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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.
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.
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.
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!
Thank you for your exciting commentary. Now how exactly does this contribute to the discussion about the difficulty of integrating Linux into a business environment?
why? forty-two.
Well the thing you should look back and realize. The Open Source Community rather quickly got SMB support in its file systems, and that was closed like Exchange was. The only different is that OSS Developers (Many who are in colleges) realize the demand for needed to connect to windows networking. But being that most colleges don't use exchange especially for students the amount of work done to make Linux work with exchange is pathetic at best. Having people use the web interface, or a terminal service is stupid and most and requires more horse power then currently, and they get a worse experience.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
We fricking know it's difficult to intergrate Windows apps on Linux machines..
no it's not. Install a small group of citrix servers and use a linux client. works great.
your incredibly important windows apps (no do not allow office, only the vertical apps) work 100% on that linux desktop.
It's half assed linux transitions that dont take account for ways to run those applications that fail and get an article published how "they gave up"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
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
Linux does NOT "just stink". This article and your comment do nothing to demonstrate that.
The entire original article could be summed up in one phrase: "imperfect Microsoft emulation". This isn't just a "Linux" issue. It's a problem for ANYONE that wants to use something else, even on Windows.
This "microsoft or nothing" mentality is what really alienated me from Windows.
I should be able to run the word processor of my choice and the email client of my choice REGARDLESS OF PLATFORM.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
They don't want to migrate of Microsoft...Hell, that's the root of the whole problem. They want to not have to use Windows, and Microsoft has a huge amount of money riding on people not being able to use Office or Exchange in a Linux environment.
Being a veteran of many different Linux migrations, some successful, others dismal failures, it always comes down to a few applications:
Office: StarOffice/OpenOffice is not as good.
Exchange: Goddamn managers and their shared calendars.
Unsupported Widget: Every goddamn company has an Unsupported Widget written by a savant who was killed by a bolt of lightning. The Widget is always absolutely critical to their business, and ALWAYS runs on some piece of hardware that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world, and only talks to certain versions of Windows.
Every one of these things will come up, and even if you're successful in talking them into going over to OpenOffice and Lotus, and you manage to slay or replace the widget, it's going to take longer and cost more than you would have thought.
In the end, it's always about the damn tool. Use the right tool for the job. Don't try to force Linux in where you know there are going to be problems. The jackass in the article was subcontracting for DELL, the king of the Windows shops, and he thinks he's going to be able to get by on a pure Linux environment? He's a fool.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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)
> So no, it is not ready for the desktop and
> it will not be until MS and Macromedia decide so.
At least there's a Flash 9 player for Linux now, so that's nice. We couldn't do an indi Linux port until that happened... now I'm working away on it. Well, back to GtkWidget and all that...
The Army reading list
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.
I *thought* the great strength of OSS was the ability of the community of users to contribute directly to its development either by direct development or by conversing with the developers. When some says "Linux would work for me/my company IF..." the development community really needs to sit up and pay attention if they want to continue to grow their userbase and be taken seriously.
All too often the reaction to just such a statement is...well, what the parent says. "It can't/won't be done, you need to just use what we/they give you, you're doing it wrong." The response of the user raising the issue is almost always to drop Linux and return to Windows, which does what they need without the hoops of Terminal Services and incomplete WINE compatibility.
You want more people using Linux? Listen when they ask for something.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
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?
When you've got a vendor who actively works to prevent you from interoperating with a different vendor, who is "at fault" here? Everything that you're bitching about not working was reverse engineered, from scratch, at an enormous cost in resources and ingenuity. The fact that it works at all is a massive testament to the power of the open source development model. It could be seamless. It could work much better than Windows works with itself. But there is active, continuing work done by Microsoft to prevent it.
So don't pull your snout out of the MS trough and gasp out between stuffing your face with proprietary, locked in interfaces that "Linux isn't ready". Linux is *perfectly* ready. You're the one who isn't ready, and your Microsoft owners won't let you be.
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?
Precisely. And far too much Linux documentation is written by Linux experts for an expected audience of other Linux experts. If you don't understand a sequence of ridiculously abbreviated unix console commands, or don't know what to do when they don't work as expected, then it's your fault.
I love many aspects of Linux, and I love the way many of the applications for it have been put together by enthusiasts who really know and care what makes a good application. But I've gone through just as many aborted attempts at implementing things in Linux as this guy, only to give up in frustration because something won't work and the only help available seems to assume that you're happy and able to begin by recompiling your kernel or something. There is simply no way that Linux is ready for the average user to configure and maintain happily on their own.
