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10 Years of Pushing For Linux — and Giving Up
boyko.at.netqos writes "Jim Sampson at Network Performance Daily writes about his attempts over a decade to get Linux working in a business/enterprise environment, but each time, he says, something critical just didn't work, and eventually, he just gave up. The article caps with his attempts to use Ubuntu Edgy Eft — only to find a bug that still prevented him from doing work." Quoting: "For the next ten years, I would go off and on back to this thought: I wanted to support the Open Source community, and to use Linux, but every time, the reality was that Linux just was not ready... Over the last six years, I've tried periodically to get Linux working in the enterprise, thinking, logically, that things must have improved. But every time, something — sometimes something very basic — prevented me from doing what I needed to do in Linux."
Your frustrations aren't unique.
In fact, I've experienced them both at home and at work with Linux.
But I would like to point out that some of the problems you faced (like integration with MS Exchange server) are simply Microsoft not wanting to release/support/adapt to standards. I know you're not directly blaming the Linux community for your (and the seemingly global) failure in adopting it but what is putting a real big halt on it in the corporate environment is companies working against it. Maybe this will change but I highly doubt it.
The shortcomings that Linux suffers are a result of poor design. Poor design of third party devices, software & services. If all the wireless card manufacturers got together and agreed on a interoperable adapter interface to their cards, it would mean that the OS developers would just need to write one other side for ever driver of every wireless card to work. The problem is that if they opened this up, they perceive their competitors would grow stronger by seeing their research. I suppose something could be said about this hampering innovation or removing the option to continually change chipsets in the search for the cheaper/better hardware, I don't know enough about wireless cards. But one would think everyone could agree on some interface to use. This is apparently a good design practice but poor business move.
I reiterate that you are not alone in your frustration. You didn't fail to adopt Linux, Linux didn't fail to meet your needs, it was the entire community and their business practices that failed you.
My work here is dung.
Judging by his picture on the article, I think he's got bigger things to worry about...(like changing photographers!)
ilovegeorgebush
Oh please. Yea, no support in Linux for Exchange, wow, newsflash, I am stunned. Transitioning from Office to StarOffice is a bitch, yup, been there. Linux doesn't work just like Windows, hate to break it to people, you have to be able to adapt.
If you're serious about using Linux, and you absolutely have to have Exchange and MS Office, you need to come to terms with running those applications in a terminal services environment...Or, (for Exchange) if you're a cheapskate, just use the Exchange web interface that fricking comes with Exchange! It doesn't look as good in Firefox as it does in IE, but if you're doing it on a shoestring, that's what you get, and it is feature complete.
Expecting WINE to make Linux run MS programs identically to Windows is never goign to happen. Depending on WINE to be super stable and reliable in a deployment environment is a mistake, so don't do it. Spend a little money to get the tools to do it right, or don't try and do it at all. And if you try to do it without the tools or the skills to make them work, don't whine about it. We fricking know it's difficult to intergrate Windows apps on Linux machines...If anyone could do it, there wouldn't be Windows anymore.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I am sure there will be Hundreds of comments saying. Well if he tried this it would work, or I did it where I am and it works fine, Get rid of Microsoft Something and replace it with GNU Something then it will work better, or do you really need that feature....
But let's face the truth. Beyond running as a server of some sort where it does one thing and does it will, Linux just stinks and most of the community doesn't want to admit there is a problem and let alone fix it. There is an attitude that it is the Users aka Customers fault for any problem that occurs, and the program is perfect unless a "Skilled" hacker was able to break your application and find a security problem.
This attitude has limited Linux's growth. Let's face it, Companies actually want to migrate to Linux and get off all the problems with Microsoft but they are not going to go 10 years back in technology and loose features they come to enjoy. As well if they will have trouble communicating with other companies who don't have their infrastructure then they won't switch. IT is Information Technology, INFORMATION... is the key if they can't share Information then the Technology is useless. So if they can't run all their old apps there is a loss in information, If they cannot access a shared information location then it is loss of information, If they cannot figure out how to use the application and get the information they want then there is a loss of Information. If the Linux solution has bad or missing document (or missing Information) then it is useless.
Most companies are not willing to change everything all at once if they can't have a gradual migration then they wont go with that product set. We need more developers for Linux and Linux applications who openly say Linux Sucks, that way we can get better tools especially for business use. But right now the majority of the OSS developers are like Linux is Coolest and most noble system on earth. So how do you improve on the godly system if in your mind it is already perfect.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That guy is funny looking.
Badass Resumes
does he run Linux?
This guy was pushing Linux for a decade and decided to give up today, a just a few days after Vista announcement? Give me a break
It works for me.
But, then again, my users aren't exactly "power users", if you know what I mean. Give 'em a locked down desktop with email, web, and desktop publishing (OOo), and they're fine.
I never could make VMS or BeOS play nice with MS Exchange Server or get pixel-per-pixel compatability with Powerpoint either. Clearly the fault of VMS and BeOS. Nothing to do with Microsoft's changing formats every twenty minutes to prevent compatability.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
They always fail to mention that Management refuses to let the project actually work by letting go of exchange servers and this uncanny belief that you HAVE TO HAVE ACTIVE DIRECTORY OR WE WILL ALL DIE! Truth is that active directory is overrated and better solutions exist for linux, Exchange is not any better than other solutions, etc....
Many companies were able to switch when they got buy in and support from management to do so. You HAVE To replace your infrastructure and backend way before you replace the fontend. Then you can slowly change what people see and touch. It's a lot of work to pry microsoft from your server rooms.
The best solution is to not let it in to begin with or not allow it to touch anything new.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Buy two Vista(tm) Operating System upgrades, get one Jar Jar action figure for half-price.
you'll come back...
From the "article":
I hate to use such strong language, but this guy is a total retard.
How is this news, exactly? This is like me taking a fine American car to UK and complaining that the car sucks because I have to drive on the other side of the road!
how many years have story titles like "Is linux ready for mainstream?" or "the Year linux breaks through!" or "Linux penetrating desktop market!"
hasn't happened yet and, despite popular opinion around here, it ain't gonna happen in the near future either.
linux is an inferior product for the masses, regardless of your favorite flavor.
Well cry me a river. Big bizz wants Linux in the server room and guess what: it is kicking ass down there. I've got Mandriva for email and webbanking without using 75% of my CPU on anti virus crap an guess what: it works. But my kids want to play Shockwave games on the net, so they get their own Windows trashcan(TM) to slowly fill up with parasites. And trust me, PHB is going to complain when he gets a "serious business email" with Flash content and it doesn't play. So no, it is not ready for the desktop and it will not be until MS and Macromedia decide so.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Ever since 1994 I've been saying, "Linux isn't ready today, but it will be in about 5 years." How is it that linux always stays about 5 years behind commercial offerings such as MacOSX and Windows?
One can argue that linux is far superior to Windows or MacOSX to just about anyone and how they have their grandma using linux, but the reality is that without someone totally tech savvy sitting there behind this "grandma" and practically doing everything for her, she wouldn't be using it. I guarantee the stories about "grandma" using linux are begin with, "I put my grandma's computer together and installed linux for her and set it all up perfect for her. She uses it no problem."
Give me a story where grandma bought a computer and installed linux and has it running for a few years without any problems, then we'll talk.
I suppose that all IT departments at companies that run Windows are just sitting on their thumbs, doing nothing, then?!
There is no silver bullet. Running a Microsoft OS (or even an Apple OS) doesn't magically make everything work. There will still be things that don't work right - it'll just be different things.
Your computer is a tool. If it doesn't do what you need, then fine; get a different tool. But for many businesses, the appropriate tool *is* linux, and it does the job well. Please don't presume to be the voice of everyman.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Well, duh.
The problems he ran in to are well known and well documented. The article makes about as much sense as the periodic Linux fanboi who bitches about not being able to play Ogg Vorbis on his iPod. Why'd you buy it then, bozo?
hang brain.
The who point of Linux is that you have the source and can fix anything yourself, unless you simply aren't skilled enough to fix it. I've altered the source of drivers, compiled kernels for smaller footprints, altered scripts, updated libs and many other customizations to get linux to work. With windows, if it don't work, you're forced to spend money.
If you RTFA, you see that his problems are a Microsoft environment at work that required seamless exchange of MS DOC formats and MS Exchange. Since MS does not open those formats, the applications under Linux are not 100% compatible with the proprietary MS environment. So he gave up.
/.
While his decision is probably OK for his MS centric environment, it does by no means mean that Linux is somehow at fault. So, no news.
Short: His blog entry is superfluous and was for no good reason reflected at
Wait a minute... this guy is bitching about exchange and enterprise support and then goes and complains when he uses free as in beer distro like ubuntu whoses focus is not that... Dude the guy should have gotten Novell or Red Hat linux instead then someone would have helped him. Hell ubuntu isn't even that great of a Desktop distro lacking the maturity of Suse, Mandriva or Fedora... hell it doesn't even have a control panel....
Dumb. Bordering on flamebait.
/. are getting tired. I liked it when articles were on something resembling reporting, and not random people complaining and submitters/editors going "hey, that's about Linux, and we have a couple wacky category icons with penguins..."
Wherever the author says "business/enterprise/IT environment", he forgets a critical proper noun: he means "Microsoft-centric business/enterprise/IT environment".
Author Gripe #1: Ancient (1998) StarOffice sucked at Word/PowerPoint files.
Author Gripe #2: In 2004, nothing played with Exchange, and "you can't function" without Exchange.
Author Gripe #3: In 2006, one version of Evolution on one distro didn't have a "subscribe" button for Exchange Server public folders.
Author Solution: Give up on Linux.
Okay... Note that none of the above have much to do with Linux. And I don't mean to be a "omg it's userspace, not the kernel" zealotroll, but really. His gripes are in two apps. The last gripe is particularly weak; I'm not knowledgeable if the problem is fixed in Evolution (or if it's even a bug), but what is potentially "there are missing buttons" does not "Linux unprepared for the enterprise environment!!!" make.
On an unrelated note (and I don't mean this as ad hominim or anything, just curious), is this site anything more than a NetQoS company blog? These kinds of posts hitting
In other words: "I blame Linux, because the company I work for is too lazy, or too stubborn, or just plain too stupid to use standard-compliant software , instead of being a Microsoft-only shop". Yeah, right. Microsoft Excel and Power Point and Word run into all kind of problems when you try to use their files under Open Office. That's not a surprise, it's a Microsoft policy and it is exactly designed to lock the competition (Linux or others) out. And, guess what? It works!
A little bit like the poor South Koreans that used Windows for everything and are now stuck with a new OS (Microsoft Vista) that is incompatible with the ActiveX encryption utilities that are used by... well, 90%+ of the population.
What this article reveals (beyond the obvious FUD) is precisely that Linux is not the problem: Microsoft is the problem, as well as its closed standards and its closed filed formats . End of story.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Open source operating system has problems inter-operating with closed, constantly changing, standards-free, and hostile proprietary system.
Alert the blogosphere!
I mean, I feel for the guy trying to get Linux to work in a Microsoft-only environment, but this isn't exactly surprising, at all. Hell, Microsoft has problems getting their own software (Entourage in Office Mac) working with Exchange. The answer is to never use Exchange in the first place. If you're already locked into Exchange and its feature set as a driving force within your business, you're going to have to suck up and deal, or go through the pain of a switchover to something that's reasonably open. I've got the same problem with a client which is a marketing department of a large Netware based company, and the marketing people all use Macs exclusively, and the Novell Mac client is too buggy to use, forcing them to install VirtualPC on their machines so they can to basic e-mail and scheduling stuff. Costly, you bet, especially in my time because of how buggy it all is, and the idiotic design flaws of their network, but they can't just switch over because they're locked in to Netware after years of use, and they're paying for that shortsighted decision. However, it's still cheaper than dealing with the upheaval of switching from Netware to something reasonable.
and release a version of Office/Outlook which runs on a linux box in a lot fewer words.
After all, freaking High School kids can release code packaged for Linux. Should we really believe MSFT doesn't have the chops to get the job done?
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
Trying to chase MS through their Office releases, remaining completely compatable to a proprietary format is a fool's errand. This guy should have realized this way beforehand.
Linux, or any heterogeneous OS environment, works well when the data travels on an open protocol, not some convoluted, broken document format. MS does great work with their products, don't get me wrong, and I have a lot of respect for the Office suite. However, If they don't want people to use it without Windows, then don't chase it. It's just easier to work the psychology of the workers and convince them to use a different standard.
Any what's with that photo?! Did someone just mash his face backwards to fit in the frame?
It's quite funny because he only shows how Microsoft products aren't ready for the business...
.doc for anything else internal documentation where everyone has the same MS Office version, but use .rtf instead. .doc isn't even interoperable between MS platforms (which Office version has the other guy ?)
Face it, you can use a mixed environment, like Mac OS with Linux with FreeBSD with HP-UX with Solaris with... except MS-Windows than is unable (well, unwilling) to interoperate.
BTW, the concern with word documents is quite cheap. I never send
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Over the last year I've been moving between Windows, OS X on a Powerbook, and a relatively recent SUSE install on a PC.
The truth is that each of them has shortcomings. The good news I guess is that most of these are irritating, not fatal.
Windows IMHO is not a long term option because of the creeping DRM and the obsessive control of the computing environment that MS seems to want. Frankly I have this horrible feeling that Vista will open a can of worms that will never end.
OS X just has too many irritating or dumb features, or lack thereof, that drive me around the bend. I'm not talking about things that are different from Windows, I'm talking about boneheaded design and UI mistakes that no-one in Mac land seems to be willing to admit are a problem.
Linux, well at this point for me it works 90% out of the box, much better than a few years ago, but that last 10% can be a nightmare. As always with Linux, if it works it's lovely, but if it doesn't you're off into that hell of MAN pages and web forums, filled with half answers, slightly incorrect assumptions, and Linux arrogance.
I'm weary of tinkering with computers. I just want to turn it on and have it do what I want easily and without irritation. And I want to be able to TURN OFF "features" that annoy me.
No OS does that yet.
Three Squirrels
This article clearly points out what so many people have had trouble with-- for years now. A lot of people do not want to embrace the monopoly of Microsoft. Yet with Linux you can't really get your work done without a lot of knowledge and sweat. It's ain't easy. And to make things worse, Linux distro's customize their GUI's to look and behave like their major competitor-- Windows! I find this amusing and ironic.
I look to my own empirical evidence: Of 7 software engineers (people traditionally unlikely to consider an alternative OS for development), 5 have purchased a MacBook Pro. Of my close social group of friends, only 2 out of 10+ have a Mac.
People who want something simple buy a mac. Now, people that also want to install multiple OS's (Linux, Windows, OS X) also buy a Mac.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
No, he doesn't have to adapt.
This is a capitalistic society--Linux variants need to adapt or die. Not the customers.
Either they have to provide the functionality needed to communicate with the software in question, or they have to provide a suitable replacement with a good migration capability. Good, consistent user interfaces is a plus.
Demanding that the *customer* adapt is just silly and a good way to make sure that linux remains marginal.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
The Open Source community can develop BSD and/or Linux and associated applications until the cows come home to roost, but Microsoft and their products will never go away. There will always be people using Windows, Office, and whatever. Try as one might, true interoperability will be difficult until Microsoft cares to participate in the effort.
At present, Microsoft is part of the problem, not the solution. They don't care if Open Source software succeeds and have no desire to help.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I can admin, program and integrate both platforms and exploit the advantages of both.
"Those who are limited to a single platform or language will always be limited"
Got Code?
Personally I've found with corporate networks especially that it's never good to be all of one thing in particular. Linux is best (in my opinion) at performing discrete tasks incredibly well - for example, storage (using lvm in particular), web (Apache), Internet caching & proxying, but as for operating top-to-bottom tasks such as managing numerous workstation and user policies, I'm afraid Windows wins it - the instant integration built-in to Windows is incredible.
I can plug in any Windows 2000 and upward PC into the network I manage, and within minutes, it'll be fully patched, have all the software we need installed, and be fully locked-down & generally configured (company screen-saver, explorer bar and such things) - all without actually touching it.
But I digress, my point really is that there are few cases where a network is running well without a mix of technology. Running one without the other is a bad idea if you ask me.
throw new NoSignatureException();
I wonder how his car runs, since obviously his whole family buys nothing but Fords and he insists on putting Dodge parts in there. I bet Dodge has gotten real tired of hearing him kvetch about how their perfectly functional air filter for a Dodge Magnum won't go into his Ford Focus without using duct tape, or how when he tried to put the seats from a Caravan into an Astro, it didn't quite fit right, or how even that someone had posted instructions on how install a Dodge factory Radio into his Ford, but when he does, the retractable antenna doesn't work. I mean, pretty soon he'll prolly give up on Dodge parts for his Ford vehicles altogether!!!
Yup. The obvious inference is that Dodge makes the worst cars in the world, since their parts won't fit into a Ford...
Yes, it has several compatibility problems, but to write an article with such heavy statements is quite absurd.
To this guy the business world is "MS world". This is the mistake, not using this or that or trying this or that. If everyone starts thinking like this Linux will become just a pathetic "Windows wannabe".
I'd love to see what would happen if everyone was using Linux and he tried to "be part of the shiny big business world blah blah blah" with a Windows 3.11 for Workgroups in his laptop.
Conclusion? This is just Yet Another Poor Article Depicting Linux.
Er Galvão Abbott - IT Consultant and Developer
Linux has also failed, over the past decade, to make a GUI that the average* person can actually use. I have been most disappointed.
* Average =! anyone who is reading this on slashdot.
-tid242
With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and with science. --Carl Sagan
I don't get blanket statements like this. As if there isn't buggy software for MacOS or Windows.
... um office and MSVC as being "more" productive. But the point is Linux == Kernel, it's not the distro or desktop. Maybe this guy hates KDE, but that doesn't preclude Gnome or icewm or wm from being suitable, maybe he hates OpenOffice where Abiword would be a better fit...
But i daily use Gnome, OpenOffice, tetex, gcc, etc. I can't imagine sitting here to use Windows, Office,
Go buy Vista than you hater!
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
The lack of a Windows sticker on the box is the only incompatibility it takes to get the pointy-haired-boss to turn thumbs down on any plan.
That's just the facts. Nothing you can do about it.
This whole discussion is wrong. Instead of talking how badly Linux integrates with a single non-Linux application called Exchange, we should be discussing the scandal that a corporate giant like Microsoft still can't make their mail/calendar server function in a hybrid environment. That would be rather easier to fix, for instance by releasing specs.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
I use Thunderbird to access my email at work, and I'm assuming that's on an Exchange server. Sunbird can do calendar sharing, just not with Exchange (and I haven't tried with Evolution lately) -- plus, there are web-based solutions. So, the email itself is a known and solved problem, if we have decent IMAP support. The calendar/scheduling stuff may require a different infrastructure -- but keep in mind, this is a lot like having the open office suite (which took a LOT of work) -- Microsoft hasn't given us any specs, therefore we can't really do this. And we'd much rather do it in a better way anyway.
Also, what do you mean by "Push email" and "mobile operators"?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Heh, I've been handling and doing what he's not succeeded at for the better part of 8 years now in various, largely MS-only, shops. If I weren't needing to work on both Windows and Linux drivers (mostly Windows support right at the moment- heh, my boss missed that little detail when I signed on for this contract...) I'd be doing it right now. It's not hard to do, really. In most cases, they don't even KNOW you're not using a 2000/XP machine- it's that seamless. A properly set up Exchange server can be talked with by Evolution- without ANY issues. OpenOffice handles everything but "fancy" stuff from MS Office, and it's very debatable that someone actually NEEDS to use that stuff. For the rest, the vertical apps, etc. there's WINE and CrossOver- and they work rather nicely.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
You are blaming the wrong people for Linux's problem. You tried to use StarOffice/OpenOffice to read MS Office files and you converted back and forth. Even back then you should have known that OpenOffice was available for Windows, and, had your Windows users started using it, then you would have had no issues.
Same deal with Exchange. It's a proprietary server written by Microsoft that is designed to work with Outlook. If you wanted access to public folders, have the Exchange admin turn on NNTP access to public folders and get to them that way.
What is comes down to in the end is not that Linux is not Enterprise friendly. It's that your corporate environment is not Linux friendly.
You would have had the same issues getting a Macintosh working in that environment.
Now, I understand that not all IT people have the power and control that I have and they are saddled with what their company offers them. But that's no reflection on Linux. If there is an application that you MUST have on your desktop to get work done and it only runs on Windows, then by all means use Windows. But again, don't blame Linux for restrictions that come from your software vendor or market segment. Hell, if there were a professional job that required you to play the latest and greatest PC games, you'd be an idiot to say "I'd use Linux here at work if it didn't suck so much". You can't fault companies who don't develop for Linux because they are concerned about their bottom line. But you also can't fault Linux because those companies chose their financial destiny vs. a potential darkhorse.
From TFA: I purchased third-party provided connectors into Exchange, and ran Office-type applications as well.
I would say that's his first mistake. I suspect he's talking about Ximian Gnome's Evolution and OpenOffice.org. Evolution is a nice application, but it's not the best way to go if you live in an Exchange shop. You'd be better off using RDP or Citrix to publish the app from a server and having a thin client app on your Linux desktop. Or, you could at the very least access Outlook Web Agent using IE in Wine, a virtual machine or again via RDP or Citrix. OpenOffice.org? Hard for me to say as I have little use for Office software. When I use OpenOffice.org 2.0, it "just works" for me in terms of opening documents. I don't really have much need to edit them, so I don't know of the woes of conversion. But... again, I'd suggest, CrossOver Office, virtualization of a Windows machine or RDP/Citrix. These work for me as the need arises.
One thing I question in all of this is why people seem so averse to virtualization? It's the perfect solution especially with the new hardware assistance in new CPUs (AMD's Pacifica and Intel's Vanderpool). I used virtualization since VMWare came out in 97/98, moved to QEMU circa 2004 and then Xen in 2005. Outside of gaming, virtualization is perfect. It allows you access to all applications you would need for most businesses. If you are truly in an enterprise situation then it's likely that you have VLK for Windows XP anyway... so installing Windows in a VM shouldn't be a licensing issue either. And in terms of performance, with hardware assistance and Xen, you can get close to 99% of the bare metal speed. Not to mention that unlike older virtualization technologies, your virtualized OS IS running on the metal for the most part. It's NOT running within another OS at all. Reread that last line so it sinks in. I repeat, with virtualization software like Xen and hardware assisted virtualization, your "guest" OS is running NEXT TO and NOT on top of the managing OS instance.
Since the performance is there, and true enterprises use VLK for Windows desktop, why not use virtualization for that small handful of apps you really need? Or remote desktop/Citrix? Unless you're trying to run some really niche market visualization software that requires 3D acceleration, or you're in multimedia content production, Linux has been ready for the desktop for close to a decade.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
This guy isn't looking for Linux, he's in search of a free microsoft windows clone (and office suite). Sorry dude, that's not what Linux is.
Half his gripe with Linux is interoperability issues. He's obviously never used Windows, I see...
For one, you can't assign tasks. I'm sure there are a host of other differences as well.
I think the point of the article is that there is no serious effort within the Linux community to provide a real replacement for enterprise-level communication software. It's a chicken-and-egg problem - no one is going to beta test something like that instead of spending some money and going to work with Windows Server 2003 (or the Leopard server, if it delivers). And the people who are left to beta test are not going to know what the real customers need.
So far, Linux has succeeded as a server platform and for running custom software for companies with in-house talent. It's going to take a company with serious clout and funding to establish either Gnome or KDE as the desktop, and then build a true competitor to Microsoft Office that "just works" 99% of the time.
Those who can, do... those who can't, train... and his biggest problem is expecting Microsoft to play nice so none Microsoft applications can connect to Exchange Server...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
So basically this guy's complaint is that he couldn't get Linux desktop applications to work perfectly with MS Exchange and MS Word, two of Microsoft's most proprietary applications? It worked, just not perfectly. So he gave up.
It strikes me that you could substitute MacOS or any other OS except Windows in the guy's story and all of his complaints would still be accurate.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Grandma REQUIRES someone look at her Windows computer every six months. Grandma cannot reinstall Windows -- doesn't even know where to start.
And how is this different from Linux?
The issue(s) in the article are interoperability with Microsoft applications that are designed to prevent interoperability.
Since Microsoft has already forced me into a Linux/Unix infrastructure (read my other posts to determine how/why), I don't have those non-interop applications.
I then try to introduce Windows into an OPEN infrastructure. In my case, NIS, AUTOMOUNT (using NIS maps), NFS, DHCP. Windows does respect DHCP (although there are some strange issues), NFS has FINALLY been released with Vista, NIS can be supported (sort of). NIS for login? Its doable... but tough (I found instructions, but have not successfully implemented). AUTOMOUNT? Only if I write custom scripts (I figured out how, but it is tough, and I haven't ever actually had the time to implement the solution). In any case, it takes a lot of effort to incorporate XP into a "standard interop infrastructure". Vista is a bit better (given the NFS support).
And its not just Linux -- Solaris, HPUX, AIX as well. All of these Operating Environments interoperate, support POSIX, support X Windows, NFS, NIS, etc. How does Winodws fit it? It becomes a separate sub-network that talks to itself. Good for Microsoft, bad for me.
There is a solution specifically for Exchange; the web based access. It "jusrt works".
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Hrm. Microsoft server and enviroment, and amazingly enough linux doesn't work well with the microsoft specific services.
*headdesk*
You could easily replace 'Microsoft' and 'Linux' with any two technologies and this would hold. This doesn't mean 'Linux isn't ready for IT', it means 'IT depts running differnt stacks don't talk to eachother', which is nothing new. I can recall countless vendor-locks from the 70s and 80s where you buy company A's solution and amazingly enough it didn't work with company B's software.
This is kind of mincing words. The guy said Linux failed to meet his needs, because it didn't meet his needs. You don't need to take that away to still make your point about business practices.
His problem was that his goals were ill-fated. He didn't have a problem configuring drivers for wireless cards or anything like that (which you spoke about). He was trying to access Office documents and Exchange servers from a Linux environment. Now I don't know jack shit about OpenOffice or Evolution, but come on, Office and Exchange... could there be anything more Microsoft? It reeks of being a losing battle from the start. I'm sure I could start a flame war saying that, and the open source community is making great strides and everything, but what can you really expect?
This guy should give up on this ill-fated dream of Linux/Microsoft symbiosis, and just access the Microsoft crap from a cheap 5-year-old PC running Office XP. Sorry, but it's just practical. If he's a real geek, he can probably find another use for Linux in the work place, something it's better suited for and really excels at.
Out of curiosity, is there anything in the Windows world that can connect to an Exchange server and read Outlook folders, without using Outlook? Preferably without Outlook even being installed on the client machine.
I'm not in the Windows world enough to know.
If not, you're asking for something in the Linux world that doesn't exist in the Windows world, either: Non-Outlook Exchange connectivity. Framed this way, I think it's pretty clear that it's not "Linux's" fault for not having this; in fact it's a minor miracle that it has any Exchange functionality at all.
Hint: If you don't even have any options on Windows, it's probably not the OS's "fault".
Funny, that's how I feel about windows! :-)
I gave up on windows over 7 years ago. Haven't had the faintest desire to go back to that plague-filled, virus-magnet ladden, crap-filled, advertising billboard system ever again. Guess what, I've had lots of work to get done and it GETS DONE using linux. Work was never finished using windows machines due to breakdowns, blue-screens, endless corrupt backups, and defragging, for god's sake, amongst other things.
You can have your windows. Just don't EVER even think about disrupting linux.
Thank you very, very much.
MS is all about interoperability. Especially with Novell. No reason Evolution shouldn't work with exchange. Call your vendors.
Hmm. I rolled out Linux Corporate wide. The only problem I had was convincing the administration that a service contract is NOT Neccesary and that I'm better off with the Whitebox Kickstart server I built rather than DAMN REDHAT! I built Linux
database/application clusters, a sendmail server that outperformed Exchange. I substituted LDAP for the addressbook and wrote
my own damn fuzzy search so if some idiot can't spell a name correctly hell I can still list a user that has a name that sounds like what was typed. The problem with coporate deployments is because too many managing bean counters listen to FUD. All I say is wait until Vist get's crammed down everyone's throughs. I even refuse to upgrade my Mac G5 with dual a 970MP to OS/X 10.5 leapard.
I'm gonna leave it at 10.4.6. Why cause DRM shit is gonna lock up leapord up eventually. I've got code I wrote for my Linux and
G5 so I can mange my mpeg files on my IPOD. I can copy them off the ipod with no problem. That's gonna get locked on leapard.
I've got my Linux and OS/x hosts doing what I want. Now getting back to coporate. I've built clusters with Linux connected to
EMC storage Arrays that can keep up with IBM P5 systems. How do I know, my company that I worked for had an IBM Mainframe, An AS400, An 8 processor P5, and an Linux cluster that consisted of 6 Dell 6650's dor database, 12 2550's for application servers,
6 Concurrent managers, 2 configured in a cluster as a mail hub running GFS, 2 servers in a load balancer to offer IMAP, and POP
connections. The system screamed.
So, if any of you need consulting on the side, hell that's how you earn the big $$$ with Linux, drop me an email, maybe I can design a KILLER system on the side. I'm happy where I am now so I'm not moving. I get to play with P5 hardware, turning the
company on to Linux Cluster, educating to what DRM is actually all about.
So heck... Now you know why I call this guy a Mother Fudder, he don't know jack shit and it sounds like FUD to me.
Is quite often the GNU alternatives proposed aren't even close to being workable replacements. A good example is the classic GIMP/Photoshop thing. Anyone who's actually done prepress and played with both tools quickly finds that GIMP just won't cut it. It's neat, but you aren't going to replace PS. Yet all the time I see GIMP advocated as a replacement. I get the same thing with pro audio. I've asked, in all seriousness, for tools that can replace the expensive commercial tools like Cubase and Sonar. Invariably I get pointed to Audacity and Ardour. When I point out the massive flaws and shortcommings, I get yelled at, told to "fix it yourself the code is open", and so on.
Along those lines there's this idea that a major amount of effort should be considered acceptable for any task. If an alternative takes 50 hours to get done what the commercial package takes 1, well that's better because it's free! There's no consideration of valuation of time. You are a fool if you'd rather spend $50 than hours and hours of effort. Well of course that's not the case for many of us. I value my time and if you want to look at it in a dollar amount, I bill consulting at $100 an hour so it doesn't take much time to equal the cost of most software.
It's not that people always aren't willing to switch to a new tool/system, often they are, but it needs to offer them what their old system did. You can't present a half-assed solution and expect people to love you for it, even if it is free.
The fonts still look like crap on Linux. They might look fine at one point size, but change the point size it looks like crap again (regardless of the window manager and distribution). As strange as it sounds, the is always the first thing that keeps me going back to using a Windows desktop. If fonts on Linux looked as nice as they do on Windows or MacOS, I would probably use Linux on the desktop for basic tasks... web browsing, email, etc..
What, not smart enough to point his web browser at OWA?
Got Code?
Given that what he was using was a different version, maybe the act of checking or unchecking the public folders subscribed and unsubscribed? Novell has a distinct lack of documentation for 2.8 easily available on their website (shame on you Novell), so it's difficult to confirm, but this would be a logical feature to have.
Regardless, even if it didn't work, couldn't he just downgrade to 2.6? Or maybe find an IRC channel the devs hang out in and ask them directly? How about documentation released with the binary?
I don't know, I get the feeling the 'quitter' tag is appropriate here.
> I couldn't figure out, for the life of me, how to access those folders.
The guy appears to not know how to use checkboxes. Look at the dialog he includes in his screenshots: the dialog from Novell includes subscription buttons and checkboxes, while the dialog he was seeing only had checkboxes.
I think that likely the biggest obstacle Linux faces, as far as wide-scale adoption goes, is the fact that it is open source. Which is not to say that there is anything wrong, per se, with open source, just that it has its own set of problems, some completely different than those of proprietary software. As open source projects, each build is constantly a work in progress. Individual features and builds can be rated as 'stable,' but what exactly is the criteria for that, and who determines it? Not only that, that work in progress is being worked on by an indeterminate number of developers. While one person can easily troubleshoot their own code, when you start getting more and more people together, the task of squashing bugs becomes astronomical. (this is also likely one of Microsoft's problems...) In addition to that, accountability when something goes wrong is an issue (excepting cases like Red Hat); the relatively insignificant number of Linux 'flavors' that have support and accountability available essentially prevents most flavors from being even thought about in a corporate environment. Because of this, one of Linux' biggest advantages is essentially shot in the foot. I don't think its a lost cause by a long shot, but it's likely going to take a lot more work yet to get linux ready for mainstream use.
Exchange is a Microsoft product and Microsoft maintain their business by locking you into their platform. The idea that corporate IT equates to Exchange is bone-headed when there are other groupware applications. If Exchange integration is such a big deal then perhaps a handful of corporate IT departments could forego the next round of M$ upgrades and contribute the money to developing replacement software?
PEBKAC
Mixing up Linux and Linux-based application is a natural mistake ... but a mistake nevertheless
> Microsoft and their products will never go away. There will always be people using Windows, Office, and whatever.
I think that depends more on Microsoft not messing up than it does on the Open Source Community. Microsoft do make mistakes occasionally, and trying to cut down on piracy will kill them in the end.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
But I would like to point out that some of the problems you faced (like integration with MS Exchange server) are simply Microsoft not wanting to release/support/adapt to standards.
WARNING: LINUX FAULT THRESHOLD CROSSED
...We've just transitioned to using Scalix for our email and calendaring. It's got public folders, calendaring, email, push capability, nifty webmail client, Outlook Integation, Evolution Integration, and pretty soon CalDAV support so Mozilla Sunbird/Lightning and Apple iCal (in Mac OS X 10.5).
It's based on what used to be HP OpenMail, so has roughly a 20 year history. It's mature and well tested and not that expensive (compared to Exchange etc.).
I am NaN
We've been facing similar problems. We don't have an Exchange server, and it infuriates our Windows users. Half of our employees use OsX, and we are trying to stick to a solution that does not tie us to one certain "company". Well email is easy, but what about the calendar? How to get something that will sync with iCal, Sunbird, Outlook? Maby caldav will allow for something more usable then webdav, and allow for a solution that will really be able to compete with Exchange.
You can also test SMB related connections from a basic windows system with little work. On the other hand, to test against exchange requires an existing exchange server (to test client functionality against) and perhaps a configured exchange client (to test server replacements against). While pretty much anyone with a windows box might have networking to test, having an exchange server at one's fingertips is a little different.
It's a classic open source problem. The applications he needed were there. But they didn't work. They almost worked. That's typical of open source projects, where there's a strong tendency to get stuck at "version 0.9x". The big pieces work, but nobody has done the grunt work of cleaning up all the known defects, making the code and documentation agree, and testing for usability problems. Open source projects, even major ones, can be stuck at that point for years.
Now this is where all those companies that "resell" open source code, like Red Hat and Novell, should be working. The community should beat on them to finish the job. That's the price they pay for reselling free software.
I beg to differ. There is no solution that doesn't involve replacing both Outlook and Exchange, but the functionality has been available for some time. Exchange gets replaced with IMAP and SMTP (and gains the benefit of SSL/TLS encryption and SASL authentication in the process), a WebDAV folder for posting iCals (and gains the benefit of interoperating with MacOS in the process) and OpenLDAP for storing organization-wide contacts. Outlook gets replaced with Thunderbird (if you only need contacts and e-mail) or Evolution (for GNOME people) or Kontact (for the KDE folks).
I believe that's a complete replacement for both Outlook and Exchange, and I even added some nifty security features while I did so. Total cost is $0 for software, and about 2 hours of my time (at most) to set it up. That comes in comfortably under the cost of Exchange + Outlook, even if my time is worth $500/hr.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
For at least 4 years I've been using various flavours of Fedora and Red Hat Entprise in several large mission-critical commercial applications and also as desktop environments.
I've never had any significant issues, which from experience isn't true at all of any Microsoft products we'vetried as alternatives. They have repeatedly proved themselves to be of inferior quality and/or performance.
but I have been using it at home since 1995. It works just fine.
In 1995, linux was a real pain to get working properly. But in 1995, every OS was a real pain. I have never regretted taking the extra steps to learn linux. I learned more about Windows and Macs from switching to linux than I ever would have from staying on Windows or Mac. (particularly Mac)
If linux has no future, then why are the more respected colleges (like the one my wife is enrolled in) seriously teaching linux?
The way I look at this article is that Microsoft has just released another bloated version of an old OS and they want to continue to generate a revenue stream from it. Hence, here comes the FUD.
linux is just one of many tools of the devil
Just about every application that you can implement on Windows has some sort of equivalent on Linux, and usually more than one. The main issue is that Linux applications usually are harder to get up and running.
./configure;make; make install. That's when you find that you need a specific compiler to get the app running. Oh, and an extra set of libraries. And a specific kernel release.. And... and...
With Windows, usually you run setup.exe, click Next, Next, Next and you're sort-of-done. Basic functionality is up and running. Only when you want to get the real power from an application you'll need to start modifying settings, either through a GUI or sometimes by changing the registry.. That takes a considerable amount of knowledge, but you'll only need that knowledge when you need more that rock-bottom basic functionality
On Linux you need that knowledge upfront. You start with
It's more exception than rule that a large app works out of the box. It can be -made- to work with some knowledge, but it hardly ever does with a Next, Next, Next approach. As long as that doesn't change I don't think there will be wide-spread adaptation as a Windows server replacement.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Demanding that the *customer* adapt is just silly
And what, then, is Vista? To run it properly the customer needs to learn the new OS, the tech departments need to learn the new OS, etc. You get stuck with IE7. You get DRM up the arse. You need faster computers.
Yes, you could stay with XP, but it seems that by making newer DirectX (and likely others) for Vista only, Microsoft is already pushing the game towards requiring the big Vista "upgrade." Granted, newer DirectX is not big for most offices, but I've heard other stories about getting older versions of Word run on Vista, etc... so what happens when the company ends up with half the (new) computers running Vista and not having downward-compatible apps, and the rest running XP and not having new versions available for that OS?
Microsoft might not be vocally demanding that the customer adapt, but they're definately pushing it all the same, as they have in the past with their our-way-or-the-highway approaches to "standards" and other such things.
What a hack! Blaming the open source community for Microsoft's unwillingness to make integration easier is like me blaming Ford for not making their new diesel engines run on gasoline too. It is a stupid argument. Microsoft is under no obligation to make their products play well with competing applications. People vote with their wallets and as long as Microsoft has the lion share of the market, things will remain as they are. Linux has come a long way and is a breeze to run in the majority of situations. But I still can't find a decent Broadcom wireless driver. Is that the open source community's fault? I think not. I would love to run my SLED 10 box seamlessly on my corporate domain, but the reality is that because of my own troubles with MS Exchange, I cannot do it. I don't blame anyone, certainly not Novell, Redhat, or my company and I don't post whiney blogs on the web about it either. I put on my big boys clothes, go to work and not worry about it. Someday, someone will make the integration a cinch and then I will happily hang my linux box on the corporate network and go on about my work.
Oh yeah, and he does look funny...
I stopped reading RTFA the moment I have seen the sentence:
Shortly, another guy complaining that Linux as it turned out is NOT Windows. And it took him 10 years to reach the conclusion. Brilliant. Do we have "The Idiot of Decade" award ready for him?
Seriously speaking, new platform == new way of doing things. And if one problem with one particular application stops him from using the whole platform, I can conclude that he doesn't really want to use it. As if everything works well under Windows </thinking::wishful>
I can recommend him to ask M$ to release specifications for all IMAP extensions it had put into Exchange server. Plus all the undocumented Windows crap APIs they have for authentication. What?? M$ told to f*ck off??? Then please don't bug us either. Or alternatively use what you have at hand: postfix/sendmail/etc or Zimbra or PHPGroupWare or whatever fits your needs. But please stop whining that products from strategical competitors don't work. (It's actually "strategical competition" one way: FLOSS is seen by M$ as competitor, while FLOSS largely doesn't care about M$ since it (FLOSS) is not a software business.)
P.S. "And I've seen it before, and I'll see it again." -- Propellerheads, from "History Repeating".
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Excuse me, but... Didn't the genius that wrote that realize that clicking on the CHECKBOX in the SUBSCRIPTION window would subscribe and unsubscribe to folders?! I mean, why would you need subscribe and unsubscribe button if you already have the checkbox?
I would tend to agree with the points he brings up, but then I keep getting reminded about the City of Largo in Florida.
Six years ago I read about their linux terminal service project, in which the entire city was run using Linux apps like OpenOffice, Evolution, etc, and was blown away, thinking it was the future of Linux in the business world.
Time passed, and when this didn't happen I gradually forgot about it, until the city came up in a comment this week pointing to the lead admins blog on the new system they're putting in. Not only has Linux satisfying their business needs since 2001, but they're also adding cutting edge features like 3D desktops and all sorts of crazy features.
So how is it that this guy can claim that Linux has kept failing over and over again, when Largo has a dream Linux business system running right now?
Am I missing something here?
I used to work for a school district where cost cutting was one of the major issues, which led me to learn about Linux. We had a contract with Novell so naturally I worked with Suse which I was able to incorporate all aspects of my MS environment into and even made them look like they were running natively by using a citrix server. Well the IT manager said that the problem is we have to teach students how to be productive in the "real world" which means using MS products since that is what everyone in the real world uses, and said no more working with linux period. Then she went out and got a Macbook because she liked how the one her friend had looked, proceeded to bog us down with help requests to make the Mac work with our system, then approved a new linux server so she could use iFolder.
Linux is actually a bigger part of the "real world" than I or my former boss could have ever imagined. I was surprised when I was at a Lowes and saw the KDE desktop on the staff terminals. I'm also amazed at how many products actually run linux but since they are "closed" self contained systems the general public is unaware how much it is actually out there.
Linux is and isn't ready for the mainstream, depending what you want it to do. If you are just running general office, internet, email type of environments, it is probably ready but it is definitely an uphill battle. If you use specialized software like CAD, I don't see linux as an adequate solution.
I've completely switched to linux in my personal PC's and I function in the real world as normal as a linux user can. I've even found what I like to call the "linux loophole" where lots of open networks such as at the coffee shops, etc are so focused on blocking MS products that linux and open source such as firefox pass right through those filters that are blocking Windows and IE.
I find it amazingly horrifying how Linux can't even compete, for the most part, with the venerable Windows 95.
When you install applications you will almost always end up moving files and changing configurations by hand. And if you are trying to install Linux or add in new hardware... forget about it.
If Win95 had worked as poorly at it's launch as Linux does today, it would have been ignored in the marketplace. So honestly, speak freely: is it any surprise that Linux is ignored in the marketplace, when it can't even compete with an out-of-date ancestor of Windows from over ten years ago?
Stop writing text editors and try fixing the fundamental problems with Linux. Otherwise gladly accept it's obscurity. On the positive side, Linux's obscurity provides about 90% of it's security.
Thw Whois for Networkperformancedaily.com says
Registry Data
ICANN Registrar: DOMAINDISCOVER
Created: 12-sep-2006
This is just half a year.
Registered by,
ViaMetric, Inc.
114 W 7th St. Ste 650
Austin, TX 78701
US
The Viametric website says,
"ViaMetric was founded by former CEO's, CFO's and CMO's with one goal-- marketing and communications accountability. "
"If your company needs sales and revenue, you need ViaMetric."
I don't know. Seems more like a plant.
Stephan
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
Our company is the same. Our previous IT "guy" was 100% *nix. He used to bring in different flavors of *nix on a CD and say, "Hey, Try these!". I use Windows normally, but he knew I was a system and network admin of Solaris systems running on Sun machines. As hard as he tried, we (like the article's author) just couldn't make it work for the company. I manage about 18 people and I tried making OpenOffice work, but as soon as we tried working with someone's M$ file (from PowerPoint or Word), the document was really screwy. It got to the point that I'd sometimes just export information as an HTML file so that I knew the style, format and look would stay intact (but they couldn't modify it well with Oo). I eventually asked for 18 M$ licenses, and was limited due to fiscal decisions to only 8. The 8 who got full M$ office had no problems, and the rest limped along.
Now, 3 years later, the remaining Linux systems and OpenSource software is on it's way out the door. Exectutives are now balking at limited Calender and some other limitations. You might say, "What has changed?" We're getting executives from other, more technologically advanced companies. So they want the full functionality (which, regretfully, means tons of more meetings....something I didn't miss from my previous, IT-savy company).
Although, it's ironic I got the CEO and other VPs hooked on WebCalendar for scheduling outside of work.
For years I've been trying to get Windows to work.
.tgz files from my coworkers? Where's my compiler?
I've always wanted to be able to use Windows to get something productive done, so I've tried different versions: 95, 98, NT 4.0, 2000, and XP. With each one they claim more ease of use, better tools, and tighter security. Most of them have even made incremental progress over time (ignoring Me here).
And lately I've heard about Vista as the next big thing in Windows.
But from what I hear it still won't work very well!
Windows is incapable of mounting my ext2 partitions out of the box. Even trying to load them up requires 3rd party software.
Installing new programs is a real pain! I don't have time to keep track of 50 CDs and keep loading them in and out. I thought I paid for broadband so I could avoid that kind of sneakernet tedium. And the same goes with hardware!
And what kind of operating system doesn't install basic tools? How am I going to get any work done without grep and find? Why do I need to install 3rd party software to use
I could never even get my programs to respond to DCOP!
And even if I did find a program I liked, I couldn't find a way to recompile it from source to be optimized for my system!
The worst part is that all this third party software you need to even run a functional machine gets rather expensive.
So after more than 10 years of trying to make it work, I'm giving up on windows. At least until Vista Service Pack 1.
Apparently, this rube is using a distribution which really is inappropriate for a production environment. He should be using Ubuntu 6.06, which provides Long Term Service support.
Ok, so my title is definite flamebait/troll material, but the point is it's these exact reasons that Linux hasn't 'taken off' like it's supposed to (it seems like every year Slashdot has an article titled "The Year of Linux?").
I've read through the comments, and rather than actually take the criticism seriously, the two main points I keep coming across are:
a.) It's Microsoft's fault for not opening up their standards
b>) This guy's a moron for expecting Linux to interoperate perfectly with a proprietary company
Now, it may very well be the case that both of the above are true, but accusing someone who WANTS to use Linux of being a moron and passing the blame elsewhere doesn't really do a whole lot to win them to your cause.
I guess I'm defending the guy because I find myself in the same position. I'm no fan of Microsoft's business practices. I LIKE the principles behind FOSS and I WANT to use Linux and I've TRIED over the last 10 years or so as well, but every time I hit a killer bug and it gets to the point where it's just easier to go back. And I mean I've put serious effort into this.
So go on and ridicule this guy and ridicule me for our lack of patience and understanding of how software works, but it really doesn't do much to attract others to your platform. I often feel as though the "Linux Community" are like members of a missionary religion who actually prefer each other's company more than seeking out new believers and sharing the wonderful secret which they possess (in spite of what their leaders preach).
Instead of being snobby computing elitists, why not suggest a viable alternative for such a specific software problem (a different mail server/calendar program/whatever this guy needs). If one doesn't exist, then why not get together and write one? Don't be so defensive. Try to see it through his eyes. And if you're not willing to offer POSITIVE solutions then just don't expect Linux to ever take any larger market share than it has now.
Sorry for being so harsh, I woke up in an argumentative mood this morning.
So now that Evolution is debunked, what about switching to Intelligent Design? Sorry!
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Is the problem being solved, or is everybody standing around, blaming everybody else?
This sig intentionally left blank.
Why every time Microsoft launches a new version of their OS we have to listen to a herd of asses whining about how they can't use Linux! We all know you're dumb alredy, you don't need to keep saying that in 6 years you were'nt able to do something most of us can pull in less than 6 months (I know I did back in 1998 when I replaced my Windows Desktop with a Linux one).
What about later: "10 years of trying Windows Vista and giving up". Will he be ALLOWED to stay with XP?
Uh uh.
Day After Vista Launches:
"I am a Training Manager in Technical Communications at NetQoS (subsidiary of Dell? Regardless of verb tense, Dell's entire existence owes to bundled MS packages.) Because any serious support of Linux is against my company policy, I am pretending to make a weak subversive attempt to get some Linux footholds.
Presuming being at third level support for the Network Operating Systems support group in Dell at the enterprise server division means I have some above average skills, I still 'did not succeed' in getting Linux to work.
Therefore, since I, with my abilities can't get Linux to work, take my word for it, you can't either. So you'd better spend that $10,000 on the brand new suite MS released yesterday."
So we have something approaching a deadly conflict of interest, because beyond FUD, this becomes a crafted attempt at mis-information.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Apparently not long enough for anyone to have done anything about it. I remember two years ago getting flamed over the Exchange issue, because I said that beating Exchange would be the holy grail. Not connecting to Exchange, BEATING Exchange.
Everyone wants to talk about a bunch of lame email/calendaring solutions, but nothing that matches the overall functionality of Exchange/Outlook in the workplace. Someday, maybe enough people will recognize that Linux will always be limited by the lack of this solution that something will be done, but the clock is ticking, if it hasnt already run out.
Maybe its just that if people want to spend the necessary time and effort on this undertaking, it might make sense that they would want to be paid?
What open source alternatives are there to Exchange/Outlook?
Before you answer, keep in mind that I am looking for a single application and a single server that will provide all of the functions and such, will be cross-platform (a client capable ofrunning on Windows and Mac, as well as Linux, is a must), must be enterprise-ready, and most importantly must be at least as easy to configure and use as their proprietary counterparts.
I don't want to use separate applications for the individual components, I don't want to use applications that are more annoying to use than Microsoft's offerings, I don't want something you need a degree in computer science to set up and use, and I don't want something that I will have to provide an inordinate amount of support to my users for. There are a number of other qualifiers I could add, but to keep things short, I want something that will at least do everything Exchange and Outlook can do.
Perhaps with Microsoft's adoption of XML in their office docs we might see more consistency between platforms. The calendaring and public folder issue is simply a matter of doing it as well or better than MS, then replace Exchange completely with Open Source software for your whole company. You don't need to have consistency in your calendaring between different companies, only in your own. And if you can run a free (as in up-front cash, not as in maintenance) open source Exchange-like product, then you're probably saving your company a ton of money.
.dlls and editing your httpd.conf a little.
I recently tried to do a custom LAMP install of the latest versions of Apache, PHP, modperl, and MySQL. After downloading about 20 source packages (custom install, remember), and following five different forum's instructions, I managed to get it all working except modperl. I'll need to recompile Apache when I feel like having another go at getting modperl to work. There's a lot of gotchas, a lot of "this version doesn't work with that version", some "you can't use the binary install of MySQL if you want it compiled into PHP", and if you want to run both the mysql and mysqli extensions for PHP, you need to hand edit your Makefile.
Or you could run windows, double-click on wamp_install.exe and then add your custom extensions after by dropping in
Ubuntu has finally made a usable desktop for me in the home, although I still find several shortcomings, usually centering around getting a game playing or figuring out why the sound cuts out on some things.
You'd think for the corporate world, where people spend most of their day on basic computer used for only a handful of apps, that Linux would be ideal, in particular with the increasing push towards web based apps.
The problem I see is it's all down to focusing on working with Exchange and Office for 90% of it. Open Office and Evolution aren't as good, but things will only really turn over when companies completely drop Microsoft. Then there will be the spur in development for better software. Until then, it's gong to be limping along as we were. However, I don't see the corporate world suddenly buying up Vista so employees can play with Aero Glass, so maybe there's some hope that Microsoft will end up pushing people off of Windows anyways......
If Microsoft will not work(with it, for any value if It).
Your problem is your using Microsoft
Its in Microsoft's best interest that other stuff
will not work with Microsoft software.
Its called a trap, and your in it.
If after ten years you have not discovered
the way out, then perhaps you should give up.
Linux has KVM support so I don't know why you are duel booting.
Better to run windows then to be stuck in them.
I also don't know why your using Exchange? Outlook
will run off of sendmail. Sounds like the problem is not
Linus, but rather the IT staff. There are a few good open source
office sweets. never mind that you have to work with clue less
people sending you emails from inside the Trap.
I have to wounder if Vista promotions pay for articles like this one.
MS Proprietary Cruft aside, Linux/OSS is actually a pretty terrible network citizen. Every package under the sun has LDAP integration, networking protocol support is extensive (so put it mildly) in the kernel, but integration... integration is awful. Theres no one to blame but Linux/OSS itself: the packages all have support for network protocols, but using these protocols requires extensive manual configuration. Dealing with configuration and deployment on any reasonable scale becomes very complex very quickly, and without truly expert help and continued extensive sheppardship, will result in persistent problems throughout network life.
Operations of linux in a network buisness environment is 100% reliant on proprietary RHEL and Novell voodoo, there's nothing freely available or open source for making huge numbers of linux machiens behave properly in a network environment. Its pure DIY, every step of the way, setting up Directory servers then painstakingly setting up every single god damned app and service to rely on the directory server. Linux is an OS with enormous networking support and no tools for utilizing it.
You point out there's many places linux cannot integrate for lack of consistent standards. I'm pointing out that in the places where there are consistent standards, utilizing these standards is an enormous task requiring careful configuration of a very large number of applications, and that these configurations are very difficult to perform accurately on any reasonably large collection of systems, which often require sublte tweaking per workgroup.
I have been using Linux for about 8 years. I first attempted to "switch" to Linux on the desktop around 2001, when I installed Redhat 7 on a Toshiba notebook. I spent an entire weekend fighting to get the PPP dialup working properly with my Winmodem. It sort of worked most of the time, but I had a lot of dropped connections.
/etc/config files and the C compiler. I don't really care what OS I'm using, as long as I can set up my work environment and use the programs and data that I need.
Since then I've used Debian, several versions of Fedora, Ubuntu, etc. Each and every time I seem to run up against a brick wall with some piece of software or hardware that just won't work under Linux. I know that this is not fault of Linux developers because they don't have access to driver source code or firmware, etc. But the end result is that I can't use my computer the way I want it to, and the guy using Windows can load his software and start using it right away.
I have a dual-boot laptop that runs XP and Ubuntu, but I recently put the Ubuntu partition to rest and moved all my data over to the Windows side. Why? Because there was one app that I needed to use for work that just would not work under Linux. Yes, there is a Linux version, but it performed so terribly that I had no other choice but to switch. This app in particular was a VoIP softphone. The sound quality was terrible under Linux, but flawless under Windows. I spent 3 hours tweaking ALSA settings, compiling new Alsa drivers from scratch, checking my microphone, etc. but no luck.
Don't get me wrong - I fully support open source software. I use Thunderbird, Firefox, OpenOffice, and Cygwin on a daily basis. But at this point in my life I don't want to spend hours dorking around with
As others have said, Jim Sampson is blaming Linux for a lack of Windows interoperability. Depends on what you want to do. I have a friend who is a Web developer - he HATES Microsoft but he's stuck with them because he has to see how his stuff looks on a Windows box. That isn't a defect of Linux - Linux isn't a reverse engineered Windows. The people I know who can't run Linux are people who have some mandatory application or operation they MUST run on Windows - for example a VPN application that only works with IE 6.x and cannot run on anything else. That this does not run in Linux is not a defect of Linux.
However, even these people can benefit from a Linux server their desktop interacts with. Can't tell it's a Linux file server, except that it doesn't break down or contract viruses. Ditto for Web server or print server. Again - Linux will never be "ready" on Sampson's terms because Microsoft intentionally keeps changing Windows to stay out of reach of real interoperability - not by freak accident but by deliberate design.
While many here are advocating wholesale swaps to OSS applications on both the client and server side that wasn't the author's issue nor is it remotely feasible for many of us. That's really THE problem - that's there not entirely wholesome client side replacement for all those Corporate apps we all are, for better or worse, STUCK WITH. I mean much as I'd like to go to our CIO (I don't even know who that is, really) of our 400,000 person global firm and tell him/her "See here ya ijyut, what you need to do is rip out this billion dollar infrastructure and do it right with Linux...." They'd have Smithers unleash the hounds before I got to the door.
In other words, it's an interoperability problem more than anything else. I'm sure Groupwise and Zimbra and all the others do as good or poor a job as MS apps. Doesn't matter. And since vendor lock-in is what MS is all about, don't expect them to embrace interoperability.
We have tried here to develop a Linux client for years. It's been insanely slow. The applications are very hard to mate and to get to work exactly the same. And, the support infrastructure has to be in place as well. Recently we got the last piece in the applications integration puzzle with Lotus Notes but it's still difficult to the clients running on all the different platforms. Almost ready for primtetime but not quite. Between Wine or VM and native code it's just about there. But I wouldn't recommend anyone try to build a new client infrastructure to mate with their server side unless they were ready to spend gobs of money and time.
he accepts a monoculture of 100% windows and microsoft applications but then expects linux to operate identically in that same environment.
hello. moron. if you only use linux and don't use that microsoft shit like exchange you don't have these kinds of problems.
i've been trying to get windows to work in a linux based enterprise for 10 years and every time i try i fail for similar reasons.
Another big piece that's missing (which is what is keeping my business from moving) is the lack of a basic accounting package that runs on Linux that has even *most* of the functionality of my $200 copy of Quickbooks (or Peachtree, or any of the 100's of accounting applications) that you can buy at Wal-Mart. I know that there are giant packages available for Fortune 500 companies, but there's nothing that's remotely useful for small businesses (please don't say GnuCash... I've looked into it, and it sucks...badly). I don't know what other businesses do for their accounting. Maybe a lot more businesses than I thought farm out all of their bookeeping and accounting to bookeepers and accountants running Quickbooks or something similar. Until there's at least several good accounting apps for Linux, Linux is in no way an option for us. And yes, there have to be SEVERAL good apps, not just one. One working application = lock-in.
I don't respond to AC's.
Microsoft controls the user environment top-to-bottom (that is, out-of-the box, which applies to what? Effectively 95% of all users?). Same goes for Apple and OSX. They are integrated, standardized, documented, interface guidelines, etc. Functionality is streamlined and things like API functionality are fairly rigid.
Both companies exert a good amount of control, which really benefits their users by providing consistent UE's with a tighter level of integration.
They also do some product separation. If you sent a home-user home with a fully loaded copy of Windows SBE they'd probably have trouble. Maybe even get frustrated. One-size probably shouldn't fit all.
But because Linux isn't a single company there is a lot of debate/politics/ideas that go into it. Because no company seems willing to enforce standards (which would probably alienate them from most of the Linux community) we end up with a system that does many different things, many things well, but almost none of them consistently.
This is the old model and it's worked well enough that we might not be willing to change it.
Quack, quack.
He seems to think that he can switch to linux and not have anything on the server end change.
Sorry, buddy, it's not a drop in replacement for Windows and never will be. You CAN support linux on the desktop in the enterprise, you just have to have your systems guys on-board, and it has to be a conscious choice made by the company, not a lone effort by one end user. Exchange is a proprietary product that's all but sewn up from one end to the other by Microsoft. Should you really be surprised when Linux doesn't want to operate properly with it? His experience with Open/Star Office was from 1998... or shortly after it came out.
Hell, it doesn't even sound like he's even very familiar with Linux. He says "I've used Linux from time to time". Uhh.. and this qualifies you to make a judgment on whether linux is "ready for the enterprise"? Implementing Enterprise level products isn't rocket science, but it's not something you should really be commenting on if you've tried an OS "from time time to time". I kind of suspect that someone who claims to have used Windows "from time to time" wouldn't be all that successful trying to implement Windows in even a Windows server environment.
AccountKiller
> On Linux you need that knowledge upfront. You start with ./configure;make; make install.
Oh please, this hasn't been the norm for more than a decade. Yes, I still build things from scratch, but it's hardly how package rollouts are done on most linux infrastructures.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
I just put the following comment on the actual article, which I'll show below, but I missed adding in the professional Exchange replacements, about which you are extremely correct.
I have to agree with some of the other comments I've seen - your expectations are all wrong.
You're defining "Enterprise" as "work seamlessly in an all-Microsoft shop" and those aren't necessarily the same thing.
You also seem to be defining a good Linux experience as doing exactly what you were totally happy about in Windows but without paying.
If what you're looking for is a computer whose function is to attach to a Microsoft domain server and a Microsoft Exchange server and use all the newest Microsoft technologies relatively seamlessly, you should just install Windows. If you're happy with Windows, you should install Windows. Heck, even Microsoft Entourage for OS X can't talk to Exchange right most of the time, and MS MAKES that.
