on crappy hardware. AFAIK, there in no ICA client for Linux. Had the judge made one simple order...open the ICA client source (or port it)...I could keep a couple 2K servers and run Linux on all the desktops and still use our Win32 apps that we have to use. I think we'd see Linux sprouting up on office desktops everywhere.
I'm sad to say I actually understood your sig. How long have you been programming lisp?
A Troll?!
/not/ work in a romper room?
Excuse me, but does anyone on slashdot
It doesn't do much for linux advocacy to ignore valid problems and hope they'll just go away. You're not going to find your brain by sticking your head up your ass. On the other hand, maybe you will.
When you're finally old enough to think about a job interview, try telling your prospective employers that you don't think secure user-level security for shared file space on their corporate network matters. Explain your linux-only implementation, please. I'd really like to hear about it. Really.
Sometimes I really am a troll. But in this case, the only thing I'm trolling for is someone to disabuse me. Not abuse, disabuse. It's in the dictionary.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Let me ask you a serious question. As a new user, how does knowing that "Devfs supports automatic device registration" help me at all?
Maybe you just don't know what's out there, because you're so convinced that it doesn't exist, you don't bother to look.
That's exactly my point! The user will NEVER look. For a new user, it either works out of the box or it doesn't. It's not reasonable to expect them to download, compile, and install components just to give the computer basic functionality.
A Window-less office would only leave you in the dark. Espcecially if you replace it with that less than DOS piece of donkey shit known as linux.
In computer shop: Linux = £79.95.
Windows XP =£89.95.
In Russia, Linux is *more* expensive than windows, because pirates charge by the disk and some distributions come on 7 disks, making it 7 times as expensive as windows.
But emacs and gcc are already written... how could there possibly be any use for software that isn't a programming tool?
Then you don't get the sun in your eyes or the glare from the screen. I've had enough of living in a cave with troglodytes to make me think - Windows + Sun = good. No natural light = bad.
right click start button, properties, classic start menu. your desktop goes back to the way it was in previous versions of windows. sick of msn messenger getting in the way asking you to sign up for passport? uninstall it.
edit c:\windows\inf\sysoc.inf
remove the word "hide" from the line containing msmsgs. you can now uninstall it from the add/remove programs, windows components.
yeah, microsoft gets pretty evil about burying stuff where it doesnt want you to find it, but you can usually customize it fairly easily. once you poke around a bit.
Didn't you mean to say... "Keep Linux in the closet, where it belongs"?
> 2001: Most Linuxes have a very friendly desktop, with lots of productivity apps, but I swear to
> Linus, it's about twice as slow as Win2K/XP on the same hardware.
> I'd love to have Linux running everywhere if it didn't require massive hardware to run smoothly.
Windows desktop has a touchy-feely-draggy-droppy-pointy-clicky GUI, and it's a fat bloated pig.
Gnome/KDE desktops have touchy-feely-draggy-droppy-pointy-clicky GUI's, and they're fat bloated pigs. Well, like, duhhh.
Here's the story. You don't need a "desktop", you only need a window-manager. I don't run desktops, I run applications. I install Gnome and KDE for the apps, then immediately switch to FVWM2. I can still run AbiWord/Gnumeric/OpenOffice/Netscape etc, etc. And they fly on both my linux machines (433 mhz and 450 mhz, both with 128 megs of RAM).
Before Windows, there was DOS. It was the object of much derision, because it was "merely an application launcher" rather than a "real OS". But a $5,000 Intel box running the "application lancher" smoked $50,000 "workstations" running "a real OS" when running spreadsheets or word processors (Trivia; Wordperfect started life as an app on DataGeneral computers).
OK, so FVWM2 is "merely a window manager", but my 450 mhz machine will beat your 900 mhz machine running "a real desktop" with the same amount of RAM when it comes to doing the things that we expect computers to do; i.e. running applications.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
You have got it all backwards. It's never been selfish.
What can be less selfish than sharing your source code, without cost, so that anyone can can use, modify and redistribute it as they please?
What can be more cooperative than making everything work together?
Why do you assume that people's egos are so big that they will be hurt if no one else uses their work? Sorry bud, I'm going to continue to advocate free software for what's there and for how awful the alternatives are. If people want to be abused by the likes of M$, that's their problem. I'll advise them not to just like I'll advise you not to go riding while drunk. Don't get confused about the motives, some people simply have everyone's best interest at heart. I've got what I want, I'd like you to get what you want too.
