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Linux & the Business Desktop
Ulwarth writes: "Desktop Linux is running a feature documenting a mid-sized company switching to Linux on the desktop, like the City of Largo but this time in a corporate environment. Proof that it can be done - at least for businesses which need only the 'standard' office apps."
If this keeps up, the Tux icon will soon be sporting Borg apparatus :)
We'll know that Linux is truly ready for the desktop when these stories no longer appear.
As long as "Linux on the Desktop" is newsworthy, then linux has not really gained acceptance.
Why do you say "only standard Office apps"? A mid--corporate bussiness nowadays has a backoffice software apps for Linux, Desktop publishing for Linux, Data-mining apps for Linux, etc. maybe you don't find it on all Linux package distributions. But it is a "easy task" to get it.
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
Not only companies running only office-apps switch to linux.
Dreamworks in glendale Los Angeles, CA has switched large parts of their desktops to linux.
And been successfull in the transition too.
- To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion -
I like the way that they describe the practical side of the transition - i.e., moving new users over instead of people comfortable to sit on the top of the learning curve that they've already scaled.
My outfit is looking at Linux desktops in a more scientific and engineering environment.
But we share a similar need to deal with the ubiquitous .doc, .xls and .ppt files that are endemic in the corporate world.
I like their setup with KDE, but I've thought that using Evolution would be a nicer MUA.
It's great they can do so well with StarOffice 5.2 that has its share of glitches and user interface problems.
If only StarOffice 6 would finally come out!
I believe that single product, SO 6, with updated filters for the aforementioned "standard" file formats and non-monolithic user interface, will do more to unleash a flood of Linux desktop migration than any other single product (unless AOL 9.0 includes Linux).
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I know that Linux has some decent GUI's available, but I would wager that the final push needed to get it more mainstream is for someone to make a GUI that looks 95% like Windows GUI.
Don't complain, don't tell me that Linux GUI's are better. That's a moot point. We're talking about end users who just want to sit down and work with a minimal amount of retraining and confusion.
IT departments can be as smart and savvy as they want to be, but in the end it comes down to simplicity for the end user. Make that and Linux will have a much better chance. When no one notices that they're using Linux, you have succeeded.
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Linux should take a page from Apple. They put out a little ad booklet in Time (and elsewhere) and devoted 2 pages to dispelling myths. They didn't use cyberspeak either. They just gave some very real questions ("Everyone uses Windows" for example) and answered them. It was a great piece of PR. Linux could learn something from it...
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i work at one of canada's banks, at the corporate university. another comp sci guy and i were successful in moving most of our servers (~25) from NT to linux or back to solaris (bank *loves* solaris).
now we're attempting to deploy linux on 20% of the desktops (~10 people).
we've already realized that we'll need to cram VMware on some of them (flash developers) but i consider this just a transition period. hopefully things will go well and we can divert some upkeep dollars to R&D...
I'm not against Linux on the desktop in a corporate environment. I'd love to switch our users here, just so I could post to the /. community that a major corporation with $$B has made the switch. But I can't, and won't for any forseeable future.
None of these "Linux on the Desktop" articles has pointed to any company that used more than standard desktop and backend server apps. Find me a story where a company that has a $100M invested into their custom accounting/billing solution has decided to throw it out and spend another $100M to rewrite the software for Linux. When that happens, let me know; then I'll say Linux is making inroads onto the corporate desktop.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
You think Linux is a corporation? With a PR department full of marketroids? If you do, I've got a hot news flash for you. It's not.
Best Slashdot Co
I have found here Mac users actually LIKE my setup on my Workstation, funny, I HATE MACS :)
:)
:)
:)
I have Ximian Gnome on Rh 7.2 , 2.4.18pre7-rmap12a , its great, BUT in a mixed Mac and PC enviroment, throw Linux and Solaris on top of it an what fun Admin duties I have
We MUST retain the Mac enviroment, before you blast, we have equiptment in the near millions thats control software runs ONLY on Macs,
I am about to embark on a changeover for several PC users to Linux , they will I am sure be as productive, It all depends what you do.
Hell for games, and MS word applications I have a PC at home although it has become my wife solitaire machine running terminal server, I connect from rdesktop
If youve been with Linux for a while (me since RH 2.0) Think back to 5 years ago then 7 , would you have ever thought Linux would be in a place to compete on the generl destop market ?
Now think ahead, say 3 years....
Linux as a whole evolves VERY differently than windows and its apps, things that seem to liger for years, all of a sudden , en masse become sttable and usable, and latley pretty.
In 2-3 years Linux will be in a SERIOUS position to threaten ALL aspects of MS business, the beauty is there is absolutley nothing MS can do to stop it, or even slow it down, soon will come the time they have to embrace it offering their apps for it, when that happens it will be the death knell of MS operationg systems......
I have reached Karma cap and need no more please give my mod points (if any) to those less fortunate
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
From the article:
Yes! This is a great point to make. Of course non-free apps are not where the world should be headed, but we should start with the OS. That's far and the away the most important thing. Once that's done, the apps will follow. At least until then, non-free apps for free OS'es are a Good Thing.
Singapore Civil Service considers switching to free Office Suites. Staroffice is a leading contender.
- Applications
- Training
- Accountability
Linux will never become big on the desktop until something is done about these major issues. Linus, Alan, et. al. need to get off their behinds and tackle the major unresolved issues behind their OS. GUI developers need to quit worrying about transparent windows and drop-shadows and get working on making their systems stable and functional.When a business upgrades its systems, it wants proven reliability in its equipment. Applications such as StarOffice and KOffice are high on glitz and glamour, but lack the backend to fulfil this stability requirement. While Corel and Microsoft focus on ensuring their system works before incorporating new "features," the uncoordinated Linux effort works to force nifty "features" onto an unstable backend. This means that while I can do some interesting graphic and font modification, my attempts to save throw Kernel panics and crash my system.
Almost 100% of office workers in the present work environment have been trained to use Microsoft Office. Most students come out of college having used Microsoft Windows as their OS, Microsoft Word to type their papers, and Microsoft Excel to do math projects.
Switching from a Microsoft base to a Linux base means a great deal of downtime while workers are retrained to use their new desktop environment. System Administrators must be trained or hired to work with a new system base. Technical Support people must learn how to handle the millions of innanely obtuse error messages thrown by any one of 1000 different applications installed by default on the new systems. (Why is xterm crashing with a tcpdump error message? I'm not running tcpdump!) Each user must be trained in how to login to their system, navigate a new and dramatically different desktop, then they have to be trained in how to use a brand new office suite. While this process can be spread out using staged upgrades, the downtime still adds up.
In the end, the Linux kernel is maintained by a group of hobbyists. As with the applications, these hobbyists put a large amount of time into programming glitz and glamour features into the kernel, and neglect important functions such as scalable SMP support, efficient VM managment, clean TCP/IP communications, and such. These important functions end up being "fixed" by other hobbyist programmers whose fixes usually end up making systems less stable.
While there are groups available for support, many of those groups are closing shop because they aren't getting business. It's a vicious cycle. Anyhow, there's only so much those support people can do. (Red Hat: "We can't support that because none of our people have used it or tested it with Linux. Look it up.")
When Linux becomes more like Windows, more people will use Linux. That is a fact!
When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
"There is a terrorist behind every bush"
I would like to start down this road at my place of work, but we are pretty much set on Exchange as the e-mail server for the mid-term. Is there any Linux desktop client that can perform the functions of Outlook with the mailbox residing on the Exchange server?
sPh
The day that AOL includes Linux is the day that I start looking for a way to move to mars.
Can you imagine it now? "You've got root!"