If you're talking about a transition, you're doing it backwards; put Linux on the servers first, where no non-techs have to get used to using it, where you have a greater guarantee of a limited application set, and where Linux has more experience. Also where Windows charges you more in licensing fees for fewer benefits. Samba is great.
THEN start rolling it out on desktops, starting with the thinnest ones, and using your choice of Linux-style or Windows style methods based on the situation.
But if you really want to talk fairly about Linux in Enterprise you need to talk about legitimately comparing a Linux environment with a Windows one.
You need to talk about better natural security and less time trying to clean up stupid-user infections. You need to talk about the ease of remotely configuring, updating, and reinstalling large numbers of machines. You need to talk about running remote applications via X being free. You need to talk about the registry mostly being replaced with a large number of text files you can easily and remotely overwrite and a total lack of DLL-hell, meaning you almost never HAVE to totally reinstall a machine - and if you do, you never have to open a control panel on any client machine ever to set a single setting unless you want to. A seamless ability to use any convenient desktop in the office.
Certainly there's add-on Windows enterprise software to do many of these things that Linux does naturally. And I'd point out that OS X does most of them too and has a more user friendly desktop. Some studies show substantially lower costs in terms of administrators with Linux - if the administrators know Linux.
But if all you want is a Windows machine, USE a Windows machine. Saving $129 is not, alone, a sound rationale for using Linux in a professional environment where all you seem to want is Windows.
Arete
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Is a must if you want to use linux in a corporate environment that uses Outlook/Exchange. We have a number of windows terminal servers, and using remote desktop, I can use them to perform email/calendering. I think that is the appropriate way to go anyway. Most people in a company don't really need all the power that exist in today's computers. Give them thin clients and have them connect to a beefier terminal server. Less mess to support, IMHO.
IANAL... But I play one on
You can't apply outmoded economic models to OSS provisioning, just like you can't switch to a completely different corporate infrastructure painlessly. The problem is expectations and goals, and not individual product capabilities. Get it? Your conclusions are only wrong because of incorrect premises, not because of faulty logic or reasoning.
* "They, they, THEY! When did the Emperor not have enemies?!" --Harvey Keitel, as Feraud in "The Duelists"
Please! Macs have the same interoperability problems as the ones described in the article. People who need things like Active Directory and Exchange run Windows - PERIOD.
And then you won't have to pay MS another grand in three years time.
Fer fucks sake, if it really WAS worth that money to have the option, SPEND IT!
I have been using Linux for years, since Red Hat 5. At my last job, I architected and developed on a Linux-based platform complete with diskless touchscreen kiosks running off a single very modest server. I was also the Linux sysadmin, and years later I'm told that the DNS/SMTP/IMAP/WWW/Samba/NTP/SSH/NFS servers I set up for them are still running great on PCs so modest that Windows likely wouldn't boot on them. At home, I've tracked the latest releases of Red Hat, Mandrake and CentOS, playing with the latest KDE releases as they come out. So the general Linux platform is very solid and works fine. Alone.
... I had no idea how bad they were until I tried installing Logitec's real drivers in a Win2K VMWare image.
The trouble is that everything I want to *DO* now has to be done in Windows.
- My parents abroad want to video conference. Getting GnomeMeeting/Ekiga to be friendly with Netmeeting has been a nightmare. With the last Gnomemeeting update, I've not been able to connect well for months. My parents have moved on to Skype, and it only does video on Windows. Moreover, the Quickcam webcam drivers for Linux (which I have to recompile for every kernel update) are horrible: lousy performance, bad color balance
- To get into my corporate VPN, I need to install a Windows driver. This is not negotiable.
- To access my office box remotely, I need RemoteAdmin for Windows.
- My wife (a music major) wants to purchase songs from the iTunes store. I've pointed her to eMusic (indie music on MP3s), but she says its too limited. No, iTunes is not feasible under Wine. Nor can iTunes find the iPod under VMWare Player.
- Everybody uses MS Office. Bosses, colleagues, partners, customers. I've tried to sing the praises of OpenOffice.org, but interoperability is limited. Documents never look right when transferring between OO and Office.
So while Linux is fine technically, my Linux PC is basically a useless box with a fan. To do anything useful, I need Windows. Whether it is my Win2K image running in a (slow) VMWare image or the win32 DLLs needed to make multimedia feasible or the Windows TrueType fonts that makes Linux look respectable or the WinXP box that I access remotely to do real work, I'm hopelessly tied to Windows. At some point came the realization that Linux offers me little value. I'm spending all my time in Windows anyway. An OS is supposed to boot up and get out of my way so I can get real work (or real fun) done. Instead, Linux is constantly holding me back. It simply does not play well with the part of the computing universe that matters to me. I'm not blaming anyone: it's just the reality of my situation.
So I'm now shopping for a new PC with Windows preinstalled. Farewell, Linux, you have been a faithful friend. Too bad I can't take you anywhere.
This is a situation where the MS / Novell relationship works, because if they deliver on what they say they will do with SUSE Linux, then a lot of these issues will go away.
Let the flames begin...
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
The only person whose time I manage is me. I want to get invitations to brown bag tech sessions, and if the schedule changes I want them to be updated in an email I only have to read. I don't want to go off-task to revise my calendar. I want pop-up reminders for the dentist, picking my son up from school, and work deadlines. I want to create meetings with an e-mail and find out who can attend, and then who's going to.
The Calendar, as a Diary, with public features so you can schedule around other people, is a key application. It should be obvious that the need for a desktop calendar integrated with email exists for more than just "Goddamn managers".
That's why I stopped using Linux at home.
This is not really a rhetorical question: Why switch to Linux? I think if you have no answers for that question than the switch to Linux will be unsatisfying. If the answer has to do with 'i wanted to save money' well thats possibly valid, but I am pretty sure that the folks who don't want to pay for Linux are going to have the least impact on the economic driving forces.
(Note: I use whatever tools I have to use to satisfy job requirements. I try to use Linux when it is appropriate since I have been using it for 14 years, but i also use Windows, and MacOS)
So if the reason you are trying Linux because you want to evade paying Microsoft, then complaining because it doesn't integrate with your expensive Microsoft Exchange infrastructure is somewhat... backwards... There are solutions for shared calendars, shared address books, and e-mail. Whether or not you are prepared to integrate such a system instead of paying for Microsoft to do it is a question you can answer for your own situation.
Every operating system has issues. I have had hardware work BETTER in Linux than in Windows, as improbable as that sounds. It doesn't mean that I would 'give up on Microsoft' as I am bound by what my customer or employer wants. My ability to effectively implement solutions in Linux allows my customer or employer to use it effectively, and does create traction that allows Linux solutions to be taken seriously. But I don't try to make the Boss's secretary run it because then the Boss says 'I didn't get notified about my golf date because your damned Linux is broken'
Whereas, I do like the fact that my boss says 'We are going to switch over to Linux/MySQL as part of our backend standard... because I have answered the issues in THAT sort of environment'
It would be like saying I need a circular saw because I am trying to cut my toenails. How about not bitching that it isn't compatible and finding the right tool that solveS YOUR problem rather than just going with a tool because its hip.
(Circular Saws are ALWAYS hip)
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
Let me get this right.
Apache > IIS => FLOSS is better than proprietary
OOo doc formats > MS Office doc formats => FLOSS is better than proprietary
PostgreSQL/Firebird/MySQL/SQLite > MS SQL => FLOSS is better than proprietary
Python/Perl/PHP/Ruby > ASP => FLOSS is better than proprietary
Linux > NT => FLOSS is better than proprietary
Firefox > IE => FLOSS is better than proprietary
But:
Exchange > * => MS won't share
That's a bullshit excuse if I ever heard one. This is whining about vendor lock-in when you need to ignore the unfair vendor and develop something that works better than Exchange + Outlook. That is the successful FLOSS model: make a better product, not a cheaper or ethically superior one.
If you build it they will come. Develop some better, open standards with better, advanced functionality in Exchange and go with it. Work with WC3 on some email standards. How about a standardized subset of HTML for email that doesn't allow obviously bad things like scripting or inline elements? (Cripe, the name even makes it self: EML.) How about a real SenderID? How about a standardized encoding format for attachments?
News flash: Exchange is a *shitty* product. It uses the Jet database (that's Access to you and me). It has pointless partitioning in the form of information stores and storage groups. The web interface is crippled off of IE. It's an email server than uses more then 1 Gb of RAM on the most basic installation. It uses badly formed SMTP or doesn't respond right all the time. You get nonsense 5.7.1 SMTP NDR errors *constantly*. Exchange is such a babied application than needs so much special care I would pay for a better solution. It has arbitrary size limitations if you've got the cheaper version. It has horrible spam filtering. It has no antivirus protection. It has endless numbers of stupid little bugs and holdover restrictions from Exchange 5.5.
I don't want to just switch. I want to upgrade.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
I dunno, all kinds of critical bugs that could stop people from deploying Windows in their offices for over a decade and a half haven't even really slowed it down. Look at how buggy/ineffective/insecure was Windows 3.1, the watershed, or Win95, or even 2000. But people everywhere use it, and put up with its bugs. Because they think it's good enough.
Disappointment is as much an expectations game as it is a delivery game. Linux culture, composed of lots of self-motivated "DIY" enthusiasts, created and improved Linux because it didn't quite do what we wanted. Which is great, but it can create impossibly high expectations that most people don't share. And which gets in the way of the "good enough" standard that most people live by.
--
make install -not war
I have been trying to use Linux in a small office for just as long, and MS Exchange is not the bottleneck. I hate Windows, and would not have any problems buying applications I need to run on Linux, but there is minimal commercial software. Quickbooks is just one example. An application used by many small businesses that has no equivalent in the OS or commercial community for Linux. OpenOffice even has minor frustrating problems. Law offices for example use lined and numbered pleading paper that is easily prepared with a template in Word, and which cannot be done at all in OpenOffice. I did a legal pleading template myself a few years ago and donated it to OOExtras, but it was so inadequate for day in and day out use that I had to stick with Word. I give a lot of seminars, and need to use PowerPoint. I like to print handouts three to a page with lines next to each slide to take notes. There is no template for this in OpenOffice. There is a website where somebody did a tutorial on how to make a handout like this, but I never have been able to do it following that tutorial or on my own. I can give more examples, but the point is, even for small businesses who do not use Exchange, day to day work is difficult in Linux. I would run Linux if I could buy Word or PowerPoint or any commercial equivalent that would actually solve these minor problems. Oh.. printing envelopes in OpenOffice can be done, but it is difficult compared to Word. If you do one envelop a week, no big deal. If you do 20 letters with 20 envelopes a day, the difficulty just sends me back to Word and Windows every time. I check it out every few years, and for the last decade I have not been able to just get a small office working well. I hope some of the readers will solve these problems either as open source or as paid commercial software. I just want off of Windows in my lifetime. It is like trying to quit smoking.
Or you could run Debian, and install the apache2, libapache2-mod-php5, libapache2-mod-perl and php5-mysql packages. And then scream because you are using PHP and MySQL.
MS-Exchange is just one such. It can be configured to serve out POP3 and hence be accessible to many tools. It can also be configured to serve out only it's proprietary protocols, which one must not expect anyone else to understand.
Personally, I've been using Linux for 12 years, the last 5 exclusively (at home). I've also used it heavily at work, but there are apps it won't run. No big deal. I have always had at leat two machines in my office. Or you could go with VMware.
My roles are often architect and developer and I love these tools for finding a quick and soon-to-occur 15-30 minute timeslot for conversations which cannot be handled over instant messaging.
Shit, I want one to set up at home as we have one car and it would make scheduling usage of the vehicle much easier.
Blar.
That is a sentiment that I share. I've spent so many years tinkering with computers -- breaking them apart, building them up, reinstalling OS's, and tweaking drivers, just in the course of "normal" computer use -- that now I really am tired of it all and just want my computers to work.
As an experienced technical user, I am now less tolerant of wasting my time on computer things than the average consumer electronics user (who has no technical skills). And I'm the crowd that needs to adopt Linux for it to be successful.
Linux is great for many things, and I've installed numerous distributions over the years, hoping to find that it was ready for use with minimal screwing-around. But the truth is, I don't have very much time in the day and even less to waste on getting Linux to work. Windows isn't perfect, but I don't have to waste very much time on it. All the software tools are there (even the Open Source stuff), and I can be sure that my development environment is the same one that 99% of my customers are running.
I can't seem to find the article they're talking about. I found one which probably should have been called "I can't seem to get Linux to use all the proprietary functions of Exchange".
Doesn't he know why they call it Exchange? It's kinda like a pair of pants that don't fit!
FLR
How do I install programs on Linux? I go to Applications (like the start menu) -> Add New Programs. From there, if I want a game, I click Games, if I want Abiword, I click Office, etc. If I'm too impatient to hunt and peck though the categories, then I just go to the command line and type "sudo apt-get install program_name" and that's it. I don't even have to bother with Next, Next, Next. But, if I was truly afraid of the command line, the gui works just as well.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Actually I gave up a long time ago for home and small office use (2 years Windows-free -except for the desktop work environment of course-). It's just too expensive, and every time I do something, I hit a bug or something doesn't work as expected.
Give Linux and/or MacOSX a try. If you can't get your Exchange e-mail, it's your own fault that you got locked in by your vendor. You should have stuck with those Unix boxes in the 90's and actually demanded (open) standards that everybody can use. Now it's coming back to bite a lot of companies. Microsoft decided to switch their whole UI and everything that you were expecting to be, isn't anymore. Vista doesn't have a 'start' button, now you'll have to describe the button with the little flag. Office 2007 doesn't have a menu in which you can find stuff. I am an experienced IT person and I have trouble finding my way for the simplest functions in Word 2k7m. Switching users to those systems will require a lot of training, time and productivity and a lot of companies are looking at alternatives, but unless they're looking at a complete overhaul of their server systems, they're kinda locked in between a rock and a hard place. OK, you can migrate your Exchange boxes etc. but a lot of Windows 'admins' don't have any knowledge beyond the GUI of Windows so they're stuck there, let's see what Windows 'Longhorn' Server brings, if the GUI changes like Vista, I know quite some Windows Admins looking at a retraining.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Yeah, I've had problems like you mention with that combination and Linux (I usually used RedHat). I was lucky in my previous job. We had full Solaris 8 (and later 9) systems and compiling (modperl, apache, MySQL, etc) was always a breeze. I brought up a few servers without problems and recompiled modules later, as I needed them. I took a brief sabbatical (sp?) and then when I got back into it I was hit with the Perl, modPerl, and other gotchas from new flavors of those applications (I think it was around 2000, or 2001 if memory serves right). I almost gave up, but stuck with it. I ended up going with old, stable releases of ModPerl and Apache, and compiling went smoothly with an old RedHat version.
Every couple years I buy an old Sun Ultra system off E-bay with the intent to shake off the rust and get back into network admin'ing, but stupid mistakes limit me and then I lose interest/time (e.g. the last one I bought failed to mention no CDROM, so these Solaris 8 disks are useless...and then I bought a "Sun CDROM drive" off E-bay, only to learn it was an IDE version for a specific Sun model...mine needed a SCSI CDROM drive).
The upside to the tinkering (and failing somewhat)? I did learn how to convert a WiFi AP to a WiFi "bridge", so that I can get a Sun system (with normal internal network card) onto my WiFi system at home (along with my XBOX, which wanted $99 for a WiFi card, but this $39 AirLink works fine as a bridge). Using a FreeWare file server, I see almost the full 10Mbps across the Wifi (G) even though it's hopping 3 times and wireless. (yes, I'm digressing a bit, but hopefully someone is in a similar situation and this is somewhat helpful).
I find it annoying that this guy complains about Linux, yet his problems always seem to be with Evolution, which is just an application that runs on Linux.
Let me sum it up for all of you.
If person A depends on application B that run only on OS C, person A should continue using OS C. (and stop bitching about it)
If person A insists on switching to OS D, person A should be willing to give up application B, settling instead on application B', even if B' is inferior compared to the original application B. (Maybe because person A has a vested interest in detaching himself from software company M's DRM infected, activation insisted iron grip.)
Period. End of story. The End. This thread pining for the fjords.
Before the flame war begins, I'm currently (slowly) converting my team-mates to Linux/FOSS.
- Gilboa
I think the problem here is the person writing this article does not address the root cause of their problem. I'm sure he'd have the same amount of trouble (err, more) trying to connect a Lotus Notes client to the Exchange server. The problem is not Linux being ready, its trying to get incompatible peices of software to work together. If Microsoft released the protocol documentation for speaking to Exchange and Evolution officially supported all features, then his complaint may stand. If a company used a colaboration suite that was built for Linux, it could do everything he needed.
insert sig here
I've tried many times to get a working Linux system, but I've always found something not working, and I don't mean Microsoft software not working. I mean sound not working or USB ports not working. Yes, I can hear everybody crying out "check the hardware compatibility lists first", and they right.
I've tried many times to get a working Windows Vista system, but I've always found something not working, and I don't mean Microsoft software not working. I mean Aero-glass not working or my old peripherals not working. Yes, I can hear everybody crying out "check the hardware compatibility lists first", and they're right.
If Microsoft can't make migration seamless from one version of their OS to the next, how can you expect a non-commercial, third-party effort do do any better?
There's more at work here than just the OS--it's the whole environment. Linux is already proven to work in a business environment--it has been capable of doing so for years. Same goes for Apple (hell, Macs even run a "genuine" edition of MS Office!). However, "a" business environment isn't ALL business environments. Enterprises with IT infrastructure based on proprietary, single-vendor platforms with no published interfaces for interoperability obviously are NOT the business environments where you'd expect to have Linux work seamlessly. It's a testament to the talents of Free software developers they can make anything work at all in such an environment!
Remember, MS is almost completely proprietary--when the folks who toil away developing Samba or Evolution have to make their software talk to Microsoft stuff (the main goal, or at least a major goal, of each of those projects) they can't just download or purchase a nice, neat spec document as if it was an IETF RFC. If MS has any spec to offer at all, it is only available under some encumbering legal condition such as an NDA or obligation to pay royalties or to not release under some or all Free software licenses. The only option they have in most cases is to pour over data from protocol analysers and other reverse-engineering tools. How can anyone expect the situation to EVER improve, much less within the space of a decade, when not only the spec is secret but it keeps changing dramatically with each generation of MS software?
MS further raises the barrier by making their interfaces and protocols DELIBERATELY COMPLEX so as to be harder to reverse engineer. This is the only explanation I can come up with for why MS does some of what they do in Exchange and Active Directory. Even more perverse is their penchant for taking open technologies like LDAP and Kerberos and obfuscating them enough to break them. This borders on criminal, as not only does this affect interoperability, it makes their own software less stable and more bloated than it needs to be.
This article offers nothing to support the contention that Linux or other Free software cannot be used to run a business--it very much can and does do this. His approach is just totally backwards--the high-level infrastructures need migrating first--get rid of Exchange and you'll be a great deal ahead of the game in more ways than one. If you are not in the position to carry that out, well then you'll be waiting for longer than two years unfortunately.
Whenever I hear about someone writing an article about how "bad" Linux is, they are always using the current "buzzword" version of Linux. For at least the past 6 months, that's been Ubuntu.
Just because something happens to be in the forefront of the minds of people ready to chime in about how 'teh awesome' they find their little darling of choice, this month, doesn't mean that it is seriously going to work for you.
Personally, I find it better to stick with one solid distro that has a long running history of "just working". For me, in regards to laptops, I have found that to be SuSe Linux and now OpenSuSe. I have had very consistent results with it. For him, he might be better going with something else entirely.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
one of the reasons apache web server has not changed appreciably in five years. The world moves forward but a lot of originally great OSS gets trapped in time once it is "good enough".
If it were done when 'tis done, then t'were well it were done quickly... MacBeth
I work for an ISP that has customers spread out across seven states. We do about a million dollars of billing every month using systems that we coded up. It's based primarily on Linux and Postgres, with many desktop machines on the call center floor running Linux and Firefox (though any browser or OS would work).
Sorry to hear that that fellow doesn't have the wherewithal to make things work for him. It sounds like he'll have a tough row to hoe regardless of the OS he chooses.
The problem with the advocacy for and against Free alternatives is the all-or-nothing attitude.
For example let's look at GIMP vs. Photoshop.
For prepress, sure, GIMP is not a replacement for PS (yet) and you would be crazy to advocate GIMP for that. But pre-press is such a tiny piece of the PS pie. In my experience, a majority of the people who think they "need" PS would do fine with GIMP. Typical example, people in my organization who have an occasional need to edit/manipulate images for the web or internal flyers are convinced that they must have PS. No, they would be fine with GIMP. But the PS zealots say that GIMP is so inferior to PS that no sane person would consider GIMP over PS.
Same with Audacity/Ardor vs. Cubase/Sonar. Audacity will do a lot and cover -most- users' needs, but you would be way off-base to think that it is a pro studio app. But Audacity is good enough in most cases, and Cubase would be an over-the-top waste of money for many of those cases. Yet, you mention Ardor or Audacity in one of those situations, and some smart-ass will convince the PHB that nothing less than ProTools will do.
It's been said a million times, right tool for the right job, but it seems that there is always someone in a position of influence that takes their advocacy too far in one direction or the other.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I have just (almost) finished migrating my main desktop from XP to Ubuntu. While I won't hesitate to say that I'm able to do almost all the work I do daily, and I'm pretty happy with Ubuntu, there have definitely been a lot of issues that didn't have anything to do with Microsoft.
Just give you one example - for a few months, my gnome desk panel (still with all the default config from the installation) had a very nasty bug. Everytime I tried to move an app launcher icon to somewhere else on the panel, if I didn't drop it at the "right place," e.g., if my finger slipped and happened to drop it on top of another icon, it would corrupt all the configuration in the launcher and turn it into an empty dummy.
Of course, the fine moment of FOSS came when this was soon fixed with a patch. And no, I am not being sarcastic, I truely appreciated the quick turnaround. But that's not the point here, the point is I have never seen a UI bug this bad happening in Windows (the OS itself not including applications of course). And I could get over it because I still _wanted_ to migrate to linux. How do you think this kind of blow-up-in-your-face UI behavior would demostrate Linux's stability to some half-hearted "non-believing" manager?
And how do you think it would make them think if all the response they can get from the Linux community is "drag and drop is a Microsoft thing, learn to adapt and not to do that in Linux"? (I know drag and drop is not a Microsoft thing and I'm dramatizing the response in this case, but you get the point)
Tyranny isn't the worst enemy of a democracy. Cynicism is.
It has all your calendaring functions. It's compatible with your friends who use Outlook. It's compatible with your friends who use Apple. It's compatible with your Treo, your Nokia, your...Opensource, GPL.
Read the details, take the Flash tour, click around a bit. Hell, download it...
http://www.zimbra.com/
(I'm a new customer, having just last week decided we're going to migrate to Zimbra instead of upgrade to Exchange 2007.)
In Redmond Washington.
Time: 10pm till ?
Reason: Celebration of one less Linux User
Real Reason: To give an award to the employee that made it happen
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
If ever was there a comment more deserving of an insightful mod, I haven't seen it.
Reading up and down the topics, all I see are the same counter arguments:
It's not Linux's fault for not having this feature; it's Microsoft's fault for being closed.
It's the user's/organization's fault for not using a FOSS alternative instead.
This archetypical response from the Linux community and fanbase is exactly the issue parent addresses. And all parent gets in response is more of the same thing. So, I'm going to put it in a different way, far more bluntly, and hopefully, maybe I can across get the point parent makes.
Simply speaking, nobody in the corporate world cares about placing blame. Either something works, or something doesn't. If something doesn't work, it needs to be fixed or replaced. End of story. Of course, the guy who made it goes wrong is Nobody cares if there are alternatives that have the same features. Nobody cares who's fault it is that those alternatives don't work with the existing infrastructure. Nobody cares what workarounds there are. As someone managing a business, if my software can't work with a customer's data out of the box or with minimal configuration, then it's either time to change to something that can, or drop the customer, whichever one is cheaper. For big enough accounts, the return would dwarf the cost of buying new software. And since the established software set is sufficient, works with everyone else's data, and the competition has no new value to offer from a productivity standpoint, why even bother spending the money to switch in the first place?
And from a sales perspective, blaming the customer (a.k.a. the user), insulting the customer, or otherwise saying that the customer is somehow wrong is the quickest way to alienating the customer. Asserting intellectual superiority--or more accurately, domain knowledge superiority does not impress anyone.
This attitude of "our way or the highway" and "it's not our fault; why should we do anything about it" has got to go before Linux can even begin to see mainstream adoption. Or do people not want to see Linux topple the evil empire?
Yeah, I'll take the karma hit. It needs to be said though.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
He works for Dell. Nuff said.
Linux distributions decide which project will become mainstream. Right now there are about 20 such programs that you can find in almost all linux distrinbutions and in the end it is these programs that represent "Linux for the desktop". The maintainers of these programs, do make money and they decide what happens next. So we are talking about a hundred people here. And yes, what they make sucks. And Novell makes sure to push forward all the bloat.
I use icewm on freebsd and arch linux and it is indisinguishable from windows desktop. i have a bar with an icon for each open app, an icon to minimize all, plus I can create icon to open my 12 favorite apps all in one go by calling a script... Small convenience factors are not there for say pasting screenshots into email etc. but I am sure with a bit of setup these little lazyman features can be smoothed out. Webmail is already nicer than using yahoo mail which millions do without blinking an eye, and innovations like a picture pastebin can make pics available even in meetings etc. and to people outside the company for even larger scale collaboration than pasting screenshots. Plus with all the money you save on microsoft your engineers are free to customize your app far beyond microsoft's feature set... My current company is hobbled support corporate apps servers and a hybrid network of corp softwara and linux and corporate db on a 3rd os (coff solaris coff). I can only philosophize what our apps could do if they were all free software such as LAMP. Also there would be no more chasing licenses, no more unsupported corp software headaches, and most open software can be upgraded without pain. Don't think redhat isn't corporate software. I am talking about using postgresql with arch linux and aolserver and tcl kinda open source, not pseudo corporate attempting to be branded as "enterprise (better than normal) linux" jboss on redhat or suse kinda stuff where the profit motive makes the vendor hold info, hobbling the power of the open software. Again the tools are there and have been. Wipe away microsoft and place things like archlinux postgresql etc on your hardware and let good things happen. Give haskell, squeak, forth, or lisp a project or 4.... Hire some professors of computer science as advisors/consultants instead of accenture........
It wouldn't wonder me if this would be part of the Vista propaganda machineh tml
... and she told me -real words- "the computer runs better now, what have you done?"
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128715/article.
and yet let's be honest and give an answer.
1) Yes, GNU-Linux has problems with proprietary drivers/software, of course.
2) Yes, it is at times frustrating to have to wade through 1000 different solutions in order to solve a problem.
3) But the desktop level of GNU-Linux appz (especially thank to Ubuntu and its Debian underrocking) has increased dramatically.
4) My own aunt -no kidding- uses now Ubuntu happily
So if she manage it, the AUthor of the (troll?) article should be well advised to try again (for the next ten years if needs be, some people need longer formation periods).
He posts a screenshot of a subscription window, with checkboxes next to each folder, and complains he can't figure out how to subscribe to each folder. So he gives up on Linux.
... externalities prohibiting the adoption of Linux and other alternatives such as OSX in a wider enterprise setting. MS is well aware of this competitive advantage ad is actively fostering it. This article should really have been linked as an answer to an earlier /. story about why MS is still perceived as evil by so many in the IT community.
I am just surprised that this guy keeps trying - and I am also surprised that he than seems to blame Linux. This man is confused.
I thought Microsft only got to be so dominant in the workplace by making proprietry buggy software and bullying competitors *scratches head* :)
Developers aren't sticking to Linux development past 30. With no experience being retained and every 4 years a new set of developers starting over from the same point, it's still solving the same problems it was in 1997.
The mentality of "the world is wrong and we're the only ones doing it right and therefore shouldn't change" is the wrong mentality to have in this day and age.
If the company uses a system that utilizes ActiveX and works 100% for their needs then the solution is to use an operating system that supports a browser that can handle ActiveX, NOT to make the company change their system to a bunch of other programs that don't give the same functionality.
If the hardware designer designs their hardware in a certain way it is the OS designers that must adapt their systems to allow things to work. Hardware manufacturers write for the most common use - in this case it's Windows. You can't expect people to suddenly start spending time and energy (money x2!) to write Linux drivers for the margin. That's just not feasible (for the company).
Adapt or die. It's as simple as that. I _love_ Linux and Unix. They're very full featured - but half the damn time I can't get all my hardware to work. That is unacceptable! I have two Video Cards... Try to enable SLI on them and I get kernel panics. I have a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 card, but I can't get surround sound through the operating system - it says I have 2 speakers and not 5.1 with no easy way to change it. Unacceptable! There is no viable Palm sync software - this is a problem! If the OS doesn't meet the needs of the End User then the OS needs to adapt. My wireless has NEVER worked properly. I have a WMP54G and cannot use anything more than 128 WEP. My router is setup to use WPA-PSK because we live in a high-density neighborhood. Should I have to switch to a lesser security measure? No! ( I have asked on Forums and this is their only recommendation!)...
It's thoroughly upsetting because I enjoy the power and control over my system afforded to me by Linux and Unix environments. It's just not worth the time to make everything work... And then have to recompile half my drivers once they release a minor kernel update (Friggin Fedora... every week there was an update and it required killing my drivers...)
If you were offended by anything I said... No, I'm not sorry. Please lighten up.
Make fun of this twit all you want, but the bottom line is this is the majority of the people out there, and most of them can barely type their freaking name correctly.
So at the end of the day, the extra polish MS puts on Windows to just make their desktop and servers a little bit easier to use and this is what you get, they win.
I know this is a crazy story, but in reality the usability state of most OSS is still hovering around when geeks stopped using Windows, and so you see software in the OSS world that resembles 1998-2000 usability from companies like MS and Apple.
The usability and consistency is still the biggest problem in the OSS world. Just as *nix failed in the past with fragmented variants, today not only are we facing fragmented variants with tons of subtle differences, but we are also facing software that runs on the platform itself with no consistency.
Truly, look at some of the top OSS software, the UIs of the applications look like a 15yr old designed them in VB back in 1998. I know this is not an area geeks often even notice, but when it comes to 'consistency' and polish, we have a long long way to go.
So instead of laughing at this dork, maybe you should step back and look at your particular development project and see where you are failing by appealing to only to geeks and not keeping up with modern UI designs and usability. I mean MS spends a lot of money on this crap, at least copy what they do get right on modern versions of the stuff and not keep copying Win98 when everyone ditched Windows.
I vote for Horde Groupware - http://www.horde.org/
I like the design. Its the only groupware with a decent file manager. It supports IMAP webmail, calendar and third-party modules. The coding is excellent and clean. Its one of the cleanest projects out there, with a VERY pedantic programmer-team.
Anyone else have more experience with it though. Havent used it in "production" yet, but certainly plan to now that its at version 1.0. A 1.0 from this team, can only mean an incredible useful and stable product, if Im listening to my hunch that is..
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
It's not free, but Lotus Notes will soon be fully linux capable.
( o)|(o )
\___/
As long as the business demands compatibility with MS format documents
there is nothing you can do. If you start out from scratch in a start up company
and had to build the IT structure from the ground up you could do it.
Open source software fine for running a business as long as you are not
locked into some vendor already for something. I'm sure somewhere out there,
there is a company that has gone this route and was running Linux from day one
(or maybe gave MS the iron boot, bit the bullet and started over from scratch).
But here is the deal; Sooner or later we are going to have to start thinking like the people who would be using these tools on a daily basis, including the IT folks who will have to configure/manage this stuff.
Raise your hand if you are the odd IT Admin who would rather 'install more modules', test it, and roll it out to users in the way that we currently have to using Linux, than pop a couple DVD, follow instructions, and with way less knowledge have an Exchange/Outlook solution working in your small business before lunch?
The problem with us geeks is that we think like geeks on every issue, instead of taking into account that 99% percent of the user communities we hope to serve dont think like us, especially the CIOs held responsible for getting solutions to desktops quickly that do EVERYTHING the users want.
It doesnt matter how much Windows sucks, if everything coming out of Open Source forces compromise, time-to-solution headaches, or unreasonable learning curve for noobs. Microsoft wins because CIOs can blame problems on Microsoft. Who you gonna blame in Open Source when your solution cant read Public Folders? Where you gonna get a rebate that calms down the CIO?
Software is Business, and until Open Source starts taking business considerations into account, nothing is going to change.
The other of the article says that his major problem that caused him to give up on Linux this time was being unable to find the subscribe button in a dialog in Evolution. He mentioned how the documentation shows the dialog for Evolution 2.4 (which has subscribe and unsubscribe buttons), but he was using 2.8.
I don't know much about connecting to Exchange servers... but from what I know about GNOME human interface guidelines, dialog boxes are designed so changes take effect immediately. That's why there's a close button instead of the windows-esqe okay/cancel/apply on most GNOME dialogs.
I really hope that the author of the original post tried putting checkmarks beside the folders he wanted to subscribe to and clicking close. It'd be a shame if he gave up on Linux because he couldn't figure that out.
Jeremy
Or you could run Ubuntu Server and ask it for a LAMP-out-of-the-box.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
People who want something simple buy a mac. Now, people that also want to install multiple OS's (Linux, Windows, OS X) also buy a Mac.
Try again. Read the article. Hell, *don't* read the article...read the comments above! The issues he's having are largely to do with getting third-party software to work with Microsoft software, especially Exchange. This is going to be an issue with *any* non-Windows platform because of Microsoft's lack of respect and/or interest towards following standards and allowing for interoperability. Your suggestion -which, mind you, is a suggestion, not ANY sort of proposed solution to any problem raised in the article- is so unsuitable for the situation that you almost deserve to be modded troll.
Here's another thing not to do: Redhat, Emulex, and EMC with Oracle RAC. Try to import a LUN greater than 255; don't work --- HPUX, AIX, & MS Windows can see LUNs greater than 255 but Linux can't. When there's a problem "in the kernel," what happens is a bunch of finger pointing. In this case Redhat pointing at Emulex pointing at the IT department pointing at EMC point at the SAN group and The Management pointing at The Door.
I sure would not advertise my incompetence that strongly...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Most of the people here who styate linux can do it too or people who state they rolled out linux in their whole organization mention programming things. What If you are like me and cant program for anything. I know batch files and some script languages but not enough to make a whole program.
linux is, and has been ready, for a long time. but it always falls back to Exchange. Well, no, you're not going to get ever much help in connecting to exchange, and in that environment, linux won't work. funny, the guy didn't mention problems with hardware, connecting to the network, etc. nor did he mention the problems with viruses, spyware, etc. no, it's exchange. fair enough, but linux is more than ready for lots and lots of offices, homes, etc. sure, gimp is not photoshop, but OO.org is very capable and powerful, firefox, thunderbird, all the multimedia stuff, etc. except for the ipod connectivity of course.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
I'm sick of the bickering on here about whether or not Linux is good or bad or what. So frustrated in fact, that I signed up just to voice my opinion. When you buy a computer, you have the choice between Windows and Not Windows. Unless you get hit by the MS tax, ordering no OS and doing it yourself is cheaper. Just download your favorite distro, burn it, and you're in business in less than an hour. This will save you anything up to $300 in some cases. If you make $20 an hour, that's 15 hours of your time that you have saved, and you should expect that you will have to invest some of your time in exchange for the money you saved. This applies to anything. You will have to spend some time learning how to use Linux, some time configuring things the way you want, and some time defending your decision to the pro-MS crowd and even the growing Apple-elite crowds that will hassle you about your decision. Now, if you want to know if you will like Linux, or will be able to use it or whatever, ask yourself if you are willing to put in your time in order to save that money. If the answer is no, then don't bother. You won't like Linux, as you are just interested in getting something for free that will do everything your paid for OS will do out of the box. Nothing works like that in any industry. From my experience, Linux is getting closer and closer to working as well out of the box as any version of Windows ever has, and I find I'm getting my time back by not constantly having to do maintenance- no defrag, no virus scans, no hunting down spyware every 10 minutes. And all the Linux stuff works right out of the box, it's just the MS computability stuff that can be a chore. If you want an OS that looks, works like Windows and is fully inter-operable with Windows and all the other bits of MS software, then buy Windows. If you want all these things for free, call an MS sales rep and let him know. I'm sure he needs a good laugh.
Capitalism works. The opportunity is there but whats holding Linux back (as I see it) is that Linux can't decide on standards among its various and diverse distros. Linux needs simulcrums for "Program Files" and the registry and the start menu. Choice is great, but software companies aren't going to take on maintaining software for 50 different platforms to reach 5% of the market. You aren't going to have enterprise level software on Linux until the tools are there for the enterprise level software developers. Linux is the smallest part of our sales and takes a disproportionate chunk of our maintenance resources. Until you give developers the tools to provide a professional consistent product across all of the major Linux flavors, Linux is going to remain a niche. Look at what all of the Windows flavors and Mac OSes have in common as features of the operating system, then subtract out what Linux doesn't do in all of its distros. That's what has to happen before Linux is going to be taken seriously by enterprise.
I have given Windows a chance for more than 10 years, but every time a new version comes out and Microsoft promises that this time, it's really gonna work, there are still many serious problems that just keep me from getting work done. So, I stick with UNIX and Linux for work and use Windows for the occasional game.
Novell hired the guy that ported Gimp to Windows to port Evolution. Binaries (in .zip files, no installer) are available for 2.6 and 2.8. An installer for 2.6 is available. I've been using the 2.6 installer for some time now and it works quite well.
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
Ask yourselve this, all of you who do not use windows as your preferred desktop, isn't the reason you don't use Windows exactly the same as this guys reason not to use linux?
It is to me at least. I am old enough to have worked with both unixes and dos and the home computers but like so many have had to live with the fact that the Wintel machines won the majority of the market.
Until one day when enough was enough back in the 98SE days and I just had to reboot once to often. Not that that itself was a problem, I like every other MS software user had gotten used to it, the problem was that 98SE had gotten just a little bit to stable. Stable enough at least for it to be used as my primary music player. So then every reboot, every crash meant that not only did I loose my work but also my background music.
The loss of work I had learned to deal with, but since other dedicated music players do not crash this hurt.
So with the help of a linux geek I installed a very old PC with a linux distro and made it my music player. Now windows could crash and demand reboots all it wanted, the music went on and on and on and on. Cue, me moving my browsing to the linux machine. No more IE crashes taking all your hard searching with it.
Slowly, windows was replaced were nowadays my windows machine is just a game machine, for no other reason that over more then a decade I just have never been able to get windows to run properly. Just the same problem this guy has with linux.
It all depends on the person I think and their hardware. For some reaon my game machine seems to be burdened with a load of hardware that simply is not supported by the XP install disc. This always happens to me and is one of the reasons I can't help but laugh at stories about how hard it is to get drivers for linux. Because all those run-from-cd distro's seem to have no trouble at all with that machine, not Ubuntu, not Knoppix, not Mephis, just windows.
My windows game machine right now is in "wich fucking setting is going to be switched randomly during this boot". You know the one, when you find the machine boots in XP style when you selected the classic mode, when icons from the quicklaunch disappear or rearrange themselves.
But are my complaints about windows not the exact same as this guys complaints about linux? For some reason, the unix design works better for me, it clicks or something.
With linux when something is wrong I can fix it, with windows, I have no idea.
Could it possibly be that different products appeal to different people? Nah, this guy is a troll and idiot because he prefers windows over linux. Fine but then the same goes in reverse. Since I can't getwindows to run and given up and went back to a unix (lets not forget who came first) I am a quitter too.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
They have a boot CD. Install CD, instant opengroupware system.
Having said that there is also Open-eXchange, egroupware, kolab, scalix, zimbra, group office, Citadel, simple groupware, Chandler.
Linux's problem isn't groupware, there's plenty of systems, some of them rather good. The specific problem is Microsoft Exchange, if it has to be exchange then there's a problem, if you're happy to drop exchange then you can replace virtually all of the functionality in the time it takes to install one of the mentioned alternatives.
Deleted
I reiterate that you are not alone in your frustration. You didn't fail to adopt Linux, Linux didn't fail to meet your needs, it was the entire community and their business practices that failed you.
What is failing is the idea that it's either a "success" or a "failure". It's not good or bad, it just is.