Then, the linux community can say "We support Linux better than any MS Support service! And our support is $0.00 per hour."
What support is lacking? It's not nice to call people "clueless newbies". With man pages, and online info even the most bone-headed engineer like me can become profficient. Sure, it was all free but a few reference books. M$ has never been as easy, and most of the real info is hidden.
Having given all that, why should people give their time up as well? Lawers, doctors, engineers and others charge for their insight on publically available information. Would you deny computer consultants a living? I suppose you would have them all work to help M$ maintain it's vanishing monopoly. Blah, I'm never going to write another line of Win32 code again and I'll never recomend M$ to anyone. The whole mindset is screwed up, and the products are all worst in their class. I'm not getting paid and I'll write what ever I feel like. I'll give it away when I feel like it. I offer advice when I feel like it, and I give away hardware to my frinds. If you want me to do what you want, you can do something I want, like pay me.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Learning KDE or gnome is no harder than when users had to learn win95 (remeber how different Win95 was from win3.1 and dos) - people seemed to learn Word and office 95 OK, before that most used word perfect 5.1 - Just because your company hires morons, doesnt mean all users are morons.
$200 per seat for an M$ desktop? You are dreaming, or you think that their crummy OS alone is a useful tool. Those things cost as much as mainframes did, and the prices get jacked every year. Unix admins make more because they are currently deployed on higher dollar work. They are deployed on higher dollar work because people spending money want results and *nix delivers where M$ fails. The work is not that much harder, in fact it's easier. Digging ditches is harder than drafting and pays worse too. Go figure, some people dig ditches. Study after study continue to prove Linux is cheaper and better. The only people still recomending M$ are salesmen, PHBs and marketdroids.
My mom chucked out two $1000 machines because the software quit working. Yep, M$ was the only thing wrong with them. Parts of them form my gateway and a mail server "Lusers" is what M$ considers their customers. Her loss bothered me a little. Fraud bothers me. Bitter? Nah, I'm going to bundle them up and sell them to physics students cheap, then take her to dinner with the money. Blame the luser just won't cut it anymore. People expect things to work and keep working. The M$ upgrade train is derailed.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
It all depends on how you define your "time". I've been using the same /home filesystem on my Linux box for about 3 years. Across two motherboard updates, and 3 hard drives.
/home partition (with all my data) remains after installation.
I still have files that were there 3 years ago - so data loss is (kinda) a joke.
I've never had to spend 2 days copying and re-installing applications after my system crashed - it's never crashed, and even if it did, my
THAT's time saving.
Time saving is when you set up a mission-critical server in a remote location, and never step foot in the place for over a year (while under support contract) and every month or two spend an hour and apply security updates. Perfect uptime the whole time.
THAT'S time saving.
Time saving is when I have a desktop loaded with windows and applications, and a customer calls about something out of left field, and I can simply choose another desktop, take care of the customer's needs, and then resume on the first desktop with nothing disturbed.
THAT's time saving.
Compare that to my buddy Windows user - every so often, his DSL modem software crashes his computer, corrupting the registry. He's gone to great lengths to make his system easily reloaded, since he has to do it so very often - particularly after loading any new software.
The time, nightmares and hassles he goes through for data recovery, crash prevention and moderation simply astound me.
But, you say that's easier?!?!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Where do you get off calling the 40 year old receptionist a moron? You pompous fuck!
They can make a crappy Excel spreadsheet and do a good job of the trivial tasks they have to do.
These are people that have their kids names as passwords. This doesn't make them morons, it makes them ordinary users who just don't know any better. We can preach password security all day long, but it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to them; They know "hailey."
Linux is a damn good server OS and Apache kicks IIS's ass. But as a desktop, it has a long, long, long way to go.
BTW, if I were your manager, and "if" you had any supervisory position whatsoever, your ass would be sitting on the help desk tomorrow.
Then again, with that attitude, you're probably already there....
"..I don't run f***ing desktops"
yes, but office people would be clueless without them. they'be been using Windows for a long time.
but honestly, I don't think these people always can tell the speed difference much. I work at a local hospital, and I do most a lot of computer/network setup. I've taken out RAM, replaced motherboards (and cpus), with slower ones, etc.. most people don't notice a difference.
next week, are are going to try KDE in several secretarial computers. we can't replace most windows computers because of special Windows-only apps. we'll see how KDE goes, I think it's mature enough for them to use.
The Linux desktop has a long way to go before it's ready for non-geeks. OSX is already there.
Being a student that needs to occasionally create a powerpoint presentation for school, one of the primary things that is keeping windows software on my computer (other than games) is powerpoint. It seems that almost every other office-type program has at least one equal for Linux. So, are there any programs out there for Linux that can create powerpoint compatible files (ie a .ppt file that will be able to be displayed on a windows machine)?
How despite the fact that Linux and it`s applications e.g. Star Office are often given away for free (or near enough) it simply doesn`t seem to be making any inroads into the desktop generally. Most people have never even heard of Linux, so what does this say for the long term future of the operating system ?
I LIKE Unix. I like Linux. Some of my stuff is Linux, some NT, some Solaris.
1. We must use three CAD tools - we're a service bureau, and our customers drive the software we use. None of the vendors are contemplating porting to Linux.
2. I get paid to maintain a stable network, not to add new stuff. I don't have a financial incentive to push a drive for Linux if my company wants to PAY me break the network and add new stuff, that would be cool . . .
Display some adaptability.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My wife works at Micro$oft and is expected to load her own software and do other tasks that in my office are done by the admin, yet even they still have admins. If Micro$oft needs admins for their Windoze boxes, what makes you think tato22's mom and little sister don't?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
I know this has probably been mentioned previously, but I'm gonna say it anyways.
.02,
I can install windows, download the nvidia driver, unzip [or just execute] it, restart, and play games. [Obviously, I download new drivers for everything, but I'm just saying to get above 640x480] Now I know this has been said, but windows, even XP feels much faster than GNOME, KDE, out of box. [Athlon 1.33, 512mb Ram, Dual 30gb Maxtors in RAID 0, Nvda Gf2-Pro 64mb] And for me, software is easy as hell to install. I really would LOVE to use Linux on all of our computers at home, but right now, I just can't.
My crappy
James
Using X-windows, you will only need one for all employees .
Washington bullets will simply be known as the "Bulle
Would someone mod the parent up? christopher is making sense.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Bottom line, Windows has an ungodly more amount of software out there. That fact was used against them in their lawsuit. Take a look at download.com's Windows > Audio > Music Creation category, 182 downloads. Then check out the Linux > Multimedia & Design, note the 2 broad categories mixed, 94 downloads. Download.com isn't very open source orientated, but check out freshmeat's Multimedia
> Sound/Audio > Sound Synthesis category, 37 projects. More than half of those 37 are below version 1.
You can have a desktop without the bloat of KDE or GNOME. Check out ROX (http://rox.sourceforge.net/). A nice, fast desktop which takes a minimum of resources.
dude, java-in-97 is almost a completely different beast that java-today in terms of features and performance. I'd say the improvements have been on par with how much better Linux got between 94 and 99. So, if you have some time on your hands over the christmas holidays or something, I urge you to download the latest (stable) JDK and give it a whirl.
I'll still bet you that WinXP's "clicky, draggy, droppy" UI is still faster than FVWM. Why settle for a UI that looks like crap when you can have one that both looks good and is faster.
Oh, and your excuse "I run applications" is quite humorous, seeing as you are using Linux. If you were truly running apps, you'd be using Windows, where all of the _real_ apps are.
But it takes an IT staff with a great deal of knowledge about Linux and an extremely great deal of patience.
I was a system administrator for a software development company that ran the entire office on Linux. The only windows based machines were one NT development box and the CEOs laptop, for his palm software since he didn't know about anything under Linux for it.
All desktops were installed with Redhat, running KDE. StarOffice was used for desktop application suite to provide compatibility with industry "standard" file formats. An NFS server provided file sharing and printing was done through LPD. Accounting applications were versions written for SCO Unix and ran on an old SCO box. Many support applications such as the customer support database, distribution creation software and such were custom written in house by one of the developers.
We had an administrative assistant with very little PC experience handling her day to day tasks easily. The marketing manager had some experience running Windows at home, but none with Linux. He was able to get by and even solve some of his day to day problems.
