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Good Samaritans Choose Linux
blowdart writes "According to this article on the BBC news site the charity Samaritans has chosen Linux to provide it with more secure and powerful computer systems. The installation was supplied by Trustix with IBM providing network security. 'One of the great challenges for computing in any charity is to provide more for less,' said Mike Hermon, Information Systems Manager at Samaritans. According to the Trustix press release the installation is limited to security hardware only, "Samaritans is installing a four zone Trustix Firewall on an IBM eServer x305 and a Trustix Proxy Server on an IBM eServer x300 server.'" Oddly enough, today's Word A Day is Good Samaritan.
Charities giving money to the poor instead of to Microsoft!
'One of the great challenges for computing in any charity is to provide more for less,' said Mike Hermon, Information Systems Manager at Samaritans.
But I thought Windows was cheaper than Linux...
This is good because the money that they save in Microsoft licenses will go to their charitable work. Of course, one hopes that they have a Linux expert (or at least somoene who knows what they are doing) on staff or they might spend too much on support calls.
-Rick
So good Samaritans choose Linux, and bad ones choose...? ;-)
This is one of the places I can see FOSS (including GNU/Linux) really making a difference. Nothing The Samaritans does goes outside the organisation - they don't offer training, they don't do work for other people, they just use the computers to run their charity.
And that's just blown 99.9% of the arguments for keeping Windows on the desktop out of the water.
If the support is there, and it's done intelligently, then this is a brilliant move that all similar charities should seriously think about adopting - especially if they're just setting up and haven't paid any money out for Microsoft Open Licensing yet.
-Blacklaw
They probably had enough of people wanting to kill themselves because of Windows crashing. And that was just the Samaritans staff!
Baz
Perhaps you are also interested in reading this press release/article on Linux Weekly News. :-)
Just FYI
The article states that Linux "now accounts for one quarter of operating systems sold worldwide.". Hmm. I mean, Linux is doing well, but one quarter? Come on!
-- And when Justice is gone, there is always... Force. --Laurie Anderson, "Oh Superman"
I was glad to read when Mt Uthas on the BBC article said: "There is a general perception that Linux is nerdy and requires a high degree of skill but we have designed an easy-to-use interface,"
I think Linux is great anyway, but I'm glad that people are realising that most people in a business use 1-3 applications 95% of the time.
Make sure those are nice, easy to use, and look pretty much like the ones you've replaced, and you're laughing.
I thought Trustix was a strange choice though - why would someone choose it over the more widely accepted distros, such as RedHat, Debian, SuSE etc?
Still, good for them that they chose something different - even if they probably did it soley due to the fact that they are a charity, and money spent on Microsoft/Sun/any other commercial OS is money they can't spend elsewhere helping suicidal people.
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Headline:
Good Samaritans Choose Linux
First sentence (all the ADHD infliced slashbots can read before posting drivel about great wins for Linux:
According to this article on the BC news site the charity Samaritans has chosen Linux to provide it with more secure and powerful computer systems.
Final sentence (and the crux of the article):
Samaritans is installing a four zone Trustix Firewall on an IBM eServer x305 and a Trustix Proxy Server on an IBM eServer x300 server.
How is some organization implementing a Linux firewall/proxy server earth shattering news?
[Linux] now accounts for one quarter of operating systems sold worldwide. Wow, that's pretty high. Anybody know where their numbers are coming from?
The wordsmith article it mentions that the word "Good Samaritan" is also known as "Samaritan".
So why do we prefix the word "Samaritan" with the word "Good" ? Is there any particular reason for it other than the bible story ? Can you get such a thing as a "Bad Samaritan" ?
This is just a curiosity thing so please dont take it as flmaebait.
chris at darkrock dot co dot uk
http colon slash slash www dot darkrock dot co dot uk
"Do you need someone to talk to?"
"Can we offer you help?"
"Would you like to know more?"
Yes, I need help, I want to know more!
RTFM!!! *click*
ducks..
Top 10 Reasons To Run DOS!