Joe H.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Also there isn't an open source equivalent for scheduling and messaging software, such as Exchange. This is something I would really like to see change before too much more time elapses.
You're using her as bait, Master!
more likely a MS saleperson will meet with with upper management, spread scary rumours and offer large discounts to switch.
These discounts will slowly reduce with every upgrade cycle as the company becomes more addicted to MS products.
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
I'm probably the only person in my company running a Solaris desktop, and still am able to function quite adequately. In fact, much like the Linux folks, all the tools are there. (There is even Internet Explorer for Solaris! Can you believe it?) PDF viewer. MPEG viewer. DOC/XLS via Star Office/Open Office. Lotsa other little extras I forget at the moment.
I still do my email via Netscape mail. But the article pointed out the Ximian Evolution mail reader. I went to the Ximian site, and they have the desktop and Evolution both available for Solaris. I'm running the download/install now. Hopefully I'll be on my way to a mega-desktop.
It's exciting to see all the different open-source office apps getting developed. The thing that bugs me is the lack of standardization going on.
It's great that kwrite/star office/every other similar project can open and write documents in MS word's native format, or save them in their own format; But this still leads to balkanized document formats. It's less bad, because at least the formatting is open rather than proprietary, but it seems like needless duplication for each project to develop its own markup system.
The ideal solution is an HTML-like approach where anybody can use whatever WYSIWYG front-end they like the best to write docs. The office app's job is to insert the correct standardized markup codes.
Sadly, although this is exactly the sort of problem XML can handle effectively, not too much is going on.
Or maybe i just don't know about it.
--
Long-term effects of Bush deficits
I am watching this trend with interest; last year there was one customer like this per month; so far this last 3 months I see one or two per week. Much like the ramp of Thin Client or web based computing this trend hopefully shows that critical mass is forming.
Evil ZEN Scientist
I don't agree with this post myself, but it is far from "flamebait". It is exactly the kind of argument that proponents of the Linux desktop will (and should!) face as they make their case for conversion. It needs to be addressed, not swept under the mod rug.
sPh
pronoblem
Most of the memory problems with KDE and Gnome are the over-pretty window managers. Disable them and use something simpler
The ActiveX I don't think anyone can help you with. Bad design decisions.
Exchange allows access via POP3 and IMAP. These are supported by pretty much any mail client. I used this where I work on my Solaris Workstation. Exchange also has LDAP access, so if you use Netscape 4 or 6 you can use the address book. This provides some aspects of the PIM. Unices still lack decent shared calendar support, StarOffice 5.2 had quite a nice one, but this is gone in SO6
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
- MS has no reason (NONE) to adopt a single, open file format. Forget it. If one is presented, they'll embrace and extend, just like they did with HTML.
- Benefits of OpenOffice != hardware savings + licensing costs. There are switching costs involved, irrespective of whether the UI is monolithic or not, and they're nontrivial. The cost models I've thought about involve a relatively massive up front cost that'll defray itself over several years, and that's not a model that businessPeople will buy into on a large scale.
- MS are a bunch of buttheads, but they adapt well. Win2k isn't THAT unstable, and is perfectly useable as a business desktop (NOT as servers). What, exactly, does linux afford that W2K doesn't, now that the stability differentiation has been reduced considerably?
If your engineers need linux for the HW benefits, that's one thing, but there's a looong way between kludging something together for a specific subsection of an organization, and doing it for an entire company. Besides, as mentioned before, an AOL version of linux would make just about everybody puke. If you're trolling, congratulations.ceci n'est pas un sig.
I find so many Linux and KDE apps to be so much more configurable and useful than Windows programs, personally. But just like the article's author, getting them up and running is the biggest pain in the ass ever in most cases! It shouldn't take me an hour just to get Gnucash installed and running. Configuring it to my liking can take all day for all I care, but just getting it running so I can begin to replace my use of Quicken is an extraordinarily lengthy task. This is just one example of the difficult install process in linux desktop apps.
The lack of interoperability or fancy features in Linux desktop apps is not the problem. Who uses the 'web publishing' wizards in MS Word anyways??? The problem is the ease of install. I don't need MS style wizards to walk me through the install per say, but I would at least like a working product when I'm done installing, not yet another message that a certain library is missing on my system. RPM's work just fine (when they work), but if a library is missing, for God's sake, TELL ME WHERE I CAN DOWNLOAD IT or better yet, go find it and download it for me! Get easy installation of apps on the Linux desktop, and you'll get MS desktop business users migrating to Linux en masse.
Note, however, that gaming on Linux is not even close to complete yet since installation of desktop apps is still such a pain. Henceforth, the home Linux user has two hurdles to get past before using Linux at home on a consistent basis.
Yes, I like linux, and yes, I use it at home, and YES I don't mind doing some work to find the libraries, drivers, and programs I need to get linux apps working like I want them too. But the simple fact of the matter is that most business people don't have that kind of time to waste on just installing a simple program.
2. The vast majority of custom, in-house developed apps will never be ported to Linux. (It's just too expensive to do the massive rewrite needed to port any non-trivial program written in VB or VC++ to Linux.)
3. Apps like (1) and (2) above are "must have" items in the vast majority of mainstream (home and office) desktops.
4. Because of (4), Linux + a GUI interface could be 1000 times better than Windows, but it still would never be more than a niche of a niche on the mainstream desktop. No level of security or usability or cost savings or any other benefit will ever overcome the fact that if it doesn't meet people's needs it's useless. And no amount of wishful thinking will make it otherwise.
(Don't flame me. I'm a writer and programmer in the Linux field who's invested a lot over the last few years in trying to help Linux succeed in the mainstream, and I'm deeply frustrated that it hasn't done better. But I've also talked to many consulting clients in companies of all sizes about conversion issues, and I'm convinced that the above 4 points accurately reflect the situation.)
I had sent an email to ESR asking him how would developers make money with Open Source. So he replied back telling me that statistics show that 40% of Open Source developers where employed or receiving compensation for their work.
40% is clearly not enough.
One thing I forgot which may help your transition: exchange's web access. Looks just like the real thing, and works almost everywhere.
Make sure you enable https though!
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
Our company has been hit by the recession relatively heavily -- our main product is a "luxury" item for most businesses -- so when we decided to finally put our salesman on computers and enter the 21st century, I suggested Linux desktops. I was met with some quizzical looks, but once I demoed my desktop and mentioned the key word "free," I was given the go-ahead.
The idea is that there is only a steep learning curve for Linux if you're switching from another OS; if you've never used anything, there's no adjustment. Unlike the article's writer, though, we went with Gnome, for one huge reason: Evolution. Just like Outlook is key for businessmen who run Windows, Evolution makes keeping track of contacts, appointments, etc. a breeze for our salesmen. They do basic word processing with Abiword, look at some spreadsheets with Gnumeric, and browse the web with Galeon.
I think what it comes down to is Linux's main strength is choice. My users do lots of planning, organizing, etc., so I centered their desktops around Evolution. TrustCommerce's people for the most part do very basic email, but a lot more document work, so their desktops are based around OpenOffice.
Two more things: The killer app is gtcd. I cannot convey in words how amazed new users are when they put a cd in and the cd player looks up the tracklisting. (Yes, I realize many Windows cd players do this. Yes, I realize the new version of MP that comes with ME & above do this.) The other thing is that using Debian makes it all worthwhile. I mirror sid (the distribution we use) on the file server, which updates every night, and then when I upgrade workstations it goes over our 100Mb network. I cannot begin to describe how much easier my job is doing ssh workstation; apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade than walking around to desks and doing Windows Update.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
It's almost like magic.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
There's always a need, though, so it's always a good idea. It is never a good idea to limit yourself to only one platform as an option
Especially if that one platform is a proprietary one.
