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Spanish Province Dist-Upgrades
Johnny Mnemonic writes "The Spanish province of Extremadura has adopted Linux for the official OS of schools and offices, largely because of price. Simply, they don't have enough money for other OSes, and they promise to handle the rollout more gracefully than a similar Linux initiative in Mexico. According to Wired, this is the first time a European school system has switched to Linux."
Um, this is a school, not an office. Chances are they'll have to have a few people who "know what's going on" to keep everything running even if they went with windows. Training will have to happen anyway, reguardless of if they went with an Apple, MS, BSD or whatever. And if their teachers are anywhere as near as bad as the ones I had, no ammount of training will help anyway =) Compatability isn't much of an issue either with Open Office. I haven't had any regular document not open with Open Office, aside from some wacked out spreadsheets that causes Exel to die half the time.
So basically I'm sure they'd still come out ahead. Linux takes time to learn yes, but then again much of what you learned years ago still works with Linux today. There's something to be said about needing to re-learn things that change (often for no good reason) - something that happens much more often with Apple/MS. So yes, "linux is only free if your time has no value", but I also consider that to be a good investment that doesn't depreciate with time.
IMHO, it's going to be the other way around: people will first switch to open source applications, (StarOffice/OpenOffice for instance, since it works in Windows) and then to an Open Source OS. It's easier this way, and it does more economic sense. I can imagine my company switching to an open source Office suite to save $500, I don't imagine them migrating to Linux to save on a Windows license they already paid for when the bought the computer. Besides, a marketoid who can MS Office can use StarOffice/OpenOffice very easily. If a marketoid has a problem with OpenOffice, I'm sure he will find his way around. But I can't imagine the same marketoid doing a su or changing file permissions. Besides the support team in many companies is made of MCSEs very familiar with Windows and that perceive Linux like a thread to their jobs. But I don't think they view OpenOffice like a thread, since they are not so into MS Office either.
Once a companies rely on specific open source applications, it might make sense for the market and free developers to target their efforts in providing bullet proof distributions based on specific applications, that hide all complexity to the final user (a la AOL), and gives maintenance responsibilities to the administrators. By complexity I mean very simple things for technical people (file permissions, packages installation, etc...), that look very complex for regular users.
For know, it's to soon to target the non-technical desktop market. Look at Red Hat, they don't even mention the desktop market. They focus only on the server side.
Move people first to open source applications, (I convinced 5 people to move over Mozilla on Windows this month on my job). OS will come later.
I remember back when wired had some stories about the innovative change which Mexico was trying to make, in most schools. To bring Linux to the forefront and allow all school children to have access to a computer running Linux. What happened? After poop management, little to no training at the particular schools, and very little support from the actual implementors, most computers now are running win95 or a derivative there of.
This, on paper, seems like a great idea, however to actually pull it off it is going to be very difficult, and there needs to be some strong support from the very top people, if not, this move will suffer the same faith which it had in Mexico. Buena suerte mis amigos. dam()
Useless sig.
linux is only free if your time has no value.
Not to be a unix zealot, or anything but that quote bothers me, because it implies that Linux maintainnence is a nightmare while other OSes are point and click. That is simply not true.
Didn't have a chance to see MS shops when nimda virus roled along did you? Or constantly taking down their servers for the latest service pack? Or Exchange is "acting up again"
The point is there are major time cost for maintannence of any operating system.
I management solaris servers currently ( linux only as my desktop for now ). And we're constantly on the look out for critical patches, etc. Software screws up just like on any other OS ( eg. very expensive iplanet ldap starts to use 100% CPU for no apparent reason ) My point is the windows people are busy doing the same kind of thing, only with Exchange, IIS, etc.
That view that UNIX total cost of ownership is higher due to higher maintainence cost is incorrect. If you have to hire a small group of competent MS admins to run your MS shop, it would cost you the same as to hire a group of UNIX admins.
Please not buy into that MS marketing crap that any modern Enterprise class OS is point and click
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
The other day, the NY Times had an article about how Microsoft wanted to help out Mexico get online. I wonder if this had anything to do with it.
Here is a link, (sorry but there is a registration)X I.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/17/technology/17ME
Linux will be ready for the Desktop when the majority of *neophyte computer users* don't need tech support and hand-holding to use it, or when the tech support which is available is as freely and ubiquitously available as it is for the Windows platform.
Viable - Capable of living; born alive and with such form and development of organs as to be capable of living; -- said of a newborn, or a prematurely born, infant.
Viable doesn't mean that it conquers all. It means that there is something there that works.
In Linux, the customer has to understand debs, and rpms, and tarballs, minimum.
Why? Minimum, you have to understand debs or rpms, whichever is native on your system. For most major distributions, that will let you install pretty much everything you could possibly want. I have at most two or three packages installed from source hanging around, and none from RPM. You may as well claim that any Windows user must understand zips and rars and isos, minimum.
People have been using computers with DOS and different variations of Windows for quite some time. I do not think anyone could claim that those systems were consistent or easy to use. They have always been a mess. We just happen to know how to use them.
;-)
Joel addresses the issue of frustration when moving between platforms: little things that are different frustrate people.
Anyways, if you are just starting to train people (like this is the case), you might train them in Linux or Windows.
Sure, Linux could use some improvements, but those improvements will not happen in a vacuum, in a lab and then deployed to the rest of the world. Just like Windows and the MacOS they will benefit the most from direct and real life exposure.
There are a couple of very nice stories that the Linex people have witnesses over the past few days (my favorite one being a sheep sheppard in the region that fell in love with the Linux distribution they had prepared).
Professors that have offered their input and the help of themselves and their students to improve Linex: This is the kind of thing that you will not see with proprietary software.
Anyways, we are not *that* far, you are just not used to Linux on the desktop. And it will only get better
Miguel.
By this standard, Windows is not ready for the desktop, as the rest of your post amply demonstrates. Neither Linux nor Windows ever will be, by your standards.
My daughter's Mattel toys are ready for the desktop by this standard; I wonder why corporate America hasn't rushed to adopt this exciting new technology, with its low support costs? Perhaps it's the fact that the batteries aren't ever included?
Freely available? I haven't EVER found anything ``freely available'' in the Windows world!
Linux has been ready for the corporate desktop for a LONG time now. Anyplace that is going to have a full-time sys-admin will be able to set up a destop which will function for most office workers, and this has been true for quite a while now. The extra cost of the Unix sys-admin will be offset by the lower cost of licensing, downtime, and ``hidden'' support personel.
In my experience, every organization which uses Windows and has computer support personel on staff also has a number of ``hidden'' support folks: employees who's title indicates that they are non-computer staff, but who actually spend a significant portion of their day dealing with the innumerable problems which come with Windows, for themselves and for others. The cost is hidden because often no-one outside the department realizes that when you have a problem, Joe or Jenny down the hall spends an hour troubleshooting before the helpdesk gets called. When you count the cost of these (often very highly paid) people, the lower cost of hiring products of the MSCE cookie-cutter seems a lot less compelling.