The Windowsless office *can* work, but it takes a certain kind of company. The company I worked for was a Unix / Linux software development company, and already had a lot of the infrastructure to support going to pure Linux desktops (SCO file/app server, etc). If your company isn't using speciality applications that are only available on Windows, it's possible to do the Windowsless office. If your company does use such applications then it really isn't feasible. Use Linux for the server side of the company - file, web, mail, DNS and use Windows for the desktops. Sure Windowsless office is hip and cool and all the geeks in the IT department will think its great, but your end users who don't have much experience working with computers may get frustrated.
I think you're forgetting that users have been used to the concept of C:\ and directory structure for about 15 years now.
Linux may be free, but the cost overhead of learning and support would make the Linux desktop the most incredibly expensive OS ever.
Ponder that... moron.
A real hacker:
Uses linux - complicated to operate
Uses his photo camera in manual mode - complicated to operate
Shifts gears manually when driving - complicated to operate
OK, I've said this before and I'll say it again: I haven't compiled a Linux kernel on a workstation since about 1996. I use a distro with decent hardware support, and the only devices in my possession that I've found not to work with it simply don't have Linux drivers (or Mac drivers, or Win2K/XP drivers for that matter.) Sure, there's plenty of hardware with Windows drivers but not Linux drivers; six years ago there was plenty of hardware that worked great under DOS but Windows wouldn't recognize it. Things change.
Now, I've never tried a USB hard disk under Linux so I wouldn't know about that aspect. I would know, however, that the actual Windows install procedure goes more like this:
"Plug it in, and Windows will search for a driver. Then Windows will gravely warn you that it is unsupported hardware and that a third party driver may fuck your system forever. At this point you pop a Paxil and call your husband/nephew/daughter/friend/employee. If they are unavailable, you click on Browse and search through directories until you realize you have no idea what file you'd be looking for. Cancel out of the Windows driver routine and try putting the hardware manufacturer's driver disk in. Run through the setup program. Reboot. Reboot again unless you know enough to unplug the hard disk because it didn't get detected since the driver wasn't finished installing yet, then plug it in again. Finally, a drive letter may appear."
I agree that totally command-line-free use is necessary for Linux to ever be a viable non-corporate desktop. If a novice user has to use a command line even once, it's too often. Thankfully, we are pretty close to that if not already there. Most software can be installed by double clicking on an RPM file, and the stuff that can't be probably shouldn't be installed by a novice user anyway. The default workstation install in Mandrake didn't even install a compiler when last I checked.
However, even after running only Linux on every workstation I use regularly for the last 2 years, I still spend a great deal of time supporting friends' and relatives' Windows boxes. Either their 98 machine with 512MB keeps running out of RAM, or their Win2K registry got corrupted, or they've got the last surviving Word macro virus, or the game demo they downloaded from "somewhere" has hosed their machine, or simply "I closed my welcome to windows screen and now I can't get it back." Then there's "I have this error message saying there was a problem with my clock" which turned out to be the daylight savings time thing in Win95.
ANY novice computer user requires handholding. I suspect the amount of handholding is pretty much equivalent no matter what OS they're running. It doesn't matter whether the online help is manpages or Clippy(tm); to the novice user all help functions are invisible, not relevant, just another reason to call you and me. The best we can do is throw icons on their desktop or in a folder so they'll know how to start the three programs they want to run. As soon as they get their first unexpected dialog box we get a phone call. The only users I've known who required no support at all are my stepdad and a CEO I used to work for, both of whom use their machines exclusively for sol.exe.
This is not meant to belittle novice computer users; it's a reality check. The competition between Windows and Linux for "the other 95%" isn't a matter of who's got the more user friendly environment; it's all about whose shit stinks less. And that's the best we can hope for: to stink less.
if the 'fb'-gtk-shared-libraries is in , i dont know, like /usr/lib/fbdevgtk
then you might get by with LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/gbdevgtk
then the ld.so shared library loader will load the fbdev version of gtk instaed of the x11 versions, and
your program will be linked against them. this assumes binary compatibility at the interface
level between the gtk for fbdev and gtk for windows, which is probably not
going to happen,,,, oh well.
idiot. killing the golden goose: your users experimentation.