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Moving to the Linux Business Desktop
M. Gagné, a writer for The Linux Journal, does not assume you're going to use any specific distro for Linux. He gives instructions and examples for the most common ones: Fedora (Red Hat), Mandrake, SUSE, Debian, etc. KDE is the primary desktop, but GNOME is covered fairly well, too. I have to admit that, as a long-time Red Hat user, I was well entrenched in the GNOME world. However, after reading Marcel's book, I've make KDE my default environment, and I've been very happy with it.
This book is broken up into three major parts: Getting to Know Linux, Administration and Deployment, and The Linux Business Desktop. Each part is packed with information in an easy-to-follow format. In fact, I found it hard to just read and not fire up my Linux to follow along.
Part One (Getting to Know Linux) covers the essentials of installing Linux and customizing your desktop. As I remarked earlier, Marcel covers multiple distros. He includes instructions on how to install using Mandrake, Fedora Core 1, and SUSE. For those of you who just can't wipe Windows from your hard drive completely, M. Gagné covers setting up a dual-boot environment clearly enough that you will be able to have the best of both worlds.
The second part (Administration and Deployment) assists in setting up a fully functional business environment. In Chapter 7 (Installing New Applications), Marcel covers the various installation programs available across the distros. SUSE's YaST2 installer, Mandrake's urpmi, Kpackage (from the K Desktop Environment), rpm (the shell program), dpkg (Debian's package manager) and apt-get are all covered. In addition, he gives a clearly written explanation of how to build from source (The Extract and Build Five-Step -- page 124) that dispels any anxiety a newbie to Linux might have.
The next chapter covers the device support in Linux. When I started using Linux, device support was spotty at best. Now it's tremendously improved. Marcel shows you the basic of Linux's support. He then goes on to explain about network and Internet connections. Unfortunately, there is one major piece of errata in this area of the book. During his explanation of the difference between Class A, B, and C IP addresses, the information for class A was inadvertantly switched with the class C info. I've been informed that the errata is corrected on his website (www.marcelgagne.com) and in future editions of the book. Outside of that one unfortunate error, the rest of the book is pretty clean.
Later chapters dig into the topics of Backup and Restore (the most important and most underutilized functions), printing, email, web servers, file sharing (both Windows-like with Samba and Unix-like with NFS), thin clients (server-side and client-side) and desktop remote control. He even includes a chapter on installing and configuring LDAP (something rarely written about, but becoming more and more important).
The third and final part of the book covers the usual business applications. Email, arguably the "killer app" for office environments, is addressed first. Focusing on KDE, Kmail gets the lion's share of the coverage, with Evolution following behind. Desktop organizers come next, with Korganizer the favorite and Evolution (again!) nipping at Korganizer's heels.
The web-browsing chapter focuses on Konquerer, KDE's jack-of-all-trades application, and Mozilla. Most notably, significant coverage is given in the next three chapters to OpenOffice and its basic applications Writer, Calc, and Impress. For working with images, digital cameras and USB scanners are covered, with The GIMP as the preferred image editor. On-demand contact via instant messaging and video conferencing rounds out this marvelous book. Kopete and GAIM are discussed in depth for the IM arena, and GnomeMeeting for the VC work.
As with most Linux books, a CD is supplied. However, this book does not give you a specific distro for installation. Instead, Marcel chose to include a branded copy of Knoppix, the CD-bootable Linux. The idea is to let you play around with the various aspects of Linux using Knoppix before committing yourself to the actual installation.
All in all, this is a valuable book, covering most of the areas a business user wants to address. Notably lacking was coverage on how to try to run Windows applications under Linux. At the top of the review, I mentioned I keep trying to steer away from Windows as much as I can. Unfortunately, I usually have a couple of applications that I need but don't come in a Linux version. Even though VMWare, Win4Lin, and Wine were mentioned briefly, I would have liked to have read some examples of running a Windows application using them. In addition, the major snafu with the IP address space marred an otherwise excellent book.
