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Linux Desktop Myths Examined
Call Me Black Cloud writes "NewsFactor Network has an overview of the $95.00 Gartner report titled, "Myths of Linux on the Desktop". It's a good look at several points from the perspective of a corporate user, not a home user."
Hype about Linux on the desktop is increasing, according to Gartner's recent study, "Myths of Linux on the Desktop." The goal of the research was to enable enterprises to be objective in understanding the benefits of the Linux OS on the desktop, separating open-source fact from fiction.
... and most current vendors do not charge less for a Linux user than a Windows user."
... we believe Linux users will feel forced to move to newer releases of Linux just as Windows users feel forced to upgrade to new versions of Windows."
"I want to stress that I didn't mean to be negative about Linux," Gartner analyst Michael Silver, the report's author, told NewsFactor. Linux's appropriateness for any given population has a lot to do with the specifics of each business' environment and its architectures of applications in use, he said.
To understand the real benefits, enterprises need to realize that some common assertions will prove to be myths, Silver says.
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Myth: Linux Will Be Less Expensive
Many Linux proponents argue that using Linux instead of Windows saves a substantial chunk of change because StarOffice/OpenOffice.org then can be used instead of Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Office.
"This is a bad argument," says Silver, because "StarOffice and OpenOffice.org can run fine on Windows." He noted that if users believe they will save money running StarOffice instead of Microsoft Office, they can run it on their current version of Windows without spending a fortune to migrate all of their applications to a new platform.
Myth: Linux Is Free
"Supported versions of Linux are not free," Silver notes. Consumer versions of Linux are basically free, but "enterprises that require vendor support for their client OS will need to pay for it." While these costs may work out to be less than the cost of a Windows license and support, they need to be understood.
Many free, open-source applications ship with Linux distributions, but Silver raises this question: Are they the applications the enterprise needs? "Thus far, we have not heard of open-source movements to replace large enterprise resource planning systems
Myth: Linux Means No Forced Upgrades
"Many users complain that Microsoft forces them to upgrade to newer releases of Windows," Silver wrote. "However, we believe that things will not be that much different in a Linux environment."
Linux vendors only support their consumer releases (and free distributions) for a maximum of two years, Silver noted.
"Linux independent software vendors realize that they cannot support their products on every version of Linux that has or will ever ship," the report says. "So while there will always be the option of support from the open source community
Myth: Linux Management Is Easier
Significant reductions in staffing are not likely to be achieved "simply by switching OSes without changing policies, lockdown or the degree of management tool implementation," according to Silver.
He notes that from a software break/fix perspective, many support calls are due to users doing something that misconfigures their system.
He expects Linux to have a slight edge over Windows for three reasons: 1) the existence of fewer viruses targeting Linux desktops; 2) fewer problems caused by conflicting applications; and 3) difficulty of understanding and repairing the Window registry. Since Linux is purely file-based, administrators may be able to troubleshoot application problems more easily.
Myth: Linux Has a Lower TCO
Management tools have been available for Windows for years, Silver observed, but many enterprises still have not been able to manage their Windows environment. This has often been due to too much complexity, lack of sufficient policies or standards, or cultural and political issues, according to Silver.
If this is true with Windows, "we see little reason to believe that the cultural or political issues will ch
Actually as of Windows Server 2003 and IIS5 IIS can (and does as default on 2003) run as an unprivilidged account. Also no executable addons are enabled by default (in fact IIS isn't even installed by default, what a nice change!). It may take time but MS is moving towards more sane defaults. In fact the other great evil in the MS world, Outlook has sane defaults with Outlook XP. It will take time before the installed base moves to these newer offerings but that can hardly be blamed on MS. Redhat for years took deserved flak for shipping with tons of services enabled that very few users needed, they finally wised up but it took a long time and a lot of customer concern to reach that goal. And finally ACL's are FAR superior to tradition style Unix permissions for locking down the box, if you want to go command line in windows use the resource kit, they have security auditing tools and command line ACL viewers.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.