The question really is, why is this the case? Linux developers are certainly no less skilled than any other OS developers, and they've had years to get this right. The only answer I can think of is that the Linux community is hampered by the fact that it is top-heavy with 'gurus'. They need more people who need things explained to them in simple terms, people who don't want to be told how to fix things in a 100 character command line string. Only then will they appreciate just how far Linux is from being a universal desktop system.
eh? give me a story about a grandma buying a computer somewhere *that didn't already have Windows installed* and then installing Windows on it, tracking down all the important drivers, and setting up her internet connection, and then WE'LL talk.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
Exchange is double hard; you really have to run it in a terminal environment to get the full feature set out of it. The web interface is rife with Active X...Even running it through a secure Apache proxy is a hell of a lot more complex than you would think.
My advice is always to go with Lotus, but Lotus is slow and it's a bear to customize, so even though it runs well in Linux, you've got people to soothe. Same with OpenOffice.
What it comes down to is: There is nothing wrong with Linux. We just don't have a killer office suite, or a killer server based productivity suite. End of story.
And as long as we're forced to use our biggest competitions Office and Productivity suites, we're always going to have problems.
And SMB support is HUGELY easier than having an Office/Exchange substitute.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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...
With all these tech companies supposedly "selling" Linux solutions, the time has never been better to offer an Evolution client for Linux, Windows, and Mac that works with a feature-rich server on the order of Exchange Server. Yet there has been (to my knowledge) no real effort to improve the groupware solutions beyound straight-up LDAP, SMTP, IMAP, and NNTP. Those are great technologies, but they're not particularly good at providing a cohesive groupware solution. At least, not without some sort of design for how they could be used to provide the missing functionality. (Calendaring is perhaps the least addressed of the missing features.)
If such a server were developed, Linux would have a much better chance in Corporate America. Especially if the said server could keep ahead of Microsoft rather than behind them. Witness Firefox as an example. Microsoft slacked on IE (as they're prone to do when they have an uncontested lead) and paid the price by being surpassed. Exchange hasn't changed to any appreciable degree for a long time now, so the opportunity exists. Strike while the iron is hot.
But then again, what do I know? I'm just another developer in this crazy corporate world.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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 reason this attitude bothers me is that three hundred years ago there was no ideal computing, and nobody was entitled to an ideal computing platform. Today there's still no ideal computing platform, and still no reason why their "should" be.
It's like they say: If you want a job done right, do it yourself. Complaining that other people have used their freedom to do their own jobs for their own reasons seems kind of silly. Meanwhile, the vast majority of people have figured out how to get value out of the less-than-ideal computing platforms currently available. Instead of complaining about fictional entitlements, they're taking advantage of available opportunities.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
This is NOT an issue of linux integrating into an BUSINESS environment. It is an issue of linux not integrating into a MICROSOFT environment. Although often the same thing, NOT the same thing.
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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!
Actually, the problem this guy has is actually microsoft's fault...
He can't get linux to interoperate with exchange fully, exchange is designed this way - to sell more copies of outlook. Even the mac equivalent (entourage) doesn't connect to exchange in the same way as outlook does, and doesn't support all the same features.
Microsoft do not publish documentation on how to interoperate with exchange, people have to reverse engineer it every time there's an update, which is a very time consuming process. Also, the protocol must be very difficult to implement because microsoft haven't even bothered fully implementing it into their own products (entourage). Perhaps they don't even have full documentation for it themselves, and outlook is relying on a lot of undocumented legacy code to talk to exchange.
If this guy had been using standard methods of doing the same things, he would have had no problems using it with linux, there are standard ways to share folders, access mail and share calendars etc.
If microsoft were forced to open up their protocols and file formats, open source software would implement them pretty fast and all the problems this guy had would disappear overnight. Similarly, if he wasn't already dangerously locked in to microsoft, this problem wouldn't exist. This is why vendor lockin is dangerous, this guy is effectively being blackmailed into continuing to buy microsoft products "keep using our products everywhere or you'l need to replace EVERYTHING at once and lose access to all your data"
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The community, like any other community, helps itself. If you want help, become a member of the community. Don't sit on the edge and expect the community to do things for you without giving anything back.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
This article is not about integrating Linux into a business environment, it's about integrating with a MICROSOFT environment. Of COURSE you are going to have trouble integrating with a Microsoft environment because Microsoft has gone to extraordinary lengths to make that very very difficult (hence the reason they are in trouble with the EU.)
If you structure your IT to not be Microsoft centric, then Linux, Mac's, and Windows can all work together. If you design your entire infrastructure around Microsoft technologies, then good fracking luck.
