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Bridging Unix and Windows At NASA
slashdotess writes "Information Week reports: "About a year ago, Patrick McCartney, a Johnson Center project manager, created a Linux desktop environment that could also run government-mandated Microsoft apps. This let his team of 30 engineers continue to program in a Unixlike environment and create Word documents and Outlook E-mail all on the same PC. This mixed-use scenario is slowly taking hold, encouraged by a growing number of applications for running Linux on PC desktops." Score another one for Linux on the Desktop."
This article can be summed up in one sentence: The Johnson Center's IT team installed CrossOver Office from CodeWeavers Inc. on McCartney's PCs to give the engineers access to a variety of open-source and Microsoft Office apps.
Bottom line: They didn't do anything special.
Is this just an example of it's implementation or have they added something new?
Nothing personal, but if you look in the extras for AOTC, you'll see plenty of interviews with ILM employees who worked on AOTC, sometimes they're demonstrating bits and pieces of AOTC.
Pay close attention to the hardware in the background. Quite often it isn't a Windows system or a Linux system. It's a Mac.
ILM does a lot of work on Macs, no matter what the geeks and/or press monkeys may say (it's fab to talk up Linux, unfashionable to mention Macs).
Ouch. I've found this especially useful for office installs (link below) - basically it is a custom script that will not only install on first run but if some random asinine problem happens will look for a network share of office and grab the files necassary. even works if the people delete their entire office install:
l t. asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/office/office2000/dep loy/depopt/wiofc2k.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/defau
Schools and business are 2 totally different institutions. Not trying to down you, Woogie, but computers used in a school system and a business are not the same. Give ya a good example:
Computers go down at the Board of Education. People can't access budget, students grades, or profile records. Wait until the system comes back up or is restored from backup. It's just annoying since there are no REALLY necessary deadlines outside of payroll.
Computers go down at the office. Sales can't work on/give presentations to clients, customer information can't be retrieved (think ISP or Credit card processor), or quarterly reports can't be completed for stockholders/banks. This can cost a company a TON of money, clients could leave to find another place of business, etc. (Imagine needing the IRS to look up your information to make sure your extension was filed lest you be fined/go to jail.)
Keep in mind, swapping an office or group of offices takes a TON of time. Normally there are a number of in-house applications that would have to be re-written AND heavily tested before they could be implemented (think of the MEGS of VB source that would have to be ported to perl/php/java). In the gov't, MOST applications are custom-written, many by contracted companies, so the gov't doesn't necessarily have the source to it. Then there is retraining of employees to use the new office/email applications, and the meer re-install of EVERYone's machines from Win to Linux where you hope that all the needed hardware is supported (which has gotten SO much better in the past 3 years.)
It's a daunting task, and can be VERY costly in man-hours to do such a task. If nothing else, the down-time upon switching over and the performance curve while everyone learns the new applications.
I agree in the sense that I'd LOVE to see M$ no longer in the gov't offices, but I also realize what it would entail to switch everything over.
-What have you contributed lately?