You can purchase Moving To the Linux Business Desktop from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Has he dropped his annoying French chef schtick? Or is it all "Good morning, monseiur! Zo, we are perhaps interested in sampling ze business desktop of linux, are we? We have several tasty items on ze menu today!"
However, this book does not give you a specific distro for installation. Instead, Marcel chose to include a branded copy of Knoppix, the CD-bootable Linux.
So it is giving you a specific distro to play around with: it's giving you Debian GNU/Linux. In fact, you can do a HD install of it and have a fully functional Debian system with OO.o, Moz, and other things installed fairly quickly.
Our IT folks made the time to get a Linux business productivity system in place (in parallel to their regular support of 2K/XP) so they could 1) demonstrate it to people (the compatibilities and the look and feel) and 2) package it up so our non-IT folks could be set up and supported easily. And re-set up when they broke something. If you hire IT people who actually like what they do, it makes this kind of thing a lot easier. Most of our departments are still MS, but the ones that have switched like it and aren't going back.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
...this book does not give you a specific distro for installation. Instead, Marcel chose to include a branded copy of Knoppix, the CD-bootable Linux
No specific distro? Knoppix is a specific distro (based on Debian) which can be installed on a hard drive! Last I heard, all you had to do was type knx-hdinstall at a prompt, but that may have changed since I used it.
I have used a linux workstation for work since 1999. I have noticed vast improvements since redhat 5.2. I now run redhat 9.0 and love the openoffice apps as well as xine which had to be added after install. I have always felt linux was ready for the office, I now feel linux is ready for the home.
Yes, but not everyone has everything they need right there. In my company it is almost impossible since we have windows only software that we can't port, or use wine for (believe me I've tried) This is for the banking industry. So until there is a way to make that work, I've done what most places have done, put linux in the server room.
Sure, Linux can work fine as a business desktop for those who want to use it as such. What about the working stiff's in the accounting / secretarial pool that could care less, know enough Windows 2K/XP to get the job done and would need a 2 week special high intensity training course for dummies to learn where all their new tools are? These are people who would rather be fishing or watching the soaps, secretly despise having to work at all in an office, dream of winning the lottery, and resist change or having to learn something different, worry about being able to transfer these skills to other offices that are likely Windows based, etc.
Just playing Bill's advocate here.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I think that this is one of the better reviews I've read on /. lately. Lots of good info on what to expect and not expect and what's covered and not covered. Makes me want to spend some of my hard earned SAF (Spousal Approval Factor) points and check this out myself.
When I'm feeling down, I like to whistle. It makes the neighbor's dog run to the end of his chain and gag himself.
There are tons of books on sex, and those gaps get filled every night.
Well, I've been in a similar situation.
:-)
However, the department I was in was almost entirely into *nix development, but we would have to do some kinda stuff related to Windows from time to time.
We also learnt that it's quite useful for you to have some kinda virtual machine like VMWare on your box, to boot into alternate OSes. Really really useful.
And the problem is that it's really hard being in the development industry with only Linux -- sooner or later, you're going to run into some client who'd ask you for development on the Windows platform. And it's not as simple as saying, sorry, we don't do Windows
The book sounds like a good resource, I'll take a look at it at Borders this week. I just did my first Linux install, ever, last night on a spare computer I had here at home. I ended up using Ubuntu, which is a Debian flavor distro. It works really, really well. I was surprised that it found the shared resources on the MS workgroup on the wired/wireless LAN here at home. I would like to find a good book to help me understand Linux, from a decidedly beginner starting point. So, when I look at this one I'll flip through some others. Suggestions are welcomed.
http://www.busyweather.com/
The problem with using Linux when the people you work for generally use Windows is, of course, being compatible with them. Linux has come a long way in this regard: OpenOffice reads Word documents flawlessly; gnumeric reads Excel spreadsheets; Ximian Evolution is the perfect replacement for Outlook; etc.
.ppt files in PowerPoint, so it's really only a probablem if you need to import something from another machine.
