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Linux Starts to Find Home on Desktops
WSJdpatton writes "The much-hyped notion that Linux would be a viable alternative to Windows to run desktop and notebook PCs for corporate users seemed dead on arrival a few years ago. But the idea is showing some new vital signs as companies look for cheaper alternatives to Microsoft products. The Wall Street Journal outlines several firms that are reaping savings and stability on their workplace desktops by rolling out Linux distributions. 'Auto maker PSA Peugeot Citroën last month said it will start using Linux on 20,000 of its workers' PCs. Novell Inc., which sells a version of Linux and is supplying it to Peugeot, says it has recently signed up several large U.S. financial institutions that are installing Linux on some employee PCs. Sales of Linux PCs are showing a really nice uptick at Novell, says Ronald Hovsepian, chief executive of Novell.' Not everyone is a convert, though. 'The State of Illinois recently consolidated its IT systems onto Microsoft software -- and has no interest in using Linux, says Paul Campbell, director of the state's Central Management Services department. "We don't have time for science projects in state government," he says.'"
'The State of Illinois recently consolidated its IT systems onto Microsoft software -- and has no interest in using Linux, says Paul Campbell, director of the state's Central Management Services department. "We don't have time for science projects in state government," he says.'
Apparently, they don't have time for security either...
I am severely impressed with Illinois' capability of assessing a situation so quickly & flawlessly. They already claim an annual cost savings of U.S. $2.1 million [proprietarily locked DOC warning] for five years ($10.5 million total) by using Microsoft's technologies! Why am I impressed? Well, they didn't even have to try anything else out to discover this! If they did, this case study doesn't show any of it. That document (if you read it) only makes claims but backs it up with nothing. I laugh at the very idea of it being titled a "Case Study."
You know, where I work, if you make a statement like "would save our company $10 million" you kind of need to make a business case. A large part of the business case is having micro experiments & demonstrations & data to present to back up your business case. In fact, it's a lot like the scientific process where you present facts that prove your argument. Granted, it's not required to be that rigorous but you usually have to get those to agree with you through this.
If I were a tax paying Illini and that document was the only thing persuading me that my government should use Microsoft products, I would bitch. That's just me, though. I think precisely what this Joseph Campbell needs to do is a "science project" as he calls it. For some reason they're avoiding a "business science project" and I'm really questioning his motivation for circumventing that.
My work here is dung.
I felt that one hit my balls.
I spend most of my time in bed, darling.
Even though I prefer Windows to Linux, it is not much of an endorsement when the uber-efficient State government endorses your products...
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
""We don't have time for science projects in state government,""
That's why they never bothered to find out how so many dead people were able to vote in Chicago elections.
You know, where I work, if you make a statement like "would save our company $10 million" you kind of need to make a business case.
You don't work for the government, do you?
I dual boot Ubuntu Edgy Eft with Gnome and Beryl. I can play WoW with it, listen to my mp3s with it, surf the web with it, watch YouTube with it, read/write email with it, do office stuff etc...the only two things I'm not doing with Linux yet are watching DVDs (I tried that earlier tonight and had some weird problems) and using my webcam...and the latter is only because I haven't bothered to install the drivers yet.
I haven't completely weaned myself off XP yet, but I'm working on it. I advocate Ubuntu though to anyone who wants to find out for themselves that desktop Linux, even though it may not have been in the past, is now a genuinely viable reality.
Cutting the network cable doesn't count!
I've dual-booted for a long time, but it's only been recently that I started spending more time in Linux than in Windows. (And the shift was both dramatic and quick. In a single day, I went from less than 20% of my time spent in Linux to over 80%.) This is mostly due to the proliferation of Web 2.0. The latest version of Exchange's Webmail means that I no longer need to use Outlook, and Open Office is a more than adequate substitute for Office. There are a few internal web-apps that claim to require IE, but Greasemonkey has been letting me repair the worst of them. (BTW, I would love to have a way for User Agent Switcher to recognize certain URLs as needing a special string, instead of me getting an error page and having to change the string manually.)
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
As a windows System Admin (although I run Ubuntu personally), I can finally say that Linux is starting to get there, albeit slowly. I would definately say that linux is ready for a corporate IT envrionment.
It's still going to take a bit of time before it's fully ready for the home desktop though. I use 802.11 wireless as a perfect example of that - amongst the 'warm and fuzzy' distro's (SuSe, Ubuntu, Mandrake, Lycoris), I have yet to be able to set up a system where there wasn't a fairly significant amount of rigmoral to get something as simple as wireless with basic encryption running. It wasn't really 'hard' for me to get the wireless running, but in each case, it required editing of text files, and typically no less that 7 or 8 CLI entries. Linux has come a long ways, even in the past 2 or 3 years. I think Ubuntu is a great example of a good, easy to use OS. However, there's still a few dark and nasty corners of Linux which need polishing before it's ready for the masses. And let's not mention games and brand name apps which only run under windows.
Overall, it is exiting to see and watch. For the first time ever in the past few months, I've been able to recommend Ubuntu to begginner and novice users, as an easy-to-use alternative to Macs or Windows, with a straight face.
1: buy MS software
2: decide to do a "case study" on "total cost of ownership"
3: recieve massive discounts from MS.
4: publish the difference between 1 and 3
everybody wins!
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
I disagree. For a normal person/environment, this is not the case. Out of the box, the average Linux distro is more secure than Windows Vista. If you put work into Vista you can make it about as secure from a technology perspective as the average Linux install, but you can't change the malware ecosystem which targets Windows more and presents it with more threats, making the overall risk on Windows greater. Also, for more secure, managed environments you can utilize SELinux or something that provides more fine grained control than Vista can offer in a usable environment unless you have access to the Windows source code, which normal people don't.