That doesn't mean make it portable to everything under the sun, but it does mean make sure that your eggs can be switched into one or two other baskets if the current platform starts to look like a bad decision.
In any other area of business this would be just "common sense". Or are there businesses which specifically seek to lock themselves into single supplier deals?
1. Microsoft doesn't have to change format.
Well, maybe, but they're sorta roped into doing so by their need to sell Office2K2. Personally, I think pretty much everything that might be useful was in Office95, but that hasn't stopped everyone from upgrading. Besides which, it would be the first move they'd make if/when a competitive OpenOffice becomes available. Plus, MS has screwed over its own users before by making the formats completely incompatible (O98 v. O95, IIRC), so there's nothing saying they won't do it again.
MS'll also have quicker access to the new format, and the upgrade path is cleaner for PHBs. The OpenOffice people are going to have to decode the format, reprogram, test, release, and it'll take a while.
There's also no guarantee the formats will match perfectly. During my testing, I found a couple of (insignificant) differences trying to translate docs between Word and StarOffice, and this was an allegedly compatible release.
3. Eliminated licensing fees and (potentially) faster administration.
Touche, although I don't know about how big the licensing costs for all the assorted programs would be. WinZip, for instance, is something like $10 per in groups of 50, $4 per above 500 users, and they offer a site license that is presumably even cheaper. Hardly savings to get excited about.
Believe me, I'd be thrilled if we could run all the secretaries in our organization on X terminals with one Linux box at the core, but it's far more difficult to justify than the original poster implied.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
Windows' GUI doesn't look 95% like Windows GUI anymore.
But more than that, I love the fact that people can take a static view of history, even in the face of one of the most rapidly changing aspects (computers and how we interact with them) of human society. Windows 95 was released at the end of 1995. It is now a little over 6 years since everybody and his mom began switching to what you now think of as the ubiquitous "Windows GUI". I'm sure Microsoft would love to say, "Okay, we've got it perfect now, so let's everybody stop changing anything," but it's just not going to work that way. If the "Windows GUI" lasts the rest of 10 years (and God, please let them at least add standard virtual desktops if that happens) then it will be an incredibly long lasting user interface. Does that mean it should be immutable? That, even given past switches of hundreds of millions of people to different but superior interfaces, no further change should occur?
I hope not.
Well, let's try the new licensing scheme that MS wants to move to. Having to "rent" my software would provide significant incentive AGAINST upgrading. And I remember the difficulty I experience years ago when my company had just upgraded to the latest version of Office, and we had some difficulty sharing files with some of our customers and partners. We had to be extremely careful. You can't go tell your customer to install the "converter" for their version of Office so that they can view the new files that you are sending them. You have to remember to save a copy in THEIR format, and then reload it to make sure you didn't lose anything in the translation.
Touche, although I don't know about how big the licensing costs for all the assorted programs would be. WinZip, for instance, is something like $10 per in groups of 50, $4 per above 500 users, and they offer a site license that is presumably even cheaper. Hardly savings to get excited about.
Like I said up above, with the new licensing schemes, all of this will change. The costs associated with constant annual renewels can be big. Really big. With businesses today looking to save where they can, there's some real fuel for the fire.
Timing is everything, though. If the Open Source community doesn't quickly provide the tools that can pretty much match those available under Windows, feature for feature, then people will probably be content to stick with what works. Now is the time. An economic slump provides the battleground for these kinds of changes.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Linux as a whole evolves VERY differently than windows and its apps
Yeah, especially when there's clueless VC funding all the development. Be interesting to see how the evolution of "desktop linux" copes with the current economic conditions, now that the funding craze has died down.
Oh, and I liked the bit at the beginning of the article about how the "paperless office" is finally here. Wish it was. Then I wouldn't lose so much work time when the goddamned copier broke.