:p)
The one business application that isn't so well worked out is PowerPoint. OpenOffice's Impress is wonderful by itself, but it doesn't do so good with reading Microsoft generated powerpoints, especially with fancy stuff in them. I had to give a presentation recently on what my team did for the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge, and I had to transfer the presentation to some long-outdated Mac powerbook to work with it because OpenOffice would just freeze when I tried to read the file.
On the otherhand, I haven't had any trouble reading OpenOffice
But otherwise, I don't see any advantage windows affords. I mean, if I have critical data on my machine, the number one issue for me is going to be stability, which is not one of windows' strongpoints. (And no, Rome Total War is not a business application.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
The people you call working stiffs certainly wouldn't need a 2 week special high intensity training, that's just ridiculous.
You make it sound as if a secretary typing letters all day in MS Word would need to go through a boot camp from hell in order to be able to do the same in Writer and that is simply laughable.
Funny that you mention Gagné's book, because my friend relied on it to switch his small buisness over to linux. After using it to aid him through his quest away from the world of windows, he has become a very satisfied linux user. So far hes saved over $2k by switching to linux from windows 2000. He and I are working to get his apache server up now for his new website. :)
"The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever..."
At home, where there isn't a system administrator to take responsibility for everything, something like OSX might make more sense for some people. For a business large enough to have that fulltime system administrator, it seems hard to justify not going with Linux.
See what I've been reading.
Yea, unfortunately we can't afford to buy 200 copies of vmware, plus the os licenses, plus the fact half the people would be clueless as to what they were doing. Maybe one of these days....
Come to think of it, I believe the problem is rooted in two fundamental beliefs of the open-source world. Number one: "Release early, release often" -- personally, I prefer to focus on productivity, rather than on backward compatibility issues. Number two: "Don't tell us what to develop, or how to develop it" -- sure, but if you don't develop software that addresses unmet needs of the business world then business will look elsewhere.
I give up. Is it still possible to find laser printers that don't have HP PCL6 or PostScript interpreters?
I can't remember the last time I saw printer that couldn't handle one of PCL and PostScript.
You seem to have confused "laser printer" with "cheap inkjet printer". I've never had a problem with a laser printer not working on Linux.
Most businesses I've seen use networked HP Laserjet printers for their laser printing. These printers are just about as standard (and Linux-compatible) as you can get. No drivers (other than a network card driver which you should already have) necessary.
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
hat about the working stiff's in the accounting / secretarial pool that could care less
That's so 1990s... I work with banks (deal with the network security) and one after another of my clients have switched to thin-client desktops where all they need is a compliant browser. Imagine their surprise when I showed them instead of that brand new $800 Wyse unit, or $1200 Dell PC, a Linux thin client did the same job and actually used the old Windows PC they were planning to throw away (actually, most PAY people to take them, secure wipe the drive, etc.)
Banking apps, finance apps, etc. are increasingly going web-based for interface. Those that aren't are losing interest in the financial circles.
Linux does just fine - actually, I'm concerned Microsoft won't be able to match the value and their thin-client inherits the nightmare of IE and its security issues.
This sounds like a rehash of his previous book, Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye.
Which wasn't a bad book. But, I don't like people milking something by putting a slight editorial slant on it "for business" and making a new book out of it. Still, I'll have to check it out. I need a good book to give to people switching to Linux and this one, because it is newer and hopefully improved with feedback from readers, should be better than the previous one.
until you do realize you can't print to the latest laser printer your boss bought because it's simply not supported by any driver on linux
Run that one by me again. You're saying that after going to the hassle of Linux migration the IT deprtment isn't going to spend the 1 minute required to heck if the new printer they would like to buy is supported?
And then ignoring that issue for a minute - you said "laser printer". I think you're confused. It's the inexpensive home desktop inkjet printers that don't work with Linux. Pretty much all laser printers speak either PostScript (which any UNIX based OS has zero issues with, no extra drivers of any kind required) or PCL which again Linux has no problems with. I dare you to find any decent laser printer that doesn't work flawlessly immediately with Linux.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Any laser printer that doesn't support a sensible set of printing protocols (postscript, for example) does not belong in an office. It's fairly hard to find one, but if you're looking for something that will be absolutely no use to anyone, look no further than the Epson Acculaser C900. One of our clients bought one of these for their accounts office, where they have a high printload. Once they realise how much it would cost them, they sent it into the MD's office (which does very little) and replaced it with one of these. Since then, the Epson has broken down twice.
