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."

Comments

A catch-22.

[Fucky Badger]

1996: Linux was really fast on cheap hardware. But it wasn't ready for unclued office users.

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.

Re:A catch-22.

[darkPHi3er]

the key quote for LINUX's prosperity and survival was "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."

MS' business models have always included lowballing the competition, either with pricing and/or features.

LINXU needs to pitch itself to two major markets.

1. The low cost, low IT infrastructure small-to-mid sized business crowd, that will be dependent on continuing Desktop evolution on the Tux platforms AND

2. As Moore's Law continues to trash cost-per-cycle ratios and as MP and overall scalability improve on the LINUX platform, hit the mid-range SPARC and low end HPUX and AIX server markets.

If RH and other distro vendors maintain Tux's cost advantages this will play directly into what the CRN article was focused on: deployment cost.

this is effectively and 'end run' around MS desktop control, which is not going away any time soon...

this plays to the STRENGTHS of the LINUX platform and the weaknesses of MS current marketing plan...MS keeps looking to get more customers on the higher end, high TPC/D business (because they are generally well-heeled corps who won't object to the endlessly increasing Windows licensing prices)

This is a substantial weakness in MS' current bix model, and should be exploited as they would do it, ruthlessly.

Re:A catch-22.

[Accipiter]

it's about twice as slow as Win2K/XP on the same hardware.

That really depends on what you're running.

I'll probably never hear the end of it if I say this, but I'm going to say it anyway: The most popular window managers for the XWS are also the most bloated.

Have you ever used Nautilus? It is a very pretty interface, but it is slow as all hell on a machine of reasonable specs. (PIII 500 / 256MB) Now take Gnome and Nautilus, plop it on to a system, and yeah... it's not going to perform as well as it should. Granted, the XWS isn't the best performing GUI out there, but the 4.x rewrites are solving a lot of those problems.

I've used Gnome/Nautilus as an example above, because I know less about the newer KDE releases with regard to frendliness, performance, and bloat. If someone would be kind enough to fill me in on how KDE is in these respects, I'd appreciate it.

Anyway. Gnome is a pretty hefty download, and tries to shove all of the crap they think you'll need into the package.

If you set your users up with something like AfterStep (which, by the way, can fit on a floppy), ditch the desktop pager, show them how to use Wharf and the Winlist, and install the apps they will need. Configure Wharf to make it easy to get the apps, then smack everything onto a kickstart server or something. Then whenever a new box enters the office, just kickstart the image on to the box and there you go. No configuring, and it would make administration much easier. (You could probably also hack in some cronjobs on the server and the workstations to automatically keep all packages up to date, but that's beyond the scope of this comment.)

This way, they have a fast, clean window environment, the apps they need, and the benefits of Linux.

Re:A catch-22.

[Otter]

I'll probably never hear the end of it if I say this, but I'm going to say it anyway: The most popular window managers for the XWS are also the most bloated.

Sure, but that's the Catch-22 Fucky Badger (now there's a nick I wasn't expecting to see with a +5) was talking about. My 1200 MHz Athlon flies with WindowMaker and gcc running in a wterm. But that's giving up what's making Linux an alternative to Windows in the eyes of writers like these.

I've used Gnome/Nautilus as an example above, because I know less about the newer KDE releases with regard to frendliness, performance, and bloat. If someone would be kind enough to fill me in on how KDE is in these respects, I'd appreciate it.

The newer releases are definitely getting faster but you still need pretty recent hardware to get snappy performance. And it seems like because of the kdeinit hack, starting apps is considerably slower if you're not using the KDE desktop than if you are. Still, the load KDE imposes comes from the KDE 2.0 architecture. There's no major source of additional bloat in the near future and it's pretty clear how to make everything faster -- drastically improve the way a GNU system loads C++ apps.

At any rate, the best way to get Linux going faster is to buy new RAM. I understand why people don't run and out for new processors or hard drives but RAM is so cheap now $20-30 will liberate you from the misery of hitting your swap.

Re:A catch-22.

[Jason Earl]

Since these boxes are going to be on a network anyhow, why not simply use underpowered machines as X terminals. Any machine with 16M of ram has enough oomph to be an X terminal, and one commodity server (with enough memory) can easily support hundreds of users.

As far as I am concerned the only real reason to take a look at Linux on the desktop is that it finally allows the systems administrators to move to a useable thin client arrangement. Imagine the joys of one box to administer and nothing but disposable machines on your users' dekstops. Linux has finally gotten to the point where it has enough applications to allow you to shift to this sort of a setup today. The fact that this sort of an arrangement will probably save you money on both software and hardware costs is nothing more than icing on the cake. The real potential for savings is in administration costs. All of a sudden you can get rid of all of your desktop support personnel and replace them with one Linux admin, and a monkey whose sole job would be to replace failed thin clients.

nice, but not likely

[programic]

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.