So if you're aiming for a level of security that is sort of middle of the road, then you can (with extra work) get Windows to the same state as the average Linux install, but you'll still have a higher risk. Further, if you're aiming for something above and beyond that, Windows just can't achieve some of the security layers that Linux can, so it will always be a bit behind.
This is not even remotely true. Linux is inherently more secure than Windows by design, at least if the security-related features are actually used (and I'm not even referring to selinux, for which there is no Windows analogue.) And on top of that, security holes in Linux are typically fixed much faster.
I do not agree that it is possible to make Windows as secure as Linux unless you're not even turning the Windows machine on. And even if it were true, with the same amount of effort put into both, you could still stay far out ahead with Linux.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Talking about freedom isn't going to fly when making a business case though. Freedom is a great reason to use FOSS, but if you want to get your boss adopted, you have to frame it the right way. Instead of talking about "freedom" as a concept, you ask him how he feels that Microsoft could change their software and make you lose your data, with no way of getting it back. Or, in my case, when evaluating a proprietary product, I could say "Well, this open source one does everything we need, its free, and the big bonus is that if we run into problems with it, we can take that source and work around it. If we use proprietary product X, we'd have to beg them for features." This is actually something I argued.
To be quite frank, software freedom is kinda an out-there idea for a lot of people not closely associated with FOSS or computers in general. Dropping that on their lap is likely to put them off. If you can frame it in a way that illustrates exactly how it benefits them without bringing all the emotional baggage that typical FOSS screeds carry, then you will be a lot more successful.
Thats why people talk about cost a lot. Its a very effective trojan to get FOSS into businesses.
seeing as how science projects rarely make time for state governments.
perhaps the linux community needs to reach out. you know what might do the trick is yet another repackaged ubuntu distro that caters to some cultural minority. maybe you can call it illinibuntu or just dabuntu.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
Either hire a better administrator OR just suck it up and be a windows shop.
The simple fact is that lack of skills in your employees is a problem you have to deal with in many fields, either hire better ones, train the ones you got OR do without that skill.
It is the reaon you see those semi-cars. They are small trucks drivable with a car license that have a setup similar to a semi (those big trucks with a tractor element and the eh cargo element (am I dazzling you with my tech speak yet?)) because transport companies find it impossible to hire enough people with truck licenses (and are unwilling to train new ones). They offer more cargo space then a van wich in some business is more important then their low weight limit.
Linux will have to be a choice similar to that, you can forget getting your nephews 12 year old kid to configure it, you are going to have to move your business software of Excell and you are going to have to hire someone who in 2007 isn't still baffled by setting up a printer.
Oh am I too harsh? Well, I am so sorry but for the last decade I seen nothing but people come up with one excuse after another why Linux is so hard, while at the same time I get those things working without a sweat. Am I that brilliant, are you that stupid OR are you just making up excuses.
Use windows, but don't try to put the blame on linux.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If I said I was capable of customizing a Hyundai so that it outran a Maserati Bora, would you say "Hyundais can be just as fast as Maseratis". Yes? Would you be right? Sorta. But not where it counts
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
When on fire you're just as secure as when you're not, for definitions of "secure" that mean you are unlikely to be hit by a russian nuclear device. Seriously, that's not a very reasonable definition of "secure" and even looking at that premise there is at least one outstanding, public privilege escalation in Vista right now and there almost always is in the current version of windows, while the same is not true on Linux. MS has never taken local escalations seriously.
Windows has a big red 'X' painted on it as far as scumware authors are concerned.Windows is the low hanging fruit both because of default security and because of the monoculture install base size. Because of the increased risk on Windows and the education level of the users, its security needs to be technically superior to Linux to achieve the same risk and that is just not likely to happen anytime soon.
I find your argument interesting. However, one thing I like the most about Linux is the fact I actually have the ability to fix any problems I may encounter. Unfortunately, I am not able to say the same thing for Windows.
In all honesty, were Windows open source - my perspective might well change. I couldn't honestly say, since that option obviously not available. But I would certainly give it a chance.
An example would be an issue one of my desktops has with msvcirt.dll that causes issues with (some) C/C++ compiled programs. It's a known issue, and there is even a hotfix that was developed in October of 2004. Amazing how it's still a hotfix, in 2007. I can even get the hotfix - all I have to do is pay $59. I might even be able to get it free by calling MS and sitting through a half hour of interrogation about my Windows license (And yes, it's legit - OEM from Dell, it's the principle of the matter that bothers me most. If I wanted to be treated like a criminal just to be a customer, I'd buy music CDs, too.)
It sounds to me the process of denail, blame, and self righteousness might be at work here -- but I don't believe it's in support for Linux adoption. Linux is free. It is also an extremely reliable platform. Most importantly, it is an open system. Should something go wrong, you are able to fix it yourself -- should you be capable.
The only thing I see giving MS an advantage is the fact they already have the majority of the market-share. As MS' market-share lowers and Linux adoption grows, we will see a greater level of commercial software development on Linux -- and the game will certainly change then. Personally, though, unless you use MS Office or play games only available to Windows -- there's really no benefit to having Windows over Linux aside from preferences. And I imagine a great many people will always prefer Windows because it is familiar, if nothing else. Honestly, for the work I do on the PC -- were it not for the completely crap inability I have to fix problems within Windows due to it's closed nature -- I would probably prefer Windows for the GUI environment. I guess I just like the GUI better, to be frank. But when it comes to the dirty 'real' work - I will always have a preference for the unix-like command line of Linux.
Then again, if UltraEdit-32 was available on Linux, haha - that might change too. Ohh my, what a mind twister!
In the end, both OS' have room for improvement. I like them both, but to say anyone promoting either OS is in denial, blame, or self-righteous is just arrogant at best.