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Telstra Considers 45,000-Seat Linux Deployment

stressky writes: "Looks like major Aussie telco Telstra are looking at deploying Linux as the new Standard Operating Environment across their 45,000 desktop LAN workstations." An anonymous reader offers evidence that Telstra isn't alone; apparently, many other Australian businesses are considering a similar switch.

10 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. Telstra and MS go back a ways. by child_of_mercy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Telstra have been MS junkies a long way back, Bill G made a point of wowing the Australian Government with presentations to Cabinet in the early days of the commercial net (1996/7 - early for MS) and with that push went the Govt owned corporates, of which Telstra is one.

    Telstra nearly lost their commercial ISP business due to faillings in Win NT's stability in those days.

    They also got extremely upset with MS publishing criticism of their Broadband strategy earlier this year (they'd thought they were buddies)

    At a guess though I'd say Telstra are using this bit of smoke to help their negotiations with MS, negotiations on a number of fronts.

    --
    'There is a Light that never goes out.'
    1. Re:Telstra and MS go back a ways. by endeitzslash · · Score: 2, Informative

      > I find it interesting that they are considering
      >Linux workstations when there isn't actually a Linux
      >client for their messaging system.

      Er. . .ever heard of Ximian's Connector?

  2. Re:knowing where you going by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Copy and paste is amost universally (in GUI) Left click and drag to select, Middle click to paste. X is much simpler with a 3-button mouse.

  3. Re:Not Likely by evil_roy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hypocrites. They still do not support linux for their cable - remember that Telstra is Aussie for Telecommunications monopoly. Not only is linux not supported - it is against the usage policy to use anything other than the bigpond login client to connect to the bigpond cable network. Since they only have a wintel client , linux is actually banned.

  4. Doens't Matter by nervlord1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Doens't matter, don't let it fool you, Telstra are an evil monopoly, they are the microsoft, of australia, they inflate broadband prices to absolutly insane levels and inflict us all with 3 gig (thats right, 3 gig) a month for horrendous amounts of money and with absolutly no stability, dont let this ever make you think telstra are a decent company, visit www.whirlpool.net.au for more info on how they exploit there monopoly posistion in australia to keep broadband prices high

    --
    Microsoft IIS is to webserving as KFC is to healthy eating
  5. The hardware will be cheaper, too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    if they use the Linux Terminal Server Project

    www.ltsp.org

    45,000 saved harddisks ... wow

  6. Re:Good news for Home Linux by Ravenn · · Score: 1, Informative

    Heh. KDE is nearly as bloated as anything M$ have brought out. They try to incorporate every idea that seems like it might work, just in case someone wants it.

    You say that you know a bit, but it seems that you still only use KDE. Why? There are a myriad of WMs or DEs out there. Gnome, Enlightenment, AfterStep, Window Maker. All act differently. Personally, I prefer Blackbox.

    Don't blame X for your problems, blame KDE. And then try to find something that works for you. That is the whole *point* of choosing Linux: the choices.

    KDE works for some people, and it can be quite nice to look at. I just wouldn't use it, and I haven't for quite some time. Find what does what you want it to, and stick with it.

    The whole ctrl+[z|x|c|v] thing should work in most apps, but it's often easier to highlight and middle-click. Works fine for me. Every time, too.

    Ravenn

    --
    Of all the things you can accomplish by screwing up your face and swearing into a dark room, sleep is not one of them.
  7. If only Sun could sell software to save their life by SmilieZ · · Score: 3, Informative

    As a StarOffice 6.0 reseller..

    We have :-

    * No access to site licencing
    * No OEM product
    * No Marketing Tools (Posters, Leaflets, Handouts ,Shwag)

    We have lost heaps of tenders and quotes because we were just unable to provide site-licences!

    Oh yeah, sure, lets just send our business over to Sun so they can take the business that we advertised and marketing for.

    Basically, Sun think the product is SO good, it will sell itself.

    When I try and get Staroffice into retailers, it pales in comparison to just have a box on the shelf, when their shop is plastered with A1 and A0 Office XP posters that MS gave them.

  8. Re:Good news for Home Linux by Riskable · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's some clipboard tips for you from a KDE/Opera fiend...

    Turn off the URL handler for the clibpoard manager (click on the little clipboard icon in your system tray next to your clock and then click on preferences. Delete the file handler for http://*).

    Setup a hotkey for the clipboard manager and configure it to pop up at your mouse location (under the general tab in preferences).

    Don't bother clicking on the URL in Opera. just have the URL in your clipboard and middle-click your browser window (this will tell Opera--or any other Linux browser for that matter--to go to that URL).

    Once you learn that A) you can middle-click URLs into browsers and B) how to use Klipper (the KDE clipboard manager) your pasting operations will be a dream come true!

    As a matter of fact, now that I'm used to the Klipper, I wouldn't want to use anything else! I tried Gnome, but without Klipper, I was severely frustrated. When I boot into Windows to play games, I find myself missing Klipper!

    I've emailed the Klipper developers and based upon my suggestions I believe KDE 3.1 will have the ability to store permanent items in the Klipper menu (for instance, you could keep your signiture in there for whenever/wherever you wanted to paste it--or any frequently used text string).

    I setup Klipper to remember the last 20 clipboard items... So even if I accidentally highlight something, I can just control-shift-s and swap my clipboard for the text string I had previously. Once you try it, you'll never go back!

    --
    -Riskable
    "Those who choose proprietary software will pay for their decision!"
  9. Re:Ploy? by schporto · · Score: 3, Informative
    actually we did just evaluate Linux as our complete desktop solution. Choices didn't hurt us, it caused some headaches to decide which we wanted to use, but then, heck, our users would never have seen that. At the end there were 3 'problems' (and these will seem odd at first).
    1. Floppies. Asking our users to mount and unmount a floppy disk was gonna be a chore. Floppies are used a lot. That was actually gonna be a headache. Windows with its waiting for the green light to go out and then pop it out is (in theory) a better solution from a user point.
    2. Palm support. This was a difficult thing to get all kludged together and still didn't feel right. Had to stop on it eventually.
    3. Monitor resolution. For the most part resoltion changes would've been difficult within X. Yeah there's some trick utilities, but again with the Windows does it better.

    Now. Those 3 problems vs. M$ licensing and prices? (And yeah that was _all_ of the problems we really had) Which do you choose?
    Ahhh see I tricked you. Office politics intruded. mummble mummble. But I can honestly stand here and tell you - it would be possible. It wouldn't be simple, or quick, or painless, but it can be done. And should.
    -cpd