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Linux Desktop Migration Cookbook from IBM
almondjoy writes "I was project leader for publication of this recent IBM Redbook, available for free download here: Linux Client Migration Cookbook: A Practical Planning and Implementation Guide for Migrating to Desktop Linux. At this point, I'm gathering input for what we could improve on, and what additional topics should be covered in a second version of the book. I realize this is a broad topic to cover in a rapidly changing environment. And because these books are developed by IBM there are some content limitations. Nonetheless, in the next version we want to continue making the book as useful as possible for anyone considering a migration to Linux on the desktop."
A quick scan of it shows that it's relativly simple (It had pictures!). And seemed easy to understand. But it seems a bit too much for the average user. I mean it feels a bit like preaching to the choir. The guide will be most popular among people that already have the ability and desire to move to linux, not necesarily the average joe who is dipping his feet in the water to explore.
Just a boy doing unproffesional IT work that's way above his head.
"I'd like to see IBM endorse the Linux desktop as a solution"
By selling off their desktop business they've dodged the bullet of having to spend their own resources supporting Linux on the desktop. Now they get paid to do so on someone else's hardware.
Because they want you to pay them to MANAGE your infrastructure, not sell Microsoft licenses for boxes they make 2% profit on.
Smart move that Novell, Red Hat and others are starting to figure out...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
The huge impediment for us implementing a Linux or Solaris-based thin client system has been the relatively crappy support for media streaming (primarily ISMA-compliant MPEG-4). Yes, there are lots of MPEG tools, but most of these are libraries, command line tools (essentially for ripping/stealing content), or "players" that lack any sort of polish, instead prefering to have "sci fi" interfaces or such nonsense.
There is already a suitable alternative to the Windows desktop: Mac OS X. They get the whole media concept right.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
The greatest impediment to migration remains the level of IT knowledge in the prospective user base. My superiors make their decisions based on information (and mis-information) given to them by Microsoft based vendors.
There exists a compelling need to build the Lnux market (and awareness) within the educational community at all levels- if the book can tell not just an IT person, but also a non-IT person why Linux is truly a compelling choice, migration will make more and more sense. Students working on a Linux desktop will become the corporate users.
So, any treatment of the subject would be enhanced by an awareness that the younger users will become the older users.
I've got a cadre of students who have moved from Windows onto OpenBSD for educational purposes, and they are rapidly becoming advocates of open source and alternative desktop choices.
Don't forget that education is an enterprise as well, often deploying thousands of desktops.
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
IBM selling its PC Division isn't about its position as a PC vendor in the USA. Its about their position as a PC vendor in China. A market with over 1.6 Billion people, that has recently signed a Free Trade Zone agreement with some neighbouring countries that comes into effect in 2010. Its about IBM positioning itself to sell to 50% of the world population whereas Dell is just USA. You ever read The Economist?
Sorry, directed comment:
This is all nice and well, IBM, but what's really a sticking point for my workplace is the fact that there's no native Lotus Notes client for Linux. So far, IBM's solution for Notes is to run it under WINE.
I actually *despise* Notes. As a Notes developer I met said "It's great for lots of stuff, but email isn't one of them." Unfortunately, that's how most corporations I know of use it.
So, until I can convince the powers that be that Notes royally stinks, I'm afraid, we're stuck using it. Which means that we're stuck with Windows, 'cause they won't go for WINE either.
So, IBM, if you're listening, it sure would be nice to have a native Notes client.
I find this astonishing, especially since Codeweavers product provides excellent compatibility for MS Office and other Windows applications. Maybe this is what the author was referring to when he said "...there are some content limitations"?
180 user Law firm with:
.NET-based web time-entry interface that absolutely, positively requires IE.
Large vertical-market accounting system (Elite) with
Word using Interwoven Desksite Content Management System. Call me when an Open Source CMS can intercept OpenOffice File-Save and File-Open to present a metadata profile dialog or folder structure that assigns metadata based on the folder in which the document is stored. No frickin uploads.
Anything else could probably run in Wine.
There is an effort to put together a Law firm Distribution (LAWnix) but right now it's just picking the best pieces.
I would suspect more than a few companies are in this situation.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I'm all for Linux but I'm interested in knowing what sort of things other companies are finding that are preventing them from switching.
What makes this question such a stinker is that it usually isn't the big, common things that are the show stoppers, it's myriad little things.
In my case, I can think of a couple off the top of my head. For one, the availability of a Nortel VPN client. Now, I know there's actually a Nortel client available, but my shop is already paying a flat fee for the Windows client. If they want the Linux client as well, they have to pay extra. Therefore, their position is that Linux is unsupported. Then there's the fact that there are a number of Access databases that we use, and nobody's in a big hurry to migrate them to something else. And of course, there's all the specialized, obscure little applications that create data in various proprietary formats, with no Linux version available from the vendor, and not of sufficiently large an audience that anyone in the open source community is going to be bothered to write an equivalent.
I'd say that the big things, office suites, etc., Linux already has. But it's the little, obscure, PITA applications that have evolved within the Windows ecosystem throughout the years that can't be easily replaced.
Now, the NUL RPMs that IBM distribute internally are not produced by Wine developers. They are (as far as I'm aware) not produced by the Lotus Notes team either. They're simply a skunkworks project that some dudes hacked together - good for them, but the difference between a product made by a company of Wine experts and the NUL RPMs is significant.
I have personally got Notes installed here, and our bug database has remarkably few issues with it. The primary ones are with complex databases that embed Java - effectively you're running two apps at once here, one inside the other. The other issue is that you need 6.5.1 not 6.5.0, although if somebody was keen the issue preventing 6.5.0 from working is probably not too hard to fix (if you know C and want to work on it, let me know).
IBM don't talk about Wine generally, although nobody is really sure why not. In general they are remarkably vague about it, typically citing "legal issues" - it's so vague, in fact, that you could argue it amounts to (dare I say it) little more than FUD. In fact, in its 10+ year history the Wine project has never been made aware of any patents that it infringes (though I imagine some exist on the grounds that all non-trivial software infringes some patents), and as Jeremy White has pointed out elsewhere in this story, a convicted monopolist cannot use patent lawsuits to restrict the competition anyway.
As to why they take this stance, your guess is as good as mine. Lawyer paranoia, seeing the OS/2 Windows compatibility as a scapegoat for its failure, or [insert conspiracy theory here] - whatever the reason, such a glaring ommission from this Red Book does not do the Linux community any favours.
This is especially true as there are simply so many apps out there that are not migratable: eg the bazillion and one custom Visual Basic apps out there that either cannot or will not be rewritten in a portable framework. Even web apps can have serious portability issues, these cannot be addressed over night, and some will never be addressed. Think how many banks still use software written in COBOL, for instance.
IBM is a company that develops software. Independents, putting together a similar guide, could say things like 'Postgre SQL is a stable, enterprise ready database that is available for free', but if IBM said that, it could hurt DB2 sales.