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.
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.
This is the customer not caring about fault, and only caring about getting things working.
True. If you want things to work you can use Linux and other vendors except Microsoft, or you can use Microsoft and no other vendors. If you use both MS, will break things. The problem is when someone complains that Linux is unworkable because they can't work with a particular MS proprietary thing. That is what the statement above mentioned. Just because it is a customer doesn't make their assertion any more correct.
You give me a story where grandma bought a computer and installed Windows and has had it running for a few years without any problems.
My mother (the equivalent of grandma in many of these stories) gets along on Windows alright, but she didn't install it herself. She bought an HP computer with Windows pre-installed along with an anti-virus. If she'd had to install Windows herself, she would have given up and called me. She wouldn't have thought to install an anti-virus, and we would have been reinstalling a couple months down the line. Almost every time I'm home from school my mom has something on her computer she needs me to install/fix/show her how to do.
Now take Ubuntu. The Ubuntu installer asks a few straightforward questions (language, keyboard layout, location, name and password, and the most difficult is which drive to install to), and is booted to a functional installation of Ubuntu less than 45 minutes after putting in the install CD. No need for an anti-virus. Office Suite comes pre-installed, along with web browsing utilities, media players, etc. If a family member needed my support, I could probably step them through installing SSH on the phone or by e-mail, then SSH into their box to install programs or fix things.
I'm not saying Linux is right for every user. For example, my dad has been hearing me rave about Linux for a good year now, and thinks he might like to try it. I'm more than happy to help him set it up, but I know he'll be back to Windows before too long because the HVAC simulation software he uses for work won't run on Linux and his investment software is also Windows only. I don't fault him for using Windows, because he actually has things he needs out of his computer that Linux can't offer.
What I am saying is I'd much rather install and support Linux for a family member than install and support Windows. Grandma is going to need help getting her computer up and keeping it running whether she's using Windows or Linux. If I'm going to be providing that help, I'd rather she use Linux.
Although there is a lot of talk about TCO and such with Linux versus OS X versus Windows, it's only part of the story. Corporations, especially the large corporations which lie behind Microsoft's market share dominance, have money to burn, so it Windows costs them x more bucks per user per year, it isn't a huge issue. What they need, however, is an office suite which can make read and use the millions of documents they have on hand and the millions they need to produce We all know what office suite that is. This problem isn't unique to Linux. If MS Office for OS X disappeared overnight it would be a disaster for Apple.
Part of the problem of getting Linux accepted into wider circles is the habit of arguing on technical merit alone.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
You're the one who isn't ready
So by that logic, anything wrong that happens to me while I'm using my computer is my fault because I'm not properly ready for the idiosyncrasies of whatever OS I'm using? That's crazy talk, whether you're talking about Linux, Windows, OS X, or the Canon-friggin'-Cat.
This is a classic example of the silly defensiveness that drives me nuts. Windows users just want to use Windows because they can get stuff done. Linux users fight like dogs to try to prove the mettle and superiority of their OSes and interfaces and have ready excuses for stuff that doesn't work as expected (or intended or promised). These excuses often include user fault or laziness (we should all be happy to occasionally open a terminal window and type a bunch of arcane gibberish to make something work). I'm reminded of baseball fans here in Chicago -- generally speaking, Sox fans deeply hate the Cubs and Cubs fans, and Cubs fans tend not to have strong opinions one way or the other about the Sox. There's a certain level of comfort in one's own skin among Cubs fans (and Windows users) that doesn't seem to come out as often in Sox fans/Linux advocates.
Windows is far from perfect, as are Microsoft's business practices. But this doesn't automatically make Linux OSes and windowing environments the right solution. What makes a better solution is user comfort, and (frankly) Microsoft often does a better job of instilling this comfort. Are their solutions the best possible? Almost always not. But the average business is not interested in spending its time fighting the good fight for open source software. It's interested in doing whatever it actually does, and using its computers as tools to help accomplish that. They know what to expect from Windows, it generally works pretty well for its intended uses, and life goes on for yet another day of not thinking more about their chosen OS than the task at hand.
For the record, I use Kubuntu, XP, Vista, and OS X (often all in one day). Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and each can be used well or poorly (I do both). That's that. The holy war thing is getting old, and does nothing to dissuade people from viewing Linux users as geeks and defensive fanatics.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
...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
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.
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...
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.
So now that Evolution is debunked, what about switching to Intelligent Design? Sorry!
