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Desktop Linux Mass Migration

Posted by Zonk on from the mooooo dept.

Rob writes "With many Linux vendors attempting to push the open source operating system as a desktop alternative to Windows, Computer Business Review reports on Novell's migration to Linux on the desktop. From the article: 'Changing any mission-critical technology is a daunting task, and despite the growing maturity of Linux as a desktop operating system, it is little wonder that the vast majority of businesses are sticking with Windows.'"

4 of 456 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Devuce drivers by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 4, Informative

    Already been solved. Try a nice, recent Linux distribution like Fedora Core 3/4 or Knoppix or SuSE 9 with good autodetection. Running Fedora 3, and even with lots of oddball hardware, the only thing that failed to detect properly was my free webcam from Comcast. Lots of other USB webcams, digital cameras, my Epson C66 printer, various pointing devices, DVD+RW drive, USB flash drives, etc., were all automatically detected and installed.

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    My blog
  2. I'm surprised more haven't switched by Ritz_Just_Ritz · · Score: 4, Informative

    Most office drones that I know and work with seem to have rather simple needs on their business PC. They use Word for documents, Excel for spreadsheets, Outlook for email and IE for surfing the Web.

    As long as those programs work and the navigation is similar to Windows, they're happy. The fact that they don't have to worry about virus infections, spyware, random crashes is a bonus.

    From the CIO standpoint, it's a win (as long as all your core applications work and people can transition easily to the new "look and feel." The CIO/CFO are now off the forced upgrade merry-go-round each time Microsoft decides to foist "upgrades" on their customers.

    I have converted my company to the following:
    CentOS 3 (clone of RHEL 3)
    OpenOffice
    Thunderbird for email
    Firefox for web browsing

    We have a few people with Compaq presario laptops that didn't seem to mix well with Linux (driver issues) so we're swapping in Linux friendly notebooks and donating the Compaq units to charity. The tax credit for the charitable donation makes the purchase of the new notebooks pretty much a wash. We also had to punt a couple of printers and replace them with Linux friendly postscript networked printers. That was rather painless and surprisingly cheap. (Again, we donated them to charity and took the tax credit.)

    The next step is to migrate all our servers off of Win2K server. That includes office file servers and web servers. We migrated mail and DNS to Linux a few years ago so that will be a painless move (to CentOS). So every system in the company will be running the same OS and we'll maintain our own internal yum repository to keep things in sync and up to date.

    Prior to this, we were probably spending a few hundred thousand dollars a year just in software licensing fees. The IT folks are pretty happy about the change since it makes their life easier in terms of support (we sent the entire group for "RH linux certification" as an incentive to be good sports about the change. After some initial grumbling from the hard core MCSE guys, the overall mood seems to be one of relief...both from the "guys on the ground" and from the "guys who pay the bills."

    Cheers,

  3. Did anyone RTFA? by Linegod · · Score: 4, Informative
    I know this is /. and no one RTFA, but the 'executive summary' at the top doesn't match the content of the article.

    It summarizes the article with "despite the growing maturity of Linux as a desktop operating system, it is little wonder that the vast majority of businesses are sticking with Windows." and then provides two examples.

    The first states "Novell had made savings of $900,000 on Microsoft Windows and Office licences as well as maintenance costs from the move." and "A voluntary migration also saw the company beat its goal to get 50% of users onto Linux by the end of October 2004." and the second says ""We came to the conclusion that our requirements are really only met by a commercial distributor" - that commercial distribution being RedHat.

    How the fuck did any of this get spun as 'vast majority of businesses are sticking with Windows'?

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  4. WPA by UncleRage · · Score: 4, Informative

    3 answers ;)

    1. Ubuntu does provide a build of wpasuplicant (latest version is 0.3.8, I believe), which provides WPA support.

    2. When I have them. I picked up a lot of Thinkpad X21's (700 MHz PIII's) and a handful of NC4200's (1.8 GHz P4 Compaq subs). I'm down to the last of the 4200's right now and am searching for my next supply. Regardless of the OS installed (Linux or Windows), any laptop we sell is ready for war flight.

    3. Not really. Our website is sorely out of date and doesn't currenty handle any commerce. I'm just beginning to focus on sales. If I can move another 5 to 10 units as quickly as this last lot... I'll look into the whitebook market. At this time, it's primarily EOL and rebuilding for local clients.

    However, if you'd like some help moving in the right direction... I'd be more than happy to offer any assistance I can. Pop me an email at serviceATcompletepcDOTbiz.

    Funny thing about all this... I just spent nearly an hour on the phone Friday w/ MS propoganda division. The nice lady on the other end of the phone was trying to make sure I had all the information I needed to help convert any Mac and any Linux clients over. Everytime I look at my MS Action Pack, I get a wee shiver down my spine. But I suppose it's good to have one foot in the shadows... if for no other reason than to bring it up on ./ ;)

    Nice site, btw. Love the "Got Evil" bags. Might have to pick one up for my wife.

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    #SickNotWeak