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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."
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.
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.
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.
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 think I know rumor one that should be dispelled in the ad:
Q: Is Linux a corporation with a PR department full of marketroids?
A: No. Linux is a bunch of individuals and several corporations, each of which runs (or is) a PR department. In addition, among the most popular sites on the internet slavishly devote themselves to linux and knocking down not only other operating systems, but even ideas spawned from other operating systems. Think of linux more like the borg, many semi-autonomous organizations and people working towards the common goal of make and operating system do exactly what they want it to.
Ximian Evolution is an Outlook replacement. To use it with Exchange 2000, you may need the Exchange connector.
That said, speaking as a longtime TOPS-20 and 4.2 BSD user, Novell sysadmin, sufferer through MS-LanManager 1.0, and WordPerfect user, I have a question for you: your description differs from Microsoft's history and business practices exactly how?
Did you ever have the pleasure of converting a 500 user Novell 2.2 network to MS-Lanman because "Microsoft is a serious business partner", then have to convert it back to Novell 18 months later because it wouldn't stay up for more than a day (and we expended about 40,000 engineering manhours trying to make it work)? Sure, today Windows 2000 is reasonably stable (about 70% of what Novell 3.11 was anyway). Why did Microsoft get those 10 free years of shipping unstable products to improve themselves?
sPh
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
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.
I'm replying to this, because /. wouldn't let me pull up the parent.
I used to work in a software house. A very large, International company that made Business Machines. I worked in the networking section. As part of my work, I found some horrendously inefficient code that had been cut-n-pasted because it had been used and worked somewhere else. When I pointed out, and then documented the inneficiency by implementing and benchmarking, all I got for a reply was "We don't modify working code!!"
Pissed at the boneheaded attitude, I began inspecting lots of code. Everything was hacks tacked on top of more hacks, and all because "We don't modify working code!!"
Please note that this whole thread is way off topic; however, I just can't ever let this 'Linux is hobbyist quality' attitude go unanswered. Software isn't a bridge where a fuckup is forever. It's much more organic. If one piece is of low quality, it can often be ripped out and replace completely. So the 'fix' for the 'important functions' you speak of is often to completely replace a subsystem, which will be less stable until it is thoroughly tested and debugged (but that is what the odd numbered dot releases are for). In the final analysis though, having a substandard system replaced will eventually result in the most stable, highest performing system.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
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.
The filters have extremely little to do with the problem.
I beg to differ. From the perspective of someone who uses Word, Excel and Powerpoint day in and day out, one of the biggest stumbling blocks to a migration to Linux is being able to communicate effectively in these formats, which are a de facto standard. If there's a difference, however small, in how those formats are interpreted under StarOffice compared to how they are interpreted under MS Office, then that is one glitch too many for users that are transitioning.
I agree, MS has no reason to adopt a single, open file format. From a business perspective, they have everything to gain by keeping such standards under their control and making all access to such standards require a payment to Redmond. MS will continue to follow the same strategy of "upgrading into incompatiblity", as Office XP Word attachments arrive on the desks of Office 97 users, ever so gently goading them into an upgrade merely to be able to read and write attachments that their friends are sending from WinXP machines (which are pretty much all you can find at the stores) Funny how that works.
As far as I can tell, the biggest costs of switching are in user retraining. The software cost savings of desktop Linux are a given; the added benefit of not being put on a forced upgrade treadmill is an additional savings; finally, the need of keeping track of MS licenses is eliminated. Those are all significant real benefits that anyone in IT decision-making should weight, but it is not the entire equation as far as costs are concerned.
It's all the secretaries that learn the quirks of Word for a period of years that represent an investment in user training that can only be partially recouped by switching to StarOffice, and that only to the degree that the user interface and behavior of SO mimics MS Word.
I'll agree that Win2K is reasonable as far as MS operating systems are concerned. It's quite usable. But there's the rub!
Win2K is fine if you need a operating system with a stable win32 API for office productivity applications.But if your Win2K Enterprise Licensing costs will be forced through the roof unless you buy XP real soon (reminds me of some car-buying experiences), MS is forcing you to make a choice of upgrading, even though Win2K will work just fine for many years to come, if you had any say in the matter.
Very well, you must consider an upgrade, because of MS business tactics. In that case, I submit that you have an opportunity to at least consider Linux on the desktop as an alternative. If you're serious about your IT costs, then you really are obligated to consider the alternatives at every step of the game.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
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!