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
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
TheRaven64 (641858) said it right: The community does sit up if people say 'I need this feature. It's worth $X to me, who wants to implement it.' They sit up if people say 'I needed this feature and I implemented it. I also need this feature.' It does not listen if people say 'I need this feature, implement it for me for free!' If you want to pay me the $1000 that you plan to spend on proprietary software, and I'll develop the thingy that you need and make it open source, then I'd be happy do that (within reason, of course). But you'd have to accept that a) the source code would not be yours, and you're paying for a service, not software; and b) any future support of the source will either come from the user base, or you'll have to pay more money for it.
Free software is only gratis if your time is worthless.
-dave
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
I don't think I'm the one being defensive here. It's your (and I'm using "your" in a general sense of "your organization" here) fault for entering into a proprietary relationship with a specific vendor, and then placing blame on a third party for not giving you an escape hatch. It's like complaining that PCs aren't ready because they won't run your CICS applications. The PC platform is just fine. *You* aren't ready for it, because you aren't willing to leave behind an incompatible system.
Windows users just want to use Windows because they can get stuff done.
That's a total fabrication. *Most* Windows users use it because externalities push them in that direction - you have to go out of your way to by a non-Windows computer (even a Mac), and most corporate environments use Windows. They don't use it out of conscious choice, they use it because it's the default solution presented to them. "Just getting stuff done" has nothing to do with it.
Regardless, the "just use the default" user isn't even a topic in this conversation - you're making it because you're going to try to tread old, weary ground that "Linux makes you work to hard".
we should all be happy to occasionally open a terminal window and type a bunch of arcane gibberish to make something work
And oh look, here it is. This has been raised and refuted more times than I even know how to count. People prefer Windows because it's familiar, end of story. Normal use of a modern (even 5 years old) Linux system will rarely require use of the command line, any more than Windows does. Actual administration by skilled sysadmins is a totally different arena and there's just as much arcane shit and config files and command lines to use in Windows.
Linux users fight like dogs to try to prove the mettle and superiority of their OSes and interfaces and have ready excuses for stuff that doesn't work as expected (or intended or promised).
(Yes, I know I'm quoting out of order). Firstly, those are both subjective statements, and people coming from an all-Windows environment often have unrealistic and just plain stupid requirements. Like "my Linux machine should seamlessly work with Exchange". If you actually want this to happen, you need to talk to the vendor who is holding up the interoperability, and that would be Microsoft. Secondly, Linux is not Windows. People expect things to work the same, to be in the same location, and to be labeled identically. That is stupid, sloppy thinking and you deserve to be castigated for it. There are real, legitimate usability issues with Linux. They are addressed the same way they are in any OS, which is to say that it varies with how and who they are reported by, with who is responsible for fixing them, and by how much the person responsible cares.
In summary: You, again, like many Windows apologists, are placing a higher burden on Linux than you ever have on Windows. You excuse laziness and ill will by saying that a group of unpaid volunteers should rescue you from both. Windows is "easier" primarily because it's common. It's a path of least resistance. If you're going to go down that path, I'm not going to say your wrong - it might make very good sense for you. But don't blame anyone else for it being any easier to switch away. If you (or whoever your IT manager was) hadn't decided to convert to an all-MS shop 10 years ago, it wouldn't be hard for you to switch. You're the seed of your own problem. Linux is ready, and has been ready. You, with the aid of Microsoft (who essentially owns your organization), are the ones placing barriers in the way. Don't blame Linux because you won't climb your own walls. All you have to do is be honest with yourself.
The FA could have been written as "I wanted to use Linux but resistance to interoperability and change from outside prevented
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
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.
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'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.
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.
You've hit the nail squarely. There's no difficulty in producing shit - just drop and squat. The challenge here is to do the job better.
Without getting too flamish, though, that doesn't seem to be the way Free Software works. From the very beginning, the idea was to duplicate other people's work in an effort to provide various liberties. It's sort of cultural. (And don't get too mad that I said that - after all, what exactly was the point of Gnu when it was founded?)
It's sort of a sea-change in core attitude to switch over to a pure innovation model, but it's not impossible by any means. The hardest step is the first. Someone needs to step up as a benevolent dictator and get the whole thing rolling under a cohesive vision. Things seem to flow from that point. The vision until now was to replace the work other people did under a proprietary model. That's been largely accomplished, and certainly there is more than enough in place to consider the job good enough. Now there should be a shift to meet the new needs, one that will take the Free solution from good enough to better than.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
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).
Or you could run Ubuntu Server and ask it for a LAMP-out-of-the-box.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
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.
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.
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.
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.
The saddest thing is not that the world is imperfect but that there are far too many people that have such low expectations.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
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 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'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.
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.
- 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.