--saint
Also:
Easy upgrades to all the boxes
Customized set-ups out of the box (I mean, internationalization for example, is a big deal)
No users installing the latest shareware/warez form internet that break the machine
Linux Terminal Server Project
Choice
Save Money
Yes,
Mandrake uses urpmi and it does just what cavemanf16 described. urpmi is a tool mostly like Debian's apt-get . You do :
# urpmi gabber
and it will install the latest Gabber with its required libraries.
All from RPMs. And it has a GUI front-end called rpmdrake / MandrakeUpdate that let's you upgrade your system to latest security patch with the de facto, windows-like standard Click Next to continue kind of thing.
Man! I love Mandrake for this. And it is also a hell of a nice desktop!
apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade, just like Debian. And to find some obscure package go to rpmfind.net
With a bonus: few Conectiva users will give you a long sermon on why you should really call it GNU/Linux. Sheesh, those Debian guys would insist on calling my car a GOODYEAR/Chevrolet...
And this is part of the problem, if you perceive there to be a problem - who is this "they" you speak of when referring to Linux?
There is no man behind the curtain. It would have to be a major distribution. Not that it is a bad idea, I like the idea. It would dispel some myths, and promote whatever distro decides to do it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Here's the link:
http://people.trustcommerce.com/~adam/office.html
"In 2-3 years Linux will be in a SERIOUS position to threaten ALL aspects of MS business, the beauty is there is absolutley nothing MS can do to stop it, or even slow it down, soon will come the time they have to embrace it offering their apps for it, when that happens it will be the death knell of MS operationg systems...... "
;)
I saw the exact same statements 2-3 years ago. It's made improvements, yes, but most certainly is NOT where everyone would thought it would be 2-3years ago.
Also, transitioning from linux -> Mac OS X is easy, too.
Ever see "Fraggle Rock?"
:P~ I'm sure they'll finish it one day, too!
Remember the "Dozers?"
Yup, that's Caltrans.. the fools building the bridges/etc. I think that Caltrans workers really are the Dozers. The people that had the freeway plans have long since passed on, but the Dozers just keeeeep on building and building and building...
At least that clusterfuck that is 880 vs 237 is being worked on
Now I have to ask, how a comparison of any kind can be made if you only examine one side of the argument.
There's a famous quotation which goes like this: "First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I'm not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me." - Pastor Father Niemoller (1946)
I do not need to use every Microsoft product to be prejudiced against Microsoft. After using a certain number of their products, experience and wisdom should be enough to create prejudice against them.
There was a time when I had never used Linux.
RPM's work just fine (when they work), but if a library is missing, for God's sake, TELL ME WHERE I CAN DOWNLOAD IT or better yet, go find it and download it for me!
There's a tool call APT which works on top of RPM which will do exactly that - you can download and install it from FreshRPMs.
Of course, functionality spread over 2 seperate command line tool doesn't appeal to end users, so it would be lovely if someone could write an app like the QNX installer for Linux. I've used Red Carpet, Synaptic, and all the other GUI package installers and they really don't compare to the installer, which lets me simply browse repositories, click what I want, and do whatever's necessary to get the app installed.
This is what I got on my e-mail:
2 616
4 1
A user has given a "Overrated" (-1) moderation to your comment.
Re:I hope these stories end soon...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=26885&cid=290
Attached to:
Linux & the Business Desktop
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/25/13452
Your comment is currently scored 1.
-1 for "Overrated"? Insane!!!
Don't you guys know about Monty Python films?
This is from "The Holy Grial" ! For heavens' sake!
There's a scene where a bunch of peasants want to burn a women. They say that she is a witch. And some Knight asks "How fdo you know that she is a withch?" And a peasant answers "She turned me into a newt!".
Hence the comment.
Overrated? What is overrated?
I'm pissed at one of the alledged "moderators". What overrating? From who did I recived any "overrating"?
Lack of knowledge is not an excuse.