Re:nice, but not likely

[ichimunki]

Just like it's hard to find people who are willing to man tech support call centers as an entry-level job in the IT industry? Besides, for some level of what's needed, admining a Linux office can't be any tougher than admining a Windows office.

So guess who would be the first to undergo a quick training-- yes, the old Windows admins. I think it would be a pretty poor business policy to just can the folks who've been doing the sysadmin job up to this point just because they have a slightly different experience. Linux isn't advanced magic at the desktop/office LAN level.

But frankly, I don't want sysadmins around anyway whose attitude is "you're a moron if you need your password reset"... sysadmins don't get paid to be wizards, they get paid to make sure the systems stay maintained and the users stay productive (from a technical perspective).

Depends on your office...

[van der Rohe]

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.

Re:Depends on your office...

[gmhowell]

Frankly, I could care less about M$, and REALLY don't care about what other people use. I need end-user apps. Cheap ones. I pay for games (because nethack doesn't cut it for me.) so that means I have Win98 at home. But why should I pay for a $1500 computer to browse the web? (My brother. Idiot.) Why pay $200-$300 for the operating system, when it doesn't do anything? Okay, maybe the web browser. But why don't Amazon, GM, IBM, etc pay for my browser/OS?

I want to program a bit. But I'm not so into it to purchase Visual C++ for $???. I occasionally type a letter or resume, but $200 for Word/WordPerfect? I don't do that much letter writing.

So I use Linux. Most of the stuff I need is out there. For games I have M$. But when games require XP? I think I'll just go buy a PS2. Or go outside and look at that bright yellow thing.

Two Critical Appps that will help...

[ayden]

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.

My office is Window-less

[piecewise]

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.

Wait for OpenOffice & KOffice

[Eloquence]

While I agree that the time for moving stuff over is near (although a lot of business software is still missing), I would suggest waiting for the final release of Open Office 6.0 (or Star Office if you prefer the commercial variant) before switching a real-world office to Linux (designing a new one from scratch I might use Linux, but only with Win4Lin). Star Office 5.2 and Open Office 6.0 use different data formats, and Open Office is missing certain Star Office applications. KOffice may still require a few years to be recommendable, but the Open Office final should be relased soon. Also, by the time Open Office is finished, Mozilla is probably also ready, and most new PCs will come with more than enough RAM to handle KDE easily.

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.

Why?

[PyroMosh]

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.

Re:Why?

[PyroMosh]

Your arguments are completely baseless and outright wrong. Cars WERE more complicated TO OPERATE when they first started to produce them. How many cars on the road today do you have to do the following to:

Manually turn on the electrical system to crank the engine.

Manually adjust the timing of the engine WHILE DRIVING with a spark timing lever(!)

Manually crank the engine (!)

Manually shift gears (some)

Manually operate a choke (most of you'll probably ask what that is)

Wait for the car to "warm up" (recommended but not necessary for most cars on the road today)

Actually use a parking brake. (most people with automatics never use them any more)

Just for fun, try going here to try and go through the steps of starting a Ford Model T. A bit more involved than just getting in your car, turning the key, putting it in gear and going, isn't it?
Now, to address the statement that cars have gotten more complicated. In a sense they have. But only in unnecessary things. Not to operate. The oldest car I've owned was an '81 Chevy Camaro. My current car is a '97 Olds Aurora. Let's compare the two:

The Camaro had a carburetor. It was finicky to run and to start. It had drum brakes that needed to be adjusted from time to time. It had a coolant system that had to be changed every 40,000 miles. Oil, every 5000.

Now my Aurora, by contrast has a modern sequential fuel injection system. I don't have to give it gas to start it. I don't have to let it warm up or worry about it stalling (but it's a good idea to anyway for reasons outside the scope of this post). I believe the recommended interval for coolant changes is 100,000 miles. Oil is something like 7500 miles, *but* the really cool thing compared to my Camaro is that it *tells me* when to do these things. It has a computer on board that takes into account how many miles I've driven AND how hard those miles were (city / highway). Then it lets me know when to do these things. I still don't listen to them, I change my oil every 3000 - 5000, but it's certainly a more complex system that is more simple for the end user.

What else is more complicated about my Aurora? The onboard computer has lots of features for calculating fuel mileage, ETAs, etc. But do you need to know how to use it to drive the car? No, not at all. Even the switch for the power seats is simpler than the manual levers in the Camaro. The seat switch is in the shape of a seat: _/ just push the part of the seat in the direction you want it to go and the seat moves. The car turns the lights on for you when it's dark out. IT has power mirrors which are a lot easier to use than rolling down the windows and adjusting them manually, I could go on and on...

The only things the newer Aurora adds to the complexity are things that you can pretend don't even exist and still be able to drive the car. (The computer for instance)

The point is that GM and Ford and Toyota, and everyone else are making cars simpler to use. Many cars can't be had with a manual transmition any more. I know of no major production cars built since the Jeep CJ5 (I believe 1986 was the last year) that can't be had with an automatic in some trim level. And The CJ5 was a special case since it's wheelbase was too short.

Next to address the notion that old people don't understand computers, young people do. Why I must agree that the number of youth that embrace technology vs. the number of older generations is disproportionate, it's not nearly as much so as you are assuming.

A couple of months ago, I would have agreed with you, but something changed my mind.

A couple months ago, my best friend who works for Bristol Meyers Squib as a Java / Perl programmer / general intranet developer. Built himself an Athlon box. When he did that, he decided to send his old Celeron box, which had served him though college to his younger brother who's about 14 and is a very bright kid. He packed it up and mailed it to him. About a week or two later, he got a call from the young lad. Apparently he was upset because in the state the box was sent to him, java was turned off. This upset him as he was used to going to certain sites to play java Tetris or some such nonsense. Well, my friend refused to tell him how to turn it back on. Saying instead to figure it out for himself. He never did. He just gave up. It's still not on.

This kid isn't alone. My ex-girlfriend is currently going to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University studying Aerospace Engineering (literally rocket science). When Napster shut down, she ran to me to help her find MP3s. With much reluctance, I set up a Gnutella client for her. She had trouble using it. Then when ERAU blocked whatever port it used, she was completely lost. She no longer downloads MP3s. She's 19 years old and quite bright. But she's lost when it comes to computers.

I don't know where you are meeting all these kids that swarm all over Linux, but it sure isn't anywhere *I've* ever lived. Most kids today think they're "leet" by using macro programs in AOL chat rooms. Why? Because a big percentage of kids today aren't evolving beyond AOL. Let alone ditching windows for Linux.

These examples above serve to illustrate a trend:
15 or so years ago, being computer literate meant knowing how to program. Then it meant understanding a command line file system. Then it meant being able to navigate a GUI. It's rapidly reaching the point where it will mean being able to use a handful of standard applications such as AOL, Office, and Solitaire.

You're anti-Microsoft bias comes through loud and clear in your post. Wake up!!! This isn't *about* Microsoft. Making things easy for the novice user isn't something only Microsoft is trying to achieve. It's something EVERY software company with a product aimed at the novice user are trying to achieve. If they're not, they're fools. It just so happens that Microsoft is one of the leaders in that field with OSes. Weather it's because Windows is what people are used to, or weather it really is more intuitive is debatable, of course.

You're right, times *do* change. But you're absolutely backwards in your assertation that making things harder will encourage people to learn more and will make people embrace a technology. There is a difference between core usability and extended feature sets. The idea, weather you're designing a car or an OS is to make the basic usability foremost and s-i-m-p-l-e. Then you can start adding bells and whistles so long as they are not necessary to use the basic product.

Re:What about MS Exchange?

[alen]

But which software do you run on the server side? With Exchange all the email in a database file and you get single instance storage to save space. The user directory is in another database. Exchange is almost like a slimmed down SQL server. Even Oracle is going to this model for their new email server because it's awesome. Only time we touch our exchange servers is to add users.

Since it's a database you have option called deleted item retention time. When a user deletes an email it stays hidden in the database for whatever amount of time you specify. If you have the storage it could be months or years. If someone deletes an email message restoration takes seconds from the client PC. Exchange 2000 takes it one step further to the mailbox level. If you delete a mailbox by accident or after a termination, you can restore the mailbox with all contents.

Backup is easy. And Veritas even has an option called brick level back up which backs up the mailboxes individually. A company called Commvault takes this to a new level and can back up single messages. If you CEO deletes an email you just restore the message. If you delete a mailbox and someone needs it you just restore the single mailbox.

Is there anything that runs on Unix or Linux that supports these features? On an enterprise level they are a requirement.

Linux installation experience

[gUmbi]

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.

Needed: a replacement for PowerPoint

[Animats]

There's no open-source software replacement for PowerPoint. I'd suggest writing an authoring tool for Macromedia Flash format, which is openly documented. Then you can show the same content on web pages and presentations, or run the presentation from a browser. The files would be much smaller than PowerPoint, too. For some wierd reason, PowerPoint files are huge.

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.

Free (beer) isn't free (beer)

[Bikku]

(dons PHB beancounting suit)

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.

File compatibility

[ChrisWong]

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.

Given: Openoffice Impress, kpresenter

[Moritz Moeller - Her]

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.

Re:Pointless

[jchristopher]

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

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.

The community isn't huge but it's definitely there

[CoughDropAddict]

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.