I happen to be CTO of a million-dollar-a-year hosting business, using Linux as my platform. It's very efficient, it's rock-solid, it's 24x7x365, and it has caused me no significant pain in 7 years. We have redundancy, offsite backups, failover, and we have great performance response times. We use an embarrassingly small amount of hardware to satisfy very high-demand, database-driven applications.
Those are very, very, very good numbers.
When I hear "enterprise grade", here's what it means to me: It had better work reliably. It had better not give me trouble. It had better not require babysitting, frequent reboots, or any particular kludges or hacks to stay running.
I don't expect Linux to be "compatible" with closed products that make no claim of compatability. That's like expecting a teen marriage to work out. Good luck!
But, what it does claim to do, it had better do well.
Is our business based on Linux? Yes.
But do most of our computers run Linux? About 1/3. Sales, finance, etc. is all Windows. Tech is all Linux, but only represents the servers (just a few, midrange systems, see above) and a few workstations.
Use the best tool for the job!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
The correct link for the installer is here:
http://shellter.sourceforge.net/evolution/
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
Did you try any of those with Wine?
Yesterday i downloaded a small windows program that could calculate leasing costs for cars.
Installed and ran flawlessly on default wine settings.
So maybe one or more of the accounting apps. could run that way too?
Works surprisingly well...
I don't think this guy is a professional. I really don't. His writing sounds like he's more interested in trolling Linux users than actually imparting wisdom.
So I'll bite.
A professor of mine once said, "I use operating systems for what they're good at, not what they're bad at..." This guy could use that advice. At the time, the college was a mixture of Windows NT and Linux machines - the Linux boxes were used for file and print sharing, and the NT boxes for Exchange.
Complaining that Linux doesn't support Exchange is like complaining that Windows can't read your ext3 formatted floppy, or that it can't see your NFS shares. Windows wasn't built to use UNIX filesystems; Linux wasn't built to use Exchange.
So why don't we turn the argument around: Microsoft failed to build software that interoperated with UNIX. After, their web site says it does. I think the real failure here is Microsoft's: Office doesn't support OO.org file formats. And they don't support using the UNIX mail command, either. I mean, clearly, this is all Microsoft's fault because their software doesn't do what it wasn't designed to do, right?
I don't have problems using Linux and Windows, mostly because I've come to know the strengths and shortcomings of each. I'm not going to bang my head against a wall because Windows doesn't support OO.org file formats, or because Linux doesn't support Exchange.
Instead, I'm going to use the right tool for the job.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=8 254
But then again, switching a single word of yours: I seriously doubt you'd find a business of any decent size that would convert to Windows Vista en mass is probably true as well.
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
But I think you and me been waiting too long. The gap between the MS world and Linux can be summed up to two things, proprietary standards and Linux driver support (which could be reduced to the former). Bridging this gap is like a jaded lover whose love interest keeps dangling the hopeful carrot in front of their eyes. This time it will be different! Things have changed since last time! We have both matured and grown. We can make it work if we really want it. It still doesn't work. Things have changed; things are better. But the dream is one sided. Yet, the love affair still lives on. Glimmers of hope keep it alive. If only the other side would come around, it could've been beautiful.
As other readers have noted, the "failure" is in trying to make Linux interoperate with proprietary, closed-source, secretive-standard systems.
The clear message to me is that if Linux "fails" in such an enterprise, stop kissing ass and START YOUR OWN ENTERPRISE.
Beats me why bright folks with knowledge, vision and determination continue to work for fud fearing morons. Hey, it's not called FREE enterprise for nothing. It really is free, and nobody is forcing you to work for idiots. That's your choice.
If you don't like it, you are free to create something better, less the "Don't make me think!" idiots.
You are free to create something better, more cost-effective and responsive to business needs with "Linux Unbound" but only if you have the guts to do so.
Are you up to the challenge?
I have to say - I agree exactly with this sentiment. Except Im about to give up at home.
.. but its a HUGE hassle each time I change a version looking for a version of linux that meets my needs.
I have tried on a number of occasions to switch to Linux.
I have tried Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu.
I have to say it HAS got better but I am tired of the struggles of trying to resolve the issues.
Some of the problems have been my fault. I have a 64 bit dual core AMD processor. So I wanted a 64 bit OS. But too many things werent available and for someone new(ish) to LINUX the whole prospect of forcing down non 64 bit packages - especial in the browser space (Java etc) is a nightmare.
So then I swapped to the non 64 bit versions
Every time I changed I had to manually install the driver for my video card (I have a Radeon card. I know it requires a properietry driver but when I bought this machine I specified Linux compatible hardware... and they are right.. it is
Open office is good for my needs - except Powerpoints (and friends send me lots of them) never work right.
THe whole multi media thing has been a huge problem also. My MP3 player only plays MP3s so i have a choice (until recently) of all this icky manual stuff AND breaking the law or not having my music. Automatix helps with the configuration enormously but there is still the legal concerns.
There are some moves happening to resolve this.... the Click N Run warehouse opening up to other distros sounds gr8 to me. I hope it will alllow me to get legal Music and DVD codecs.
I have to say - I belieive in free software as an ethical things so it distresses me my choice then is to not have music/DVDs or act illegally.
(I was thinking about trying SUSE to solve this but them the MS deal happened and Im not interested with looking at Novell stuff (which IS a pity because my experience with NOvell and my CNE training goes back a LONG way) but it was their decision.
Finally Ubuntu 6.10 and Automatix seems to do most things I want at least - even my wireless works. But I get odd things like Disks disappearing and making them remount means editing the fstab file and I JUST dont want to have to do that. Powerpoints are still not there.
Also I wanted to stop the dual booting and run a VMWare machine.
VMware provide RPMs but only manual steps to install in Ubuntu. Then to make matters worse. Every time I try to install VMWare player... something goes wrong and every install update of any software afterwards tries to reinstall VMWare - probing for unused subnets. Even workstation
Much easier to install VMWare on windows.. but then running Linux in VMWare doesnt give me any great benefits... everything I want to do can be done on XP more or just as easily.
I want tools to manage my logins (like Roboform) and to synch stuff (like SyncbackSE)I Dont mind paying. I dont want to have to spend time at at home debugging , fixing or trying to work out why something wont install. I have my studies and my volunteer work to keep me busy.
I havent found it particularly reliable - not greatly more (or less than XP) on my Hardware.
THE ONLY thing that LINUX has that windows doesnt that I want is GNUCash - and its (hopefully) Nearly there !
So after fighting etc... I am also on the verge of giving up... and just going back to XP
This isnt a criticism of LINUX directly. Its getting better, it has good stuff but its TOO MUCH effort STILL.
I know there are individual solutions out there... but the point is they take time and effort (LOTS) and often I still dont get anywhere with them because I just dont know who to ask or where to go or the people who do know dont respond in the forums !
A frustrated open source bigot !
"Microsoft are in an anti-trust situation. Even if they weren't, standards of engineering should be such that they shouldn't be able to get away with providing interoperability specifications with no strings attached."
That's why I can put Ford parts into a Honda.
"Yeah I'm entitled. I'm the customer. It's my data. It's my network."
So don't use any MS products, and don't bitch that the world doesn't march to your drummer. Simple as that.
Linux machines are more complex to setup, but that's IRRELEVANT. A server gets setup once, the time involved isn't too major, and consultants are easily available for that. If Redhat setup local centers, where you buy your RHEL w/ install support, i.e. you either buy hardware from them pre-installed, or bring your Dell/HQ server in (or they come to you) and get it installed, you take the setup issue out. That part is easily solved.
However, the Admin side on Linux is horrid. While the Admin'ing a local workstation is easy, and pulling configuration out of LDAP is easy, the network management sucks.
If I am a mostly Windows shop but want to add 10-20 Macs for a design department, or any other department, the process is straightforward.
Buy my OS X Server, hook it into the MS Domain, and then manage my Macs from there. I could assign the Macs straight to the MS Active Directory, and Admin the Mac stuff from Mac land, but that means convincing the Active Directory people to let me use Apple's Admin stuff and not break things. But running a section of the Directory on Apple is straight-forward.
However, on Linux, I have a collection of How-to's, and a lot of manual work to get the centralized control into the LDAP Directory. All the pieces are there Kerberos-Workstation, OpenLDAP, Automount, etc., everything is easy to do for one machine, but when it comes to rolling out 10-15... well, it's manual. I got my auto-mount settings into my Mac LDAP server, and doing it on Windows would be the same, but it's a manual process.
Unix and MS Admin's are VERY different. A Unix admin is comfortable shell scriptings, installing software, configuring from a command line, etc. MS Admin's are NOT. The guys that do that stuff on MS exist, but they are generally consultants, because you hire them to set things up, then your in-house Admin's do it all from a mouse-click.
The Linux Enterprise players (Novell and RedHat) need to develop easily Admin tools for basic changes, not the setup... so much focus on setup, where a consultant easily solves the problem, and not enogh on maintenance.
Most MS Shops have a low-paid Admin, 40k-50k, that adds user accounts, rotate backup tapes, etc., and then use a consultant (or BIG shops have a senior guy or two) that do the BIG stuff. Linux has lots of solutions for the BIG stuff, but not day to day. Adding a User in MS land is straight-forward... a new person gets hired, you create the account in one place, setting up the User Account, Group Policies, and Email. In Linux land, these MAY be integrated, or they may not. Apple showed how to write a useful interface (the reliability is another manner).
To sell Linux as a workgroup solution... i.e. limited functionality users, is easy. Save money, save help desk, easy lock-down, no viruses/spyware, it's an easy sell. You need to integrate into the MS Active Directory structure, but only for user accounts. Nobody would object to adding a Linux workgroup server that had the NFS Mounts/Workstation Policies all pulled from there, but the tools need to be there.
In a Linux network (no MS involved), adding a user means rolling your own script that: A) adds them to the LDAP domain, B) adds them to the Kerberos system (if using it, and why shouldn't you, it's there, and MS does it as well), C) adds them to the email system. Changing their password on their end in one of those systems may or may not update the rest.
Linux has lots of options for everything, but no EASY way to mass configure. Sure you can build a custom-install, but that isn't the way small/medium/enterprise businesses necessarily want to use them for a small workgroup.
For YEARS Apple has held small chunks of the business market, and by playing nicely with the rest of the infrastructure, they make it easier to hang there. There is no reason for Linux not to be in the same place. No reason that I can't buy a Redhat-branded machine from the likes of Penguin Computing the same way I can buy an Apple server and run my Apple desktops. Workgroup servers don't scare businesses if they are set and forget and use the same User accounts as the rest of the network. Offer a whole package, and let it play well with upstream stuff.
Alex
Yeah, you can do all taht with Lunix... but if you die in a plane crash or auto accident or get a better job offer... they are royally fuct. If you aren't there, they are going to end up either paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in blackmail to some Lunix consultants, or else they need to migrate to a real, enterprise level systems rather than your homebrew duct-tape frankenservers.
Your company has put all it's eggs in your basket. Pretty stupid on their part.
News at 11.
http://outcampaign.org/
Free software is driven by a community. If you find a bug that prevents you from doing work, stop whining and do something about it: Give money to a developer to focus on it and fix it, write a detailed bug report, or learn programming and fix it by yourself. If you don't help the free software community in any way you can, you will remain a slave of Microsoft for ever.
This kind of article appears once in a while and I can relate. I've been trying since '99 to get Linux integrated into a mostly Windows world and have had mixed results. I'm currently typing this on a WinXP system running Firefox. Next to me is my laptop running SUSE 10.2. Both machines are on the domain, which is predominately Windows NT-based with Windows 2000 workstations and Windows 2003 workstations.
I would like to even try using Evolution (even though it is GTK-based) because that would be at least some breakthrough. However, we are not running Active Directory (yet) and so Evolution is out of the question. The closest I can get on my laptop is using CX Office for Outlook and Visio - I actually have no issues with most other MS Office documents.However, those of us on OSS-mode are making some inroads. I have one Linux server running Apache for an in-house project. Others will come.
My suggestion is to keep using Linux, keep pushing the boundries and use your time/resources to try and fix what does or does not work.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Flame bait.
While i agree to a point, i don't believe that open source software development can only be either about money or about "self amusement".
...
What about the satisfaction in contributing to solve a known problem, or in contributing to ease someone else's live, or in helping the spread of linux, or do just a little something sometimes to avoid the complete and utter monopoly of one single corporation over people's live for the next century ???
I am sure there are developers willing to contribute a little time to help, so, while boring software can be one problem, i still think the overall lack of vision/focus of the open source community is partly responsible for this. Of course wether a very disparate community could ever aquire some vision or focus or even agree on what are the most important things to do (that is without any benevolent dictatorship) is a question that is still waiting for an answer
Personally, i am starting to believe the answer is no, but that's another story.
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history - Tom Veneziano
Coming from someone working for a company with around 1,000 employees, ~90% running Linux, OS migrations are always tricky. A migration from 2000/XP to Vista can even be almost as problematic and will keep costing your company years later. Sometimes a heterogenous environment can be cheaper than a homogenous one. Some users will naturally be able to use a cheaper, open source OS while others are more expensive or undesirable to migrate. For our company, it made more sense to dump IRIX support than Windows to keep our number of supported platforms down.
-Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. -Ben Franklin
Evolution a pile of shit? Do you think Creationism is going to be any better?
Do not trust this signature.
I will be switching my "work from home" system to Linux and my high-power system to WindowsXP.
Why?
Because my high-power system is SMP and linux has problems with ieee1394 and SMP.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I'm the editor of the article, and many of these comments are mean-spirited and shortsighted.
Where, exactly, in the article, is there any indication that either Jim (or I) have any disdain or hatred for Linux. The article is essentially saying "I've tried using Linux in the workplace for ten years and it hasn't worked yet, partially because business needs to work with Exchange, and most workers do not have any say in what backend they are forced to work with. It's enough to make you give up on it, but I've got such a love for Open Source I keep going back to it."
This is not Microsoft astroturfing (I'm actually working on a freelance article talking about how Ubuntu Linux works in the home - I prefer Ubuntu Linux to Windows for day to day home productivity, personally,) and I'm insulted by the insinuation that it is.
This details a real problem towards Linux adoption in the workplace. If you support Linux, you can complain about it being FUD or you can get off your bottoms and start coding to solve the problem.
-- Brian Boyko
-- Editor, Network Performance Daily.
-- Questions about the article will be addressed at brian dot boyko at netqos dot com.
I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
You're exactly right regarding writing FOSS replacements for boring apps. But trying to interoperate with Exchange et al is even worse: Not only do you have to deal with the boredom, you have to deal with the roadblocks M$ intentionally puts in your way. They have no reason to make anything easier for the OOo and Evolution folks (or maybe Thunderbird) to make inroads into their established markets, and a lot of reasons not to.
Our only hope now is that Office 2007 is so different from 2003 or so buggy that the big corporate IT departments don't "upgrade" to it for years, giving the OOo people time to get their stuff working seamlessly with 2003.
We're already seeing a lot of people ask why they should upgrade from XP to Vista, and a lot of IT departments (like mine) telling us not to even think about it. The next big watershed events will be when M$ EOLs XP and Office2003, but that won't be for a few years yet.
I have used Linux since 1994 and have come to realize it is good for my career to know when to use Linux and when to use Windows. My employer realizes the savings when I choose one over the other and rewards me appropriately.
Here are two posts I made to www.ubuntuforums.org, telling the story about why I don't use linux yet:
.deb, which SHOULD work fine in Ubuntu, had all the menus but was unstable. If it was stable, I would have paid MONEY for it and still be using ubuntu to this day. Maybe there is a recompile one could do for ubuntu.
So after about a month of pain, and my wife putting up with the late nights with this "linux" mistress, she quietly approached me and said it wasn't working.
I agreed, and went onto newegg.com and ordered windows xp, vegas 6.0 (with dvd) some ram, a new hard drive, and now I am happily using all legit software and it "just works".
Now, if someone would come on here and say "do this, do that and then this, and you can use vegas 6.0 seamlessly and 100% foolproof on linux, well, I'd think about dapper. I haven't heard that vegas works on wine yet.
Linux __is there__, I tell you. You can do _ALL_ the same things as windows*. Eye candy interface. Codecs. Web. Firewire. Sound. TONS AND TONS of free, powerful software. USB flash drives, plug 'em in. ubuntu rocks, seriously. I really like it and I miss it. I grabbed the system sounds and put them into windows XP, I liked it so much. So don't think I'm bashing anything.
But right now there isn't any video editing software that is on par with vegas video or it's peers. Video editing is now my business. I can't play around, and for goodness sakes, I can't use cinelerra!
*almost all
I went through the same thing myself a few months ago. (see below the steps to get ubuntu installed and dual head video working) I wasn't 100% legit on my software and wanted to be. I went with ubuntu, and endured much pain and many late nights getting my system "just like it was with windows". That means dual screens, firewire, video editing, graphics, sound, all of it. I did all that. I captured video via kino and edited it in cinelerra. Cinelerra is "powerful" which people will say. Powerful like strapping a corvette motor to a lawn mower. It might get you down the block, but I wouldn't want to drive it to work everyday. (Editing in kino is, to me, a mystery - I couldn't figure it out.) Basically it was the most painful editing experience I ever had. I use vegas video, I have since 3.0. I had trouble importing the video kino got for me. I got the hang of editing in cinelerra, mostly, eventually, but it was painstaking and tedious. I had trouble rendering it. Then, I had to render to AVI and convert it to mpeg VIA COMMAND LINE! Come on, people. I'm a geek, but I wouldn't brag about having to do it that way. I got the job done though. One huge problem in cinelerra is putting text onto the screen. It does credits, but even after extensive digging into the docs there is no "text tool". I found main concept "mainactor" which is a commercial open source video editing package. Aha, I said. It works with windows, linux, etc etc. I tried it. It is nice. Check it out. It's the same people as the mainactor mpeg codecs. It comes in a RPM or a deb. The RPM was stable in ubuntu using the "alien" command. But some menus were just plain missing. The
--
Ok this post is for all the other newbies out there, to help spread a LITTLE knowledge. First of all, I'm not a total linux newbie, I have installed redhat 5.10, mandrake 9, 10, etc, but never installed a distro that had everything I wanted, etc. I always go back to windows real quick. I have: AthlonXP 2500 ATI Radeon 9600 AGP dual head Nforce2 motherboard SATA 37gig 10kRPM PATA 120 gig This time, I was very determined to switch from windows completely. Here is a list of my steps: (1,2,3 etc are main steps, a,b,c are sub-steps or additional info) 1) research. I found that ubuntu was the best distro, followed by (IMO) mepis. 2) More reseach. I required the following things to WORK: a. ATI dualview for video editing b. Firewire c. Easy install of non-typical apps such as cinelerra d. DV video capture 3) Get the live CD's - ubuntu, kubuntu, mepis a. ubuntu community is the BEST 4) Test out live c
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
I'm not even going to bother reading the whole piece. I don't have to - the quoted material gives the game away.
This is the SAME CRAP EVERY Windows shill writes on every Web site and in every article on the subject:
"Gee, I really LOVE Linux and OSS, BUT..."
It's bullshit. That type of sentence is a DEAD GIVEAWAY that this guy is a paid shill for Microsoft. Period.
If you want to integrate with Microsoft Exchange, you're an idiot in the first place.
There is nothing from Exchange either that most companies need or can't be found in other mail/groupware clients.
The article is the same bullshit we've seen from every other article from shills.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I will refer the right honourable gentleman to MS's response to OSS failing to follow MS's coattails and bringing forward their own ideas: ODF.
What did MS do?
Ignore the place left for them to input their ideas. Then what? After years of bugger all, only when Mass. say "we want PDF and ODF" MS begin to notice ODF. How?
FUD city, man.
Then OOXML and ECMA. Not forgetting the new PDF Killer (whatever the heck it's called).
And then an attempt to get fast track ISO certification on a 6000 page incomplete spec because they're microsoft.
And an attempt to proffer a small interop that is
a) not MS's product, so no support
b) avowed not to be complete
c) covered up the ass by odd wording of covenants and patents
And there are STILL people clamouring for Office Vista and wondering why OpenOffice doesn't show Windows Office files properly.
THAT is what happens when we don't follow MS's coattails.
Does it seem worth the effort to you?
I like when he says: "Something simple doesn't work" This reminds me of the stupid key manager in OpenSuse 10.2 that was supposed to uninstall with a simple right click and after telling me that it was successfully uninstalled it never was. So annoying little bug that drove me back to Ubuntu and now Windows.
