Can Windows, OS X and Fedora All Work Together?

greymond writes "In my ever growing job responsibilities, I've recently been tasked with documenting our organization's IT infrastructure, primarily focusing on cost analysis of our hardware leases and software purchases. This is something that has never been done in our organization before and while it's moving along slowly, I'm already seeing some places where we could make improvements. Once completed, I see this as an opportunity to bring up the topic of migrating the majority of our office from Windows 7 to Linux and from Exchange to Gmail. However, this would result in three departments each running a different system: Windows, OS X, and most likely Fedora. Has anyone worked in or tried to set up an environment like this? What roadblocks did you run into? Is this really feasible or should I just continue to focus on the cutbacks that don't require OS changes? (The requirement for having three different systems is that the vast majority of our administration, who rely solely on an install of Microsoft Windows, Word and Excel, are savvy enough that if they came in and saw Gnome running on Fedora with Open Office they'd pick it up fast. However, our marketing department is composed entirely of Apple systems, and the latest Adobe Creative Suite doesn't seem to all work under Wine. The biggest issue is with the Sales department though, as they rely on a proprietary sales platform that is Windows only — and generally, sales personal give the biggest push back when it comes to organizational changes.)"

Comments

Why?

[0racle]

Why do you want to get rid of Exchange for GMail? What has it not been doing for you? I'm at a small company, and we have Macs, Windows and Fedora desktops. The only changes we've made was removing Office for Mac and replacing it with Mail.app on the Macs and using OpenOffice on the Macs and Linux desktops.

All tied together with the an Active Directory on Server 2003 and an Exchange server.

Re:why?

[gothzilla]

Something I've learned as an old IT guy is that employee comfort is very under-rated. How comfortable an employee is with their work space is critical to productivity. I'm talking everything from the chair they sit in to what's on their monitor. If they're comfortable with windows and office and become uncomfortable with gmail and open office then you'll just kill productivity and whatever money you saved will be meaningless.

Re:Why?

[RightSaidFred99]

Exactly. If you've already sunk the costs into Exchange, it's very difficult to think of many good reasons to go to Gmail. Frankly, for desktops, the same holds for Windows 7.

I don't know all the details but if this is just your personal love of OSS then I would recommend you put your feelings aside and make decisions as a professional and not as a fanboy.

Re:why?

[Sir_Sri]

That was the great weakness of the ribbon in the new office. Yes, once you learn it it's much more productive. But people are generally too scared of their computer to want to learn the new stuff to benefit from it. And it's a fight that IT support staff aren't ever going to win. Ever. If engineering comes down or management says, hey look at al this cool new/easier stuff we can do with it people might comply. In my experience it's best from management. When someone who everyone knows is a mindless suite with an MBA shows how they can do something that actually looks good, well, everyone else figures it can't be that bad.

People's expectations from home matter too, and how much they can fix on their own. If I don't know where something is, but the guy in the cubicle next to me does I can usually save IT some time teaching me. If on the other hand you use linux, which virtually no one knows, and figuring out even basic things REQUIRES an IT guy, because no one who does any of the actual work has linux at home, well, you're adding considerably to your support costs. Then you get into problems where things don't work, either on your end or for the customer. If you didn't pay for it, they have no obligation or desire to support you. If you paid 5000 bucks a seat for a piece of software you should have in your contract who you contact about things not working and they can go all the way up and down the chain to find people who can fix it, including devs. If you have a problem with something open source, pay someone to be an in house developer or pay for.. wait wasn't the point to not have to pay someone?

Re:Why?

[Mongoose Disciple]

Outlook's a horrid mail client. I'd actually say that Outlook 2010 is significantly worse than 2003.

Yet, it's pretty much the best* client for scheduling/calendaring/meetings. Most businesses care a lot about this.

*Note that best != good.

Re:Why?

[Monkeedude1212]

It's also odd that he wants to switch everything to Linux when it sounds like he's got an entire Microsoft Shop going with the exception of Macs in one department.

If you aren't a Linux Guru - I don't see the point of creating a headache for yourself by trying to switch to Linux when the Microsoft Foundation is already there.

What he saves in licensing costs will ultimately be lost in troubleshooting because he doesn't appