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Linux for Non-Profits?
Glowing Fish asks: "I am volunteering for a non-profit that is currently in the process of giving away grants of systems (some using Linux and some without an OS) to various non-profit organizations. One of the problems is that many of these organizations have a somewhat skewed version of what they need, thinking they need Pentium IV systems with 100s of megs of RAM with Windows XP installed. I have been given the job of politely explaining that for most non-profit organizations, it is not necessary to have this type of computing power. What is the best (and politest) way to explain to people that they don't really need this type of computing investment? Without Microsoft-bashing, how would you explain the ever spiraling relationship between RAM and OS bloat? What type of systems would you suggest to a non-profit organization for office work, and why?"
Arg. You beat me to that line.
And you are absolutely correct.
We get a lot of kit in from our small business customers at the end of a hardware cycle. Instead of just dumping them, we renew them and the company gets a charitable write off.
I remember one group that was real particular about what was donated. Today, they still only have one machine in their office. They turned down a series of PIII machines in excellent shape.
Their loss.
In today's world, a light office only requires a nice linux install and open office.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
Non-profits need to get the maximum amount of their money into doing what they do : if other solutions are better (Mac/Custom Hardware/Playstation) for their work they should get those.
Bear in mind that non-profits may rely on volunteer computer support, who are likely to be less adept at linux or other OSS than Windows. Plus if you force unsuitable things on people they will hate it.
If I were you (parent) I would get people to bid for computer roles - EG - Office desktop machine, accounts computer, fileserver, webbrowser. Allocate them virtual credit and tell them they can have 4 machines with XP on p4 3.2GHZ's or they can have 20 linux machines with OOo, webbrowsing etc etc.
Simply show them a lowish spec machine setup the way you would configure it and let them play with it for a bit. Explain the lack of cost - this normally gets people's attention.
Unlike most of the other posters here, I work for a non-profit as sysadmin and have for several years.
Here are some comments.
First, the cost of scrounging for parts and fixing up and mucking about and getting your time wasted with older machines is quite often more than the cost of just bloody buying a new one. A new Pentium wazoo with all the bells and whistles costs maybe, what, 500 Dollars? If you go for a slightly older machine such as a 1Ghz Duron or Celeron you can get a powerhouse for half that which is pretty OK, but which does not have wear and tear on the harddisks, which has enough space and which will not self-destruct from heat fatigue next week. And is under warranty, which comes in handy when it does blow up.
Yes, Staroffice or whatever runs OK on a 500Mhz Pentium III. But that same second-hand Pentium III is going to have an old harddisk which is going to croak sometimes. Older machines are finicky about the RAM they take. Try to make it work with a USB scanner is going to cause more fuss than its worth.
Most non-profits have a LOT of interaction with funding agencies and such things. These people ALL use Word. In such a case your staff will balk (legitimately) if your office program is "pretty OK" with interoperating with Word. After OpenOffice f^Hmucked up a document for for the third time (even only slightly) when it got passed around to someone in some agency with Word it really gets pretty damn annoying for both you and the guy who decides if you get the money or not.
Non-profits do publications and presentations and such. Someone mentioned Gimp. Gimp is a toy. If you want to real publications you need a vector drawing program and page layout program anyways. Despite Scribus, the only choices here are Quark (mucho expensive) and Indesign (pretty expensive, but cheper than Quark, but not used outside very much. See interaction with others above). Photoshop blows Gimp out of the water over and again and Photoshop Elements is a damn fine program and not expensive at all.
Another problem is that, unlike a corporation, a non-profit's gifts tend to be a rather, em, interesting mix of several different kinds of machines with different parts and makes which makes maintenance a problem.
Linux does have a good role to play for servers though. All our servers run it and its really better than Windoze at working on older computers.
A super fast machine at a non-profit does have a use for machines that gets shared by several users, such as a fileserver.
So, basically, giving older machines to non-profits is a nice gesture but the extra maintenance and effort to keep a bunch of old somewhat cranky machines with hard-to get parts that do not always play nice with modern equipment is something to keep in mind. The cost of keeping admin staff to maintain is probably not worth it.
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The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Get one high-quality, reasonably-fast server box. Maybe two, if you've got the cash. Install a good UPS, RAID array, and backup drive (tape, CD-R, whatever). That box will run server daemons for POP/IMAP, NFS/SMB (for home directories), and whatever web-based business apps (timecard system, issue tracker, whatever) they need.
Then, accept whatever client systems you can get that will boot from CD with at least SVGA graphics support, and run everything as a "thick" client. Rip out the hard drives, or use them for little more than swap, browser cache, and tempfiles. When a client machine dies, don't troubleshoot it, just replace it with another one from the pile in the closet. Depending on the size of the office and resource requirements of the apps they use,
Yes, the whole system takes some setup. Once it gets running, though, the whole system should require about as much maintenance as your average web server. And the client systems are completely disposable.