Kindly recommend to your boss that any money saved by buying cheap GDI printers is lost very quickly in maintenance and consumables.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
I'd be careful where you use that word. I'm an advocate of OOffice, but it does have its downfalls.
:(.
Open Office does not read word documents flawlessly. That I can attest to, for sure. Where I work, we discussed the possibility of switching over to open office, but the reasoning behind getting skrewed out of even more money from MS (alot more), was because ooffice did not convert doc and xls files correctly.
This wonderful suite is very unfortunately, not compatible enough to be used in a corporate situation
Codito, ergo sum.
Let's not forget, te focus here is "business desktops". Not "development desktops". That means we need 100% interoperability with a variety of MS document formats, including:
- Word
- Excel
- PowerPoint
- Project
Word and Excel are mostly there, but PPT is iffy, and I'm not aware of anything for the OSS desktop that is 100% (or even close to that) interoperable with Ms. Project. If someone can point me to solutoins to those two problems (PowerPoint, Project), especially if there are free or reasonably priced, well supported versions for both Linux and OSX, we'd be down to 3 WIndows users within a week (from 10-12).
A quick search on google gave me this one which looks helpful.
I know I bought a printer about 5-6 years ago that was the same thing built by somebody else (Sony I think?). It used a SourceGear driver. The ghostscript guys said they'd actively write a driver for it's language because they were such nice printers. Unfortunately, they never released the specs, and the printer line died shortly there after. It actively advertised that is did "PostScript", but the problem, was it did PostScript in software, not hardware.
I believe we have two 3500 series color laserjets that don't do PostScript, or PCL that anyone around here can figure out. We can use Samba to queue from them from Linux, but you have to use the Windows drivers. It uses "JetReady" according to the specs on the HP website.
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/1897 2-236251-236268-15077-f51-315862.html
That is a decent printer, and it doesn't work with Linux at all. Let alone immediatly or flawlessly. What do I get for successfully completely the dare?
Oh, and you can't say it's not a decent printer because it doesn't do PCL or PostScript, that's cheating. So yes, you still actually have to read the specifications to see if they will work with Linux. Our Admin wasn't paying attention. I normally wouldn't either, because it was an HP printer. They have always done PCL in hardware. However, a friend of mine warned me after picking up a 1012 not too long ago to be on the lookout.
Kirby
It is the HP printer that doesn't have Linux listed as on the web page. They do mention Linux as being supported on most of the rest of their hardware.
The 1012 might work, however, I know that the 3500's don't work. They use a propriatary JetReady language that I haven't seen anyone say they can use.
Even more curious the 1012 lists the printer language as "Host Based", which generally means it's a one that is software based on the driver. So I'm highly curious what driver the software used. You can normally print text to them even if they don't support anything else. However, generally you can't print anything that isn't a flat text document. So does it do graphics and all that? Even the 3500 I can get to print text from Linux, however, it's printing raw postscript last I saw it.
I sure don't see the 1012 listed on my printer configuration when I try and configure my printer via RedHat's printtool. However, that doesn't mean you can't get it to work. The HP 1000 series says that it uses a non-standard printer driver. So I might be wrong it might work as a stand in.
Kirby
Can you do the fancy stuff like toggle duplex printing (printing on both sides of the sheet) and change the print quality? I find I can do basic printing from Linux to most printers, but can't normally change many of the printers' print settings.
creation science book
As I discovered from switching parts of our company over to linux, Linux for Business, is largely a human problem.
There are basically 2 types of people in my company: there are those, when presented with all the facts and numbers that Linux will save us a lot of money, still insist that they want to hold on to their Windows machine, even if it means they need to start maintaining their own laptops. And then there are those simply and don't care one way or the other what OS we use (or don't know the difference).
I still get some users that come to me and complain: "I am a Windows guy, what is this Linux machine doing on my desk?" To which I now reply: "Your boss told me to put it there." These are usually users who are comfortable of running their own Windows machines at home, and they feel like I have yanked them out of their comfort zone by putting them on an unfamiliar desktop.
The hardest part was perhaps getting some of the managers to support the idea. In fact, none of our managers like the idea of switching to an "inferior" OS, but our Chief Financial Officer loved the idea that he can cut loose tens of thousands of dollars in Windows licenses per year, so he gave us full support.
Recently I sat with my CIO for a little chat re: possibilities of moving our 1000+ desktops from Windows to Linux. Being in a law firm, we made a checklist of apps that our users would not be able to function without. The regular document-churning and groupware apps were easy to replace (OpenOffice, Evolution and such), but when we got to time and billing (currently using Carpe Diem) and document management (DOCSOpen) we couldn't find anything comparable on Linux side. The concensus was that we are not quite there yet - 2-3 years down the road, maybe, but not right now, at least not for the company of our size.
that ldap would be central to this book. How are you going to manage user accounts with linux desktops without it? One could still use NIS (which is easier), but that doesn't play too nice with windows. With samba/ldap/linux combo, you can truly have a multi protocol auth server with everything stored in a directory. What does the author reccomend as an authentication system?
the main issues to me with linux desktops are:
* authentication system (needs to be cross platform), meaning pam and ldap
* automounter (for roving home dirs, etc)
* nfs
You says everything was "server oriented" but that's how it should be - if your linux desktop isn't centrally managed you're doing it wrong.
I think Marcel's books are inspiring and I buy and read them, and act on them. Recommended!
Having said that, my company is a good example of Marcel's target. We are small (100 people in 4 countries) and techie (we have competent and motivated Linux techs, managed by me, a CTO who likes Linux). And yet we have not rolled out large numbers of Linux desktops.
Why not?
1 - User resistance. Cries and shouts from users and "We do not have time for that now" from techs. I think this is a simple one to overcome and that is my task - management needed.
2 - Apps. Our accountants use Quickbooks. Graphics guys use Photoshop. And so on. This is the real killer.
The OS is solid, Security is great - better than Windows. The only problem is that while 90% of the apps are fine - OpenOffice is perfect; media players can be installed and they work - the remaining 10% are showstoppers for 80% of the people.
Take me as a typical business example. Look at my laptop. Follow me from A to Z: My apps are:
- Various Canon digital photo apps for my 20D camera. Digial Photo Professional and the CR2 reader. No alternative: I need a Windows PC.
- CorelDraw - I guess I could find an OSS alternative... not as good but just about doable.
- iPod software: perhaps there are OSS alternatives but if so I doubt they are very good, and in any case they will need much time to get them working.
- Mozilla: OK in LInux too
- OpenOffice: same!
- Nero: alternatives available
- PGP: same
- Photoshop: no alternative at all. Photoshop is not available under Linux and nothing else comes close in the photography world.
- Quicktime: I imagine I can read Quicktime files in Linux, probably; no big deal anyway really.
- Ixdirect CRM: can run under Wine if we put our minds to it.
- MSN messenger: alternatives and clients available in Linux.
- Realplayer: can I play Real media in Linux? No idea but I imagine perhaps so?
- Outlook Express; no problem.
So, Photoshop (please do not suggest Gimp comes even remotely close!) and the Canon software and maybe the iPod software - that is all - but all that is a real showstopper. As long as there is no Photoshop for Linux I will not move my laptop.
And 80% of my company have some such killer app that runs only on Linux.
That's where we are. If the US court had shown some balls and forced MS to spilt OS from apps, by now we would have had Office for Linux and hence also all the other apps for Linux. Since they had no such balls, we will be in this limbo-land for years to come. Pity.
I wil get on and move the 20% (e.,g. helpdesk staff, shipping staff), anyway...
Michael
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
In any reasonably complex windows environment you can't switch cold turkey (or completely) to a Linux desktop.
Here is an part of a report I made on the subject:
Linux Desktop Server
I have been running Linux on my desktop for the last two years and have enjoyed the added flexibility ever since. It combines the features you're familiar with on Windows and Macintosh as well as adding several of its own to the mix. Check the "Linux Desktop Features" sidebar for details.
You will get the power of the Linux Desktop as well as keep the application availability of Windows.
The Linux desktop includes all of the benefits available with the Citrix Windows Application Server with some additional features mentioned below.
I've been using an OSS program called VNC (Virtual Network Computing) that allows you to control a computer remotely over the network. It runs on Windows, Macintosh and Linux. On Windows and Macintosh, VNC only allows you to remotely control one desktop per machine. But on Linux, you can remote control one or several separate desktops over the network and easily handle one desktop for each user from one or several servers.
VNC also allows users to move from one computer to another, open their Linux Desktop on the network and use the same programs right where they left off.
Upgrades only needing to be performed on the server. This reduces costs in new equipment, and time required to manage the software installed.
With all of these advantages, there are some disadvantages. The Linux Desktop runs Linux programs best (running Windows programs on the Linux Desktop is best left to a future project).
There are programs that do not have replacements yet under Linux. So far the list is small: Filemaker, Mas90 and Attendance Enterprise. There is a solution though - continue running them under windows!
Linux Desktop Features
All of the Linux features mentioned below are included standard, are absolutely free and open source.
Linux can have multiple desktops (each with their own applications) on the same screen and switch between them with the click of a mouse or press of a keyboard combination. You can also move application windows between the desktops or put one on all desktops at once.
OpenOffice fully supports Word and Excel files. It has most of the features available in Word and Excel, and some additional features such as "Type Ahead" and standard "Export to PDF". The only hindrance is the current minimal support for RTF, which excludes it from Letter Art work..
The GIMP has most of the features of Photoshop (including all that are needed by Match Mail) and supports PSD, TIFF, JPEG, PNG, GIF and several other formats.
PostScript and PDF are native formats on the Linux platform. The PDF format is an Open Standard like PostScript and there are replacements for Acrobat under Linux.
Linux supports Windows TrueType, Macintosh Type1 and Postscript Fonts.
There are several development languages available such as C, C++, Perl, Python, Borne Shell, and many others that can be used for data processing, database integration, graphical programs and more. Also, there are several command line and graphical development environments available.
Upgrade Linux applications while they're still running. To use the new version, simply close the program and open it again. You can't do that under Windows, and that is one of the reasons why you have to restart a Windows machine after running some upgrades. Though, that isn't the only reason.
There are very few reasons to reboot a Linux server. Here are a few situations where a Linux server would not need to be rebooted: Install Software, Uninstall Software, Change network settings, add network services, install application security updates. All of these would require rebooting under windows. This means less downtime and higher up times. Basically, unless there is a problem in the kernel (the heart of
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
I have a law office, and our largest challenge is translating heavily formatted legal documents between different word processors.
:)
As a result, I run XP Pro so that I can run emergency versions of Word and WordPerfect.
That said, I am very pleased to report that my primary office suite is Open Office. My brother helped me create a template with pleading lines, and all of my legal forms and correspondence are created using Open Office. Its terrific!
Firefox is my browser, Thunderbird is my mail client and I have Knoppix for data recovery in the event of crashes.
I've searched for a long time, but I've never found any reference on a bookshelf, on the web or anywhere else that devoted sufficient attention to translating, creating and formatting legal forms with Open Office or rescuing formatting disasters when documents created with Word or WordPerfect have to be translated into Open Office format. I have to create my forms from plain text format and then add all of the formatting. It may not sound hard, but trust me, its a nightmare.
There are also problems related to proprietary case management software and accounting packages that are necessary to a law practice but which don't play as well as is desirable with the Open Office Suite, Linux or Firefox. I use Gavel & Gown Amicus Attorney at work, and I cannot find a viable open source substitute for it. I keep trying to convince my brother to write one, but apparently that would be an enormous project.
If these problems were adequately addressed, I believe that many lawyers would gladly give up their licensing fees and switch to Linux and Open Office.
I'm laughing at clouds.