Coderz 4 Life
I guarantee the stories about "grandma" using windows are begin with, "HP put my grandma's computer together and installed windows for her and set it all up perfect for her. She uses it no problem."
Give me a story where grandma bought a computer and installed linux and has it running for a few years without any problems, then we'll talk.Give me some money to run cable TV ads for Linux Certified or Penguin Computing, then we'll talk.
cos it sure as hell didn't come on CD waiting to be installed...
Regardless of interoperability with Exchange, or ability of application to perform at the same level, Lets put all that aside and consider something...
/ odi/documents/scottTaskForce/03_chap3.shtml&hs=pyp
ANY organization that wishes to do business with the government in the US (Canada as well) needs to provide an environment that plays well on the accessibility front. The tools just aren't there, and again, it is a decidedly un-sexy front for development. Until a robust accessibility program is implemented in Linux/Open Source applications, they cannot be used in business.
Do you really want to be the business being picked by the disabled?
ADA http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahom1.htm
Canadian Version - http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/asp/gateway.asp?hr=/en/hip
Art
AccordSQA ( http://www.accordsqa.com/ )
Testing Automation Tools
Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave. -Guy Kawasaki
Pick any task you can accomplish in both and google for a tutorial. A topical turotial, involving multiple tools and techniques, not just a menu-function description. That is, look for a non-trivial example. How do you accomplish a task, not just how do you operate a tool. You will find solutions for Photoshop and not for GIMP.
Go to Borders or Barnes & Noble and look for a book on GIMP. You will find one, if they happen to have it in stock. It's in the Photoshop section. That's section, not shelf.
Of course it's unreasonable to expect otherwise, but anyone claiming GIMP is suitable for "a majority of people" has probably only used either for cropping and resizing.
Can someone please tell me why GIMP doesn't name things, locate things, scale things, and provide the same ranges of values as Photoshop, for the subset of Photoshop functionality that it does provide, so that all that Photoshop material could be helpful to GIMP users?
> but every time, the reality was that Linux just was not ready
The reality is that Linux doesn't receive multi-billions of dollars in government (taxpayer) grants to make itself ready to the point where it functions as "click'n'run".
The point here is not which OS is "ready", but which OS exhibits the most functionality, stability, security, and programmability per dollar per capita. In this respect F/OSS software clearly wins. The expected trend is that, if we can make a product 50% as good with 0.0001% of the funding, then we could absolutely blow the competition out of the water if we had even half the funding they do.
Hooray for the stock market and the business-political pyramid scheme.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
I think - and correct me if I'm wrong - that this author really needs - to learn how to write something - a full paragraph, perhaps - without using - so - many - damned - hyphens.
And using ALL of them in the WRONG way, incidentally.
I see and feel your pain and frustration. Now; let me ask a few questions:
.02 cents wor
1) Is it Linux that failed? or is it the applications?
The answer seems to be the applications.
2) Do the applications work when they are not used in a proprietary environment?
From my experience; the applications do work quite well; while not using proprietary file formats or protocols.
3) Does Linux have issues with TCP/IP?
No
4) Does thunderbird or firerfox have issues with pop3 or html/javascript?
No.
To be blunt; Linux and the various open source applications do work and work well. They don't work; when it comes to proprietary formats. Over that last several years there has (finally) been a very strong push to use open standards. The good thing is that anyone can implement them. There is a downside; getting the rest of the world to use the open standards.
5) Is Linux ready for the desktop? Yes; certain desktops, not everyone can benefit just yet.
Just for the record; I am no zealot; however, I am a strong proponent of Open Standards. Source code doesn't have to revealed; just document how the works.
Think of it this way.
Do Cisco routers work?
Yes, they work well.
Can Cisco routers communicate with other routers?
Yes they can; providing that they use the same protocol.
Can Cisco routers inter operate with non Cisco routers using a Cisco proprietary protocol? No. Does this make Juniper routers; a malfunctioning piece of junk? No. You want two products to work that share no common ground. Reverse engineering can only go so far; sometimes it goes really far. It will never function 100% without being documented.
Did Linux and Open Source fail? They failed at reverse engineering someone else's protocol. Don't forget the companies that make the proprietary protocols / file formats have failed you. It will be exceedingly difficult to share your data or network with anyone who doesn't use the same tools. I am sure you understand what vendor lock-in is. Once your locked in; your organization gets hooked in to the upgrade cycle. In essence, you are at the whim of the vendor. Shouldn't the vendor be at the whim of the customer? Shouldn't the customer be able to take "THEIR" data to a 2nd vendor if the 1st vendor provides poor service or outrageous prices? No so; you are locked in.
Just my
The documented standards work well in the Open Source world.
"flamebait, quitter, idiot, true, linux (tagging beta)" - Give it a rest, fellas.
This guy has a very good point - Linux is extremely difficult to run in an enterprise environment instead of Windows. It doesn't matter how familiar you are with it, and it doesn't matter how much you hate Microsoft. Linux just isn't ready. It requires too much tweaking to get working, and you'd have to have an army of system administrators on hand to run around fixing up every little problem that would inevitably occur on an hourly basis.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Windows. I really love the idea of switching to an open OS, and every few months I download and install whatever is touted as the most "friendly" distribution. But it's never as pain-free as I was expecting, and I usually have to screw around with some config files (in VI, the stupidest editor known to man) before X will work. Then my sound card won't be recognized, or *something*, despite all my hardware being extremely common.
It just takes a LOT of work to set up a Linux machine, and so long as that's the case, it won't be useful for corporate environments. Or for my home, unfortunately.
As much as I've tried since 1994 or so to install, regularly use, and even enjoy various distributions of Linux (primarily Slackware for the first 8 to 10 years), it does get very, very frustrating when seemingly-simple things just don't work. I'm not a fan of the dumbed-down attitude that everything on a computer should "just work" but unless you're building something from scratch (and I do mean from the ground up, not installing anything that anybody else has created), some things do need to "just work." Need to compile a kernel? You'll need your compiler to work. Expect to use a keyboard or mouse? You'll need your drivers to work. And so on...
Current highly-annoying flaws include the install/upgrade process of OpenSUSE 10.2 failing to enable X to start because it pointed to a non-existent file/link. (I fixed it manually, which was easy for someone with a bit of experience but would have completely stumped a novice, and is an unnecessary waste of time no matter how much experience you have. That this happened on two machines -- fresh install on a 32-bit machine, upgrade from OpenSUSE 10.0 with functioning X on a 64-bit machine -- indicates this wasn't exactly a fluke instance.) Also included is my (as-yet-unresolved) problem getting Matrox drivers to work, leaving me to stare in 1024x768 VESA mode at installation instructions that don't match the downloaded driver file (e.g., documented command line options that aren't actually available).
I haven't given up yet, but that's only because of my strong dislike for the alternative -- i.e., using Windows, which I'm still stuck doing far more than I would like. I still even recommend Linux to others, although I'm more inclined to add "to evaluate" or "to experiment with" than I was in the past. In the past, I was more prone to blaming my own lack of experience for any problems I ran into. And that's still the case sometimes; for example, I figure my inability to get high scores to save in games is probably something I'm missing, not necessarily a problem with the game or system. But now that I'm seeing specific, productivity-killing flaws that have nothing to do with my experience, and which are an apparent sign of basic sloppiness, I'm less enthused about Linux than I was. That is definitely a step in the wrong direction.
No Laughing Allowed!
You do not run Windows out of choice. You did not decide what the fortune 500 run on desktops. The users at fortune 500s had no input into what is run on their desktops. The executives and IS directors don't make decisions as to that, either. Microsoft marketing and Microsoft lawyering did that for you years ago. Please get in line and bend over. Really, you will like it. Do you remember CP/M, M/PM, OASIS, MBOS, or any others? Where did they all go? And especially, was it usefulnes or technical profficiency that they lacked? Many still remember the days before Microsoft dominance, when we may have even harbored hope for broader compatability and interoperability. What is left? Microsoft and UNIX. (Linux is a UNIX variant) Why is that all that is left? If you cannot answer that question then you do not have the history or the experience necessary to determine what should be done about it, and you are simply in the Microsoft queue dishing out dollars for the 'ether' that is is Microsoft products. No office productivity other than Microsoft? Come on folks! You know better than that. Microsoft neither wrote word, nor did they invent any such thing as office productivity. As a result of Microsoft dominance, most computer users have never used a really decent word processor, or especially a specialized word processor. Specialized word processor?? Yes there are and have been such things for many years (legal, techinal writing, book writing, etc). So the users of today get to mash their specialized requirements into Word, because that is all there is, and they simply don't know any better. Exchange??? Give me a break. What do you get when you take industry standard protocols and add propriatary extensions? A Miscrosoft product. Do the proprietary extensions add value? Not from Microsoft. They are intended only to isolate and confuse, and they work exactly like designed. If every corporation in the world dropped their use of exchange, a large majority of email problems (introduced by exchange servers with their broken headers and non standard prorocols) would dissapear. The world then would be a better place. By keeping the marketplace closed (its called monopoly position) Microsoft has also been able to keep the populace ignorent. Read some history about countries and religions that have followed those tactics and see where they ended up. I have been waiting for years to see the wave of people with pitchforks and clubs attack Microsoft. It may not happen in my lifetime, and I feel sorry for the world of IT that has to live under the thumb of Microsoft until then.
So deciding by the feeling in this thread the billion people who can not change their Exchange running corporations MUST not use Linux on their laptops? So much for the year 2007 as the year of the Linux laptop. It is more like "2007 - the year of the Linux for geeks independent of de facto corporate IT culture".
More seriously, we have people using Ubuntu in our company, and they are happy to use OWA with Firefox. Bigger problems with us are writing DL DVDs, Bluetooth and Nokia mobiles, bad Linux Skype, bad Linux Cisco VPN, problems with WEP and WPA, problems with PointSec hard disk encryption: all fancy new hw and and all non-FOSS integration is generally a pain, not only MS stuff.
Anssi Porttikivi / app@iki.fi
these stupid articles piss me off, they always start out with the base assumption everything works on windows perfectly, which we all know to be untrue.i've used a freebsd desktop for years without problems, and it's more primitive then linux.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I would have to agree in spirit with most of the other posts regarding this article. However I disagree with those who feel this article is FUD. Articles like these are croping up all over the internet and not just about Linux or even computing for that matter. Articles/blogs by "Robert X. Cringely", John Dvorak, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh ( by transcript ) and many others, with inflamatory titles like "Apple is Dying", "Linux, not ready for the Enterprise", "Joseph McCarthy was a great man". I have started to think that these folks just try and come up with something, anything, radical to say so as to get higher click-throughs on their sites, boost their readership ratings and prove to their publishers that they do indeed generate interest in what they say. I don't belive that articles like these are about Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, they are about generating readership by saying inflamatory things (ie flaimbait as the tags correctly pointed out ). In my mind, FUD is produced by parties to a discussion that do not wish a discussion to proceed any further down any lines but their own. This article, and those like it are much more crass in their authors' desires for self promotion. I think a proper response to articles of this kind is to give them the attention they deserve... none.
.... its just not ready for the enterprise ...", and then act on such statements. So when article states blithely that Linux doesn't work in the "enterprise", it could have just as easily been talking about not working on the Starship Enterprise for all the value that the statement had.
That being said, I also feel that the term "enterprise" should be stricken from both journalistic and marketing lexicons when it comes to describing computing products. It is one of those marketing terms that means both everything and nothing at the same time. Working in the "Enterprise" could mean, being multi-user, supporting threading, supporting distributed processing, having large RAID arrays, working with other server products, in other words pretty much anything. While working at a large university I became so sick of hearing that term used over and over again for descriptions of everything from software, hardware, storage products, heck, even Nero CD buring software had an "Enterprise" version. Many smart people would nod sagely when someone used a statement such as "
In response to other posts and the article author's comments, I personally had success and only moderate difficulty in viewing my public folders, other's calenders, setting my free/available time etc. through Safari talking to an Exchange 2000 server through OWA ( Outlook Web Access ). The only thing that I found to be impossible was delegating my calendar to others so someone else could schedule my time for me. It would have been easier to use Outlook though. And as other posters have commented, if what the author wanted was really an Outlook experience, then he should have been using Outlook, not Evolution.
Funny, that has been the norm, and still is, for virtually everything. It either comes as a shell archive, or a source archive.
This doesn't count for things that your distribution has a built in package for. But that's problematic in and of itself. I don't know HOW many times I've told Debian to install something, and it tells me that it needs to install an older version of something, which will require removing the newer version of something, which will then cause all of the packages that depend on that newer version to be erased.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Ever want to install something that isn't provided by Debian (or Ubuntu, or whatever other distro you're having that uses that wretched excuse for an installer)
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Oh come on! Even when I build software from source, I have never encountered an application that cannot use GCC (assuming it is written in C or C++). And unless your application has some sort of kernel component, applications are not dependent on specific kernel releases.
Besides, the overwhelmingly most common way to install applications in by using a package manager, not building from source. That is only needed if you want to use an application that does not exist in a repository, either because it is rarely used, or because it is so cutting edge that the repository hasn't had a chance to release the new version yet.
How will running wamp_install.exe give you the "custom install" you were going for on Linux?
That's sort of like a generic LAMP install. But to get certain modules to be their speediest on Linux, you need to compile them in with the other packages. In Windows, you just drop their DLLs in the right places at any time, edit a config file, and you have your speedy mods.
The whole config/make/make install and the options you can choose depending on what you're trying to do just takes a little while to get used to after working so long with Windows installers and binary only installations. It's certainly interesting and I felt like I accomplished something. Sort of like fixing a car myself as opposed to dropping it off at the mechanic. You learn a lot on the way.
I've been running Linux on my work PC for just over a year. I'm using smbfs for mounting windows shares, OpenOffice for reading and writing Word and Excel documents, and rdesktop to connect to a terminal server where I run essential windows software.
The Windows Start menu just seems so archaic, compared to clicking on the desktop background and selecting commonly run applications. Then there's the virtual desktops, which I move between by using Mouse Flip with a border resistance of zero. It's great just to flick between screens with the flick of a mouse. Lastly, the command line is just way faster than any gui configuration, and much more convenient, assuming you're already familiar with what you're configuring (that's the catch of course).
I actually get irritated using a Windows machine now. I find it a hindrance while working, having to click on menus, run through multiple levels of dialogs, to achieve something that would take me a second on the command line. Not that everything is initially streamlined on the Linux side, but the point is, you can change things in Linux. I've created any number of aliases and shell/perl scripts to help me out with things I do commonly. You just can't do that in Windows for the most part.
I agree with the article author about the evolution exchange connector. It still isn't fully featured, and I occasionally had glitches indicating that it wasn't very stable. Plus, the exchange web connector has to be enabled for it to work properly, which is not always the case for many workplaces.
Has anyone tried out the OMC exchange connector, also called Brutus? The website for this is at http://www.omesc.com/ . It's supposed to talk to the Exchange server directly using MAPI. That has to be much faster and more reliable than the exchange connector. Can anyone attest to its reliability?
"I'm not about to recommend we throw money at a group to try and accomplish a goal we don't know they could do."
.. what? security? reliability? value for money? interoperability? adherance to standards? functionality perhaps - hahahahahaha.
So you recommend that you throw money at the richest corporation on the planet to do
welcome to capitalism. sucker.
well I could say the opposite. Windows has dissapointed me, I can't get it to integrate perfectly with my linux only home network. What no nfs-mounts - have to use some ugly samba gludge on my server to get that stupid windows machine connect to my network. Also microsoft word cant open my .odts -it's an open standard and they still cant support it. lame! that's why I have given up windows.
stupid. stupid.
Migrate the whole damn company to linux and you have much less problems than by mixin proprietary shit with opensource goodnes.
I've been a hardcore desktop Linux user since the summer of 2001. I've been swimming upstream in an MS Windows environment the entire time. I've been fortunate because I've been able to make things mostly work and I don't do a lot of work in Microsoft Office. Our organization recently moved from a Lotus Notes environment to Exchange.
It wasn't long before we were told we had to use the collaborative features such as tasks and calendars. Since Evolution does not work at all except for basic calendaring, contacts, and email I've more or less been forced to switch from Thunderbird to Outlook as a client. The web client features suck as bad as Evolution. I'm in the process of migrating back to Windows, using Vista (which is a total disappointment, but that is a topic for another discussion).
I've tried Debian, Gentoo, Fedora and Ubuntu. All of them perform great as a basic desktop OS but integrate poorly into an MS Enterprise environment. I'll keep a dual boot laptop and a test machine in my lab at work to keep my skills up to speed and hopefully figure out a way to better integrate Linux in the MS Enterprise world.
"Could someone make an open source product that works with Exchange?"
.doc format and uses features that break when it's edited by the version of OOo that IT installed and supports.
No need to work with exchange. Just need to replace exchange and do the job for the organisation that exchange does.
And get busted for cracking the IT department?
I was under the impression that the author was not in a position to change the server-side and migrate the whole company's critical infrastructure to some other solution. Instead he, as an individual contributor, needs a client on Linux that operates with the company-mandated server and scheduling infrastructure.
The existence of other solutions that interoperate with Linux clients is no more relevant to him than the existence of 50Hz power to run 50Hz-only appliances in some other locations would be to someone with a 50Hz appliance in a 60Hz utility's service area.
He is HERE. The company MANDATES mail and scheduling be done via an Exchange server. Any Linux solution needs to interoperate with the Exchange server or he's locked out of mail and meeting scheduling. Period.
= = = =
I feel his pain: Though our company provides linux desktops to the engineers:
- scheduling is via a commercial calendering system (with no Linux OR other-unix client and a web-interface client replacement for non-Windows platforms that is seriously crippled. (For starters, email (->pager) notification of upcoming meetings is done by the client, not the server, and I lost the functionality when they revved the server and the vendor provided no unix-of-ANY-flavor client for the new version.)
- documentation on the projects is mandated to be in Microsoft's
- bugtracking was moved from bugzilla to another proprietary system a couple product cycles ago. (At least that one is usable, though it is a massive pain, misconfigured for our department's needs, and feature-poor.)
Much as I'd like to talk the company into sanity on these issues (especially since we're a prime target for targeted-corporate-espionage malware infection) I just don't have the pull.
(Fortunately our mail is on pop and smtp servers.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
SUSE? you microsoft-loving faggot.
I'm sick of the whiners complaining about how this free software doesn't do everything the software they paid hundreds and thousands of dollars for does. It is FREE - some people were nice enough to give us what we have for FREE. They aren't doing it so that you can make $100 an hour using it - do you give your services away to anyone in the world who wants it??? You probably charge your relatives.
You want Photoshop on Linux, then tell Adobe you would pay full price for a Linux version. If enough of you whiners did it, Adobe would gladly comply.
That said, I'm also sick of the whiners complaining that all software isn't free. We are lucky to have what we have.
We all owe a big THANK YOU to all the free software developers, regardless of what OS they are writing it for.
The article says that because he can't subscribe to a public mailing list then he has failed to migrate to free software solution. Since when did one missing feature of one program mean that you can not migrate to a new operating system? This is like saying you can't switch cars because theres no cup holder.
The problem really lies in peoples impressions of GNU GPL/Linux. They're mindset is of a consumer "Why aren't YOU fixing XYZ?" rather then trying to make things better and submitting bug reports, being part of the community (which these people will never be).
Therefore its pointless switching people over and do not believe that it is "supporting free software" rather it is leeching without giving anything back to the community.
Okay so I'm a business manager at an innovation company trying to work with most of those Fortune 500 corporations whose employees use all those Microsoft applications... I'm not an IT professional, though I know a thing or two about programming in a few languanges and I own a company which produces SaaS/ASP offerings and other consulting services. And I like using different platforms to solve different problems. So does my partner, our CTO. And after being our internal champion of Thunderbird and other approaches, I gave up on non-Outlook programs from a pure user standpoint. They were like using Beta videotapes when everyone else was using VHS. So what.
Here's the thing. The entire concept of open source systems is intriguing to me... but I am constantly trying to understand what the revenue model is, and while the idealist in me wants to support the effort, and all of the IT folks around keep trying to argue how Novell and IBM and Red Hat seem to make money at it, the fundamental problem is that Linux and OSS solutions are, frankly, me-too solutions.
They are a result of people frustrated with an establishment and trying to do something which tears down the establishment through creation of this strange anarchical communist-like (non-?)establishment of their own. (That's the obvious and implied thread that runs throughout this thread and anything I've ever read from developers hooked on Linux.)
To me, that's pretty silly. You don't tear down an establishment by creating the same thing (eg., a substitute OS, substitute apps, emulation software). You DISPLACE an establishment by creating a better one... one with substantive differences from that old establishment. Linux isn't that answer. It's too similar to what has gone and been before, only has added a network of developers who donate their time (which is then leveraged by slightly better organized people who charge for their time through paid support.) Google and socially networked computing applications like YouTube and Flickr take the next steps toward some level of displacement, as they've added a social network of users of applications. Salesforce.com takes yet another step (albeit for a niche group) as it creates an environment for mashups--both socially networked "open" platform (really closed), and socially networked users. But I don't think it's the thing that's actually going to displace this establishment through creating a better one.
I loudly applaud the Open Source Linux community, yet IMHO they are not the next wave of software developers. They deserve most of the credit for the inception of the next wave of what will be the true displacement of Microsoft dependency: they've sowed the seeds of true creativity by making development and collaboration truly accessible to individuals. The next wave is not a replacement for Outlook and Exchange. It won't come from people donating their time. It will come from the efforts of people who both value openness and collaboration, yet still value their own time sufficiently to be given value in exchange for the value they provide. And no, I don't know what that is yet, anymore than you do. But I'm striving to find out. And striving to get paid for that.
We won't even be having conversations like this in another several years. Outlook won't even be significant, even if it remains predominant. Much like the VHS videotape. It will simply cease to be anything but an inexpensive utility, much like the Railroads at the turn of the previous century. Those railroads were tremendously progressive, and still have retained some level of efficacy. People tried to compete with them. And along came the automobile, far more interesting.
Who cares about email applications? Find the thing beyond group email. Stop imitating, you've learned all you can that way. Start innovating.
OK, his arguments hold no water. After all, I can make the reverse statement truthfully. So what? Here is his statement modified for my situation.
"For the last ten years, I would go off and on back to this thought: I wanted to move to Apple or Microsoft, and to use Windows or Mac's as servers, but every time, the reality was that they just were not ready to replace our OpenVMS boxes... Over the last six years, I've tried periodically to get Windows or OS-X running our enteprise systems, thinking, logically, that things must have improved. But every time, something sometimes something VERY VERY MAJOR prevented me from running our systems on them."
Of course our situation is way worse than this bloggers situation. Windows boxes run NO software from our OpenVMS boxes(no equiv to wine)... meawhile Linux runs a lot of software that runs on Windows.
The windows OS has no support for major enteprise features we have had for decades such as tight clustering etc.
This article is a RED HERING! I'm sure even AMIGA fans could write a similar piece.
My workplace (a k-12 school district) looked at this as an alternative to Exchange because it was cheaper (in both licensing and IT staff) and provided the functions that we wanted (callendering,todo lists,e-mail); except that it would not sync well with our Palm Tungsten E2s that we standardized on for our administrators. We paid for the version that let us sync to Palms. They provided up with support, and it still didn't work.
The sole reason we are not using it is because it doesn't work with the palm hotsync utility. So, we currently have Twig, which is okay, and it looks like we will be sticking with that for a while.
Also, Zimbra is clunky and slow on old machines.w00t w00t watch wh0 y0u sh00t!
>If you can afford to pay licensing on one thousand seats of Microsoft Outlook,
>you can afford to pay a developer to write a mail and calendar client application.
Yes you could, but it is called REINVENTING THE WHEEL and leads to a million other problems such as moving away from an industry standard (Yes, Exchange IS an industry standard.), moving away from a professional developed and supported product to an unknown developer of unknown reliability, etc. etc. etc.
Any decent programmer COULD take an existing FOSS mail server and build up a package that does most of what Exchange does. But who will support it? Who (and how much money) would it take to build the client-side. You expect corporations to throw away the investment they have already made? You expect them to throw away the Leggo-block compatibility BETWEEN different MS products?
I encounter Russian developers every day who plan to change the world with their FOSS software and who try through brute force to make companies change to their way of thinking. They fail to understand that the CUSTOMER is the one who makes the choices, and will NOT tolerate simple developers telling them how to run their business and what software they should or should not be running. And -- since the customer is the one WITH THE MONEY -- they certainly have the right to do so.
...has some sort of equivalent on Linux
A volt meter is also "some sort of equivalent" to a network analyzer, in that it isn't.
While there is nothing wrong with Linux and Linux users, this has been my experience exactly. I've tried a number of times to go to Linux. At first (mid 90's) it was the difficulty of install, now it's just the inability to run the programs I want and the required move to programs I don't want to use.
As an example: What to use as spreadsheet on Linux? Open Office. So I tried to run Open Office in Windows. While the program does run, it did take me one hour to convert an Excel spreadsheet that I use to track my income and expenses. And after that, the 600kB Excel file was saved as a 4.5MB OO file.
I'm very sorry, but that just doesn't do it for me. I'm not always happy with Windows, but it sure beats the frustrations I had trying to use Linux and its associated programs.
- Every time I tried it out for the past 10 years, Schwinn had never built a better snow plow. And further, the schrader valves on the bicycle never got more compatible with my presta air pump. Certainly not ready for prime-time.
- I started and ran my own small business. I wanted to do all of my office work with a hedge trimmer. But working with my primary customer required me to fax documents, and I couldn't get the hedge trimmer to fax documents to my customer. I went out of business because of the hedge trimmer, and I don't think hedge trimmers are ready for use by businesses.
- I was an executive chef at McDonald's and I really wanted to learn how to cook sashimi. Everybody kept talking about it, and how it could go mainstream, so I wanted to find a way to integrate it into the dollar menu. But every time I tried to cook sashimi, it came out as something else. I finally gave up trying to cook sashimi and I don't think sashimi is ready for use in serious restaurants yet. Maybe in a couple more years I will try to cook sashimi again, and hopefully for sashimi I will have more luck next time.
- I wanted to drive my F1 racer to work on the highway. I really wanted to support the F1 world and all that. So 10 years ago I tried for the first time, but the police wouldn't let me (once they caught me, when I ran out of fuel). I ended up selling that car and purchasing a Geo Metro. But just recently, I thought I'd try again, with one of the newer snazzier cars from McLaren. The cops still wouldn't let me drive on the highway. Maybe if I give McLaren's F1 team another two years they'll be up to par with the ford fiesta that I currently own. After all, 99.99% of people drive on public roads and 99.99% of roads are public. So I really can't see how any enterprise could use an F1 car until such cars are made perfectly compatible with public roads.
I've seen "open source" developer ego's get in the way more than anything else.
The fact that some O.S. people are put on a pedestal is probably one of the worst influences on quality, features, meeting 'customer' needs, documentation and supportability/maintainability.
Greed? I see that almost exclusively in closed-source projects.
I guess I'm proof that you are wrong. I use GIMP for a hell of a lot more than just cropping and resizing.
But you know what, in the places where I have worked (not graphics shops), a majority of the people who claim they "need" PS pretty much only need to crop and resize. But they have been convinced by idiots that they need PS to do this.
Which is my point, unbalanced advocacy. You are a perfect example, you clearly don't know what GIMP can and cannot do vs. what PS can do, yet you blather on.
Probably because GIMP isn't PS.
But GIMP is designed flexibly enough that it can be configured to look a lot like PS. Go back to Google and search for gimpshop...
I just Googled "GIMP tutorial", and I don't know if you are using the same Google as I am, but there are a lot of tutorials "involving multiple tools and techniques", as well as entire books.
Not specific enough? OK, how about we try "GIMP tutorial masks"? Hmmm, a little under half a million hits on that, and the first 10 look pretty useful.
Again, it seems you are a perfect example of the unbalanced advocacy that I was originally talking about.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
... but I haven't quit yet because the alternatives still suck more.
And it's amazing how childish aggressive even the tags are.
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
I've been checking some of the docs in the specs part, and there are documents describing netbios dated 1987 (rfc 1001, no less!). There definitely is a lot of SMB documentation, but not about the MS extensions.
That's embrace and extend for you!
GPG 0x1B479C78
TFA complains linux is not ready for the IT environment, but linux has been widely used in IT environments for ages. His complaint are not about IT issues, they're about management: exchanging Word files and setting appointments on Exchange. Those are management issues, and managers prefer Windows. IT stuff is generally much better at home on linux than on winodws, firstly because many programmers prefer it, and secondly because linux gives you much more reliable servers. I'll happily grant that linux is not ready for managers yet.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
a WebDAV folder for posting iCals
This is the one thing I think falls down in your parallel setup. Last I checked, using iCal files for enterprise calendaring meant subscribing to every iCal file you wanted to see stuff in, which means every time an employee adds a new calendar, everybody else has to subscribe to it or they won't see his/her stuff. Is there some sort of auto-subscribe function that makes this less tedious and error-prone?
Even if there is, this doesn't really scale, as with N people reading each other's calendars you have N^2 file reads going on per calendar refresh period, with the server usage and network traffic that go along with them. If you have a 200-person enterprise with a couple of large groups or committees, you're screwed.
What's needed is not a collection of files, but an actual unified calendar database running on a server. That allows you to instantly look at anyone's calendar you want, without all the tedious subscribing to files. If you've ever used Outlook calendaring, planning a meeting is as easy as telling Outlook who you want to invite and then looking down the timeline at everyone's availability, completely on the fly. That and Palm sync are what people who really use Exchange Server's calendar features want, and those two things together are what no open-source solution gives them that I've been able to find.
My current workplace has been looking for a simple open-source calendar server to replace an ancient installation of Netscape Calendar, and we can't even find an open-source solution that meets the subset of that product's feature set that we actually use. We even looked at web-based calendars, despite the fact that web-based calendars suck, and what we found is that most of them have absolutely no desktop integration (Palm sync) at all. I'm not surprised that a drop-in Exchange Server calendar replacement doesn't exist.
Or maybe I'm completely wrong about how iCal works these days, but I don't think so.
-- Old Man Kensey
Exchange compatibility is a non-negotiable, non-finesseable, titanium-clad, gotta-have-it-no-kidding, requirement.
Not true. I work for a very large, multi-national corporation and as part of the strategy to rationalise IT infrastructure it was made a goal to COMPLETELY ERADICATE Microsoft Exchange from the business. The main business has never been an Exchange shop (I believe it went from Novell Groupwise to IBM/Lotus), and some divisions were acquisitions that were all-Windows shops and the damn Exchange servers were just annoying headaches to maintain...thus there was a big final push and out they went. Yes, Lotus Notes client is not as slick as Outlook but the back end was very robust and capable of handling tens of thousands of accounts reliably...and it handled the fast majority of email and group-ware functions already.
Come to think of it, I've actually never had an employer that relied on Exchange. Obviously it isn't a "gotta-have-it-no-kidding requirement" as a lot of businesses get by very well without it. There is NO technical reason whatsoever that a company has to rely on Exchange. The reason it is a requirement is SOLELY political and emotional...and eventually economic as eventually a business gets so hopelessly mired in proprietary lock-in that escape would be a huge expense.
If you want to embrace FOSS you find an equivalent solution to your closed, locked in one, and ditch it whole.
.doc format and where you have the wherewithal to impose your wish (mostly providers, but if you are clever, even with clients) you ensure that other companies talk to you using the formats that suit you, not MS, not other companies.
That means in your corporate network you don't need frigging
If your starting point is "I want Free Software but it has to do everything MS software does" well, kind of you are setting in stone your own requirements and, guess what, you have the "solution" you deserve.
As you may have realized now, this decision has made you hostage to a provider (when it should be the provider that follows your wishes) and you are so deep on it that as long as you are not beaten too much, you are willing to take as much punishment as your captor demands.
The solutions are out there, they are no 100% what you need, they weill not be an exact replacement of what you have, but you have to pay a price for allowing your computing infrastructure to be kidnapped by a provider against your own best interests.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
How long is that period. Once every month? Once a year?
Let me put it tersely: you are not a fucking Linux expert.
I have many years working on IT and can confidently tell you that most things in Windows take me ages to do because I am not familiar enough with MS wares anymore (thank goodness).
But I will not surely abscribe to WIndows what is my own lack of practice, although I can investigate the problems other people have and see my Windows colleagues struggling to administer those horrible machines, and can make quite well informed judgments.
You sir, can't because clearly are not investing the time to become familiar enough with a tool that is clearly capable of what you are asking and more.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"At critical times, when I needed to interface with Microsoft software or file formats, I couldn't. This is Linux's fault."
Chris Mattern
YOu just change what training is given to each employee according to the bussiness needs.
And frankly using most of the features in Outlook (or a replacement) is not black magic.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Desktop software.
Data Bases
Office Suite
Etc.
The overwhelming advantage for FOSS is that the clock is not ticking at all. If people are not screwed enough in order to scratch a given itch, the itch does not get scratched.
It seems to me like the Exchange itch will start to bleed soon, but as long as people are happy (and masochist enough) to live with what they have, a FOSS solution will not be forthcoming. WHich is a good thing, because then people concentrate in other projects.
The beauty of FOSS is that you have to get things right only once. From there all is just incremental improvements.
We will see in 3, 5 or 10 years, I am pretty certain solutions equivalent to Exchange will be available. Hech, there are solutions available, but they have shortcomings. For many small companies and organizations those solutions are good enough right now.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is like asking that a 100m sprinter breaks a world record... while wearing two left foot running shoes.
You are not understanding the real requirement (providing calendaring and messaging services in an enterprise) by equating it with "working seamleassly with Exchange".
Both things are not the same, which is why you are arriving to the wrong conclussion.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
so to adopt the position often used by business if no one has done it no sees any money in doing it. where there's a need there's a pay (out).
I personally would embrace with open arms any REAL competition to Exchange, but for MS-based shops, right now, no real alternative exists. As many in this discussion have noted, FOSS projects don't get done because of customer want or need -- they get done when the programmers think it would be cool or fun to do. A great way to operate a 'hobby', but a hell of a way to run a 'business'. With 'commercial' software, it is known right at the start that the product (and company) need to make money to survive -- so they enter the project with a strong focus on customer needs. Developers are given a set of business problems to solve -- these come from the eventual customers of the product. Demand-driven PULL rather than hobbyist driven PUSH. In the past, I have actually recommended customers to use products like HelpCore and SugarCRM when they are appropriate -- but certainly these products are far from being anywhere near what I would consider 'commercial' quality. If the customers had money to spend, I would have recommended quite different solutions. Another problem is the support and operation of these so-called 'free' products. HelpCore, for example, wanted $100 USD per hour and a minimum of 4 hours just to INSTALL their product on a client's server. (I got some guys in India to do it for $25, but that's another story.) To KEEP the product running is another problem -- unless you have a Linux geek on-staff full-time for even the smallest and simplest server and single application, you're toast. For sure, if there ever does become a REAL alternative to Exchange, I'd be one of the first people to recommend it -- but at the moment, it seems like any real alternatives are far away. Lots of the Linux fanboys think Exchange is just a POP/SMTP server when in fact those two services are only a TINY part of the product functionality. If customers wanted just a POP/SMTP server, I WOULD probably recommend a FOSS solution -- but this isn't normally the case. Customers want Active Directory integration, Outlook Integration, Outlook Web Access and a whole lot more that NO single Linux-based product currently comes even close to offering. Will wait and see. In the meantime, business keeps rolling along just fine with Exchange and now that Exchange 7 is out -- you'll see a lot more third-parties offering 'hosted' mail solutions. Things will get very interesting soon! :)
All the work I do these days is with 100% Microsoft shops. The US Army as a prime example of a very large-scale Microsoft-only solution. There are huge cost savings to be had by not having to train two completely separate 'streams' of staff -- one for the MS- side of the house and the other for the 'NIX side. Mixed environments can be fun -- if you can afford it and enjoy daily challenges. Nobody can say that there are not great 'nix solutions for different problems -- but getting them to actually work together or integrate is an entirely different and very complex problem. (Usually resulting in a mountain of completely unmaintainable 'glue code' and 'shims' you have to pay for and then pay to have maintained.) I personally enjoy being able to install a COMPLETE business solution -- from the OS all the way to the database and groupware server where product integration is never a question (or a worry), interpoperability and security is fully integrated across every single product with a single model. Gotta like that. It gives me great joy to be able to spend all my time figuring out how to solve the real business problems at hand -- rather than worrying about how the hell I can get Product A to talk to Product B and Product C (with entirely different interfaces and data formats). This in no way says that MS offers the "Best of Breed" in any one particular area. They dont. However, look at what happened to Corel when they tried to build an office suite out of the so-called best of breed -- Word Perfect, Quattro Pro, etc. The company tanked -- it was one of the most collossal failures in the software industry. With the MS products, I may not get 100% of what I want, but I'll get 95% TODAY. (Rather than spending a year trying to glue together the 'best of breed' and get that last, and very expensive 5% that I can't do.) There is a lot to be said for the simplicity and efficiency of a single vendor solution. Active directory is also LDAP and Kerberos based, so in fact a lot of integration would be possible with the 'nix side if anyone really worked on it. Just nobody seem to be trying.
Actually, for the last 5% I've always had components built using MS technologies. First with C++ and now with any flavor of .NET. Getting coders is cheap and easy. Rentacoder has worked nicely most of the time.
Never a question of whether things can work together or not. Usually just a question of selecting the right Leggo blocks to plug in to each other and writing the code to solve the problem at hand.
Developer productivity is extremely high -- once you know how to open and manipulate one component -- you can virtually cut and past code to open and work with any of the components. Creating components is almost a joke. You can create a simple but useful COM component or ActiveX control in just a couple of lines of code. Nothing runs as fast or as efficiently as an in-process component.
(Of course a lot of Anti-MS people break into total panic and run away screaming when they hear the term ActiveX, but the kinds of things you can do with it are incredible -- a benefit of having almost total access to and control of the operating system and everything between.)
PKZIP -- can't remember -- I always got the company to buy it if they didn't already have it. (Been a lot of years since then.)
I am not sure what your technical background is, but what I am sure is, when you want to migrate something important you need to use the phase out approach, which is simulating the production.
I get this feeling you're repressing memories, as there isn't much of anything that is that easy to install. And, for that matter, there's very little Linux software, at least in the GUI world, that anyone would consider "good".
(and I used Linux from 1993ish to 2005)
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Using your figures for the diameter of the earth, the coverage of the oceans, and the area of greenland, and an increase of exactly 7m (since 23ft is obviously a conversion from 7m):
initial radius: 6367.9375
radius with 7m increase: 6367.9445
volume of initial sphere: 1081645595127.8
volume of final sphere: 1081649162151.3
difference: 3567023.5
70% (for coverage of sphere that is water): 2496916.4
required ice thickness over greenland to generate increase: 1.15km
According to http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/EmmanuelleStJe an.shtml, the Greenland ice shelf is at least 1.5km thick.
It sounds like saying the Greenland icecap melting would raise the water by 23 feet is complete nonsense. Only if you screw up the math.My perspective on the difficulties of Linux are more fundamental than yours, but I'm also almost ready to give up. I am in the middle of my third attempt to migrate from Windows to Linux and am having a difficult time with it. The installation was easy and there was a good deal of software included in the process. A similar installation of Windows XP normally takes me about ten to twenty times longer because everything has to be done separately and considerably more protection software has to be installed to make Windows reasonably secure. The problems with Linux have started when I tried to install something not in the original bundle. Tor needs something called libevent, but I can't figure out how to get libevent where it is supposed to go. After three days of hard searching, I have been completely unable to move foreward even a bit. All other applications seem to lack installers, so I have to be able to compile or work in a console. Unfortunately, I can't find an explanation of how to accomplish these tasks. So here is my understanding of where I am: I have to perform functions that are probably fundamental to programmers but are esoteric to everyday users in order to do basic tasks. That ain't going to happen, because I'm only interested in havign software that's a servant rather than a demanding tyrant. It highlights the problem of Linux from my perspective, that it is still the territory of sneering programmers who can't see that disdain the uninitiated. I loathe Windows because it needs so much babysitting and I have to reinstall several times a year to clear out the viruses and other problems, but Linux is like a car that I can start but can't turn. I will give it another day or so and then buy a Macintosh if I can't find my answers.