1. Tons of free abandonware programs!
2. The OS is abandonware itself! Go crazy, fileswappers!
3. Totally consistent text-mode CLI!
4. Lightning-fast on today's hardware!
5. Lack of support for big partitions = built-in anti pr0n controls!
6. Works with ANY hardware you can throw at it -- hey, even if it doesn't do anything 99% of the time, at least it doesn't throw up a thousand bitch-boxes about how it can't find drivers!
7. Split seconds from boot to command line!
8. Easy management tools! Bad partition? FORMAT C:!
9. Over 20 years of research and experience behind it!
and last but not least...
10. Everyone will think you're running Linux!
http://www.samaritans.org/know/about_principles.sh tm
'nuff said.
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
I'm more and more convinced that each of these "such-and-such chose Linux" stories is actually done via Mad Lib.
"{company name} has switched all {number} of their servers to Linux. 'They say Linux is for {adjective} people, but I'm a {noun} and I find it much easier to support and to {verb}. I hope to save {large number} this year.' Oh, and Microsoft is very {adjective}."
- Bill Gates, 2002
"Samaritans! Sanitarians! Satanists!"
- Steve Ballmer, 2002
Money for nothing, pix for free
No, but they take there ethos from a biblical story about someone who was good even though he wasn't of the same set of beliefs as the storyteller or audience.
On one occasion an expert in system administration stood up to test Linus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to obtain 99.9999% uptime?"
"What is written in the FAQ?" Linus replied. "How do you read it?"
He answered: "'Keep your kernel constantly patched, and secure your unused ports, and always keep an off-site backup'; and, 'Always share your code freely with your fellow developers.'"
"You have answered correctly," Linus replied. "Do this and your system will remain up."
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Linus, "And who is my fellow developer?"
In reply Linus said: "A man was going down from Seattle to San Francisco to an open source conference, when he fell into the hands of wardrivers. They stripped him of his firewall, formatted his system disk and went away, leaving him unable to access even his webmail.
"An MCSE-certified consultant happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he flashed his headlights and passed by in the other lane.
"So too, an Oracle salesman, when he came to the place and saw him, accelerated his BMW and passed by in the other lane.
"But a Unix developer, as he traveled, came to where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and reinstalled his kernel, pulling out book floppys and data restore CDs. Then he put the man on his own wireless network, took him to SourceForge and upgraded his firewall.
"The next day (for it was a slow network connection) he took out two silver CD-Rs and gave them to the man. 'It is a custom distribution,' he said, 'and should keep you up and running until you can get to your own restore tapes. And here is my SMS number if you need any help on how to install it.'
"Which of these three do you think was a fellow developer to the man who fell into the hands of the wardrivers?"
The expert in system administration replied, "The one who shared his distribution without cost or consulting fees."
Linus told him, "Go and do likewise."
Luke 10:25-37, Revised Internet Version
The Samaritans have nothing to do with religion, the name is just an indication of the service they provide - solace and comfort to strangers. Primarily they are a suicide hotline but they accept all kinds of calls.
That could be a bumper sticker!
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
Will Bill Gates get all depressed because of all those people defecting to Linux and end up calling the Samaritans ?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They even need a firewall, only a really sick and twisted person would try and hack the computers of people who give time and money to help thoes in need.
Where does this say this is earth shattering news?
Any win for linux especially higher profile ones are worth mentioning. You also seem to forget that Slashdot is read by the majority of the tech community. I'm sure most people reading Slashdot don't even run linux. But the more articles there are about companies using linux, means its more likely that the readers of this site who don't run Linux will consider running it.
You seem to be forgetting that all combined the advertising power of all the linux companies is pathetic. Contrast that to the hundreds of millions that Microsoft can spend on not only traditional print, radio, and tv ads, but also on paid salesman who go company to company making sure your using windows.
Somehow I don't think a little PR on Slashdot, who btw is a big believer in linux in case you forgot, hurts anyone. In fact its good for the community and the more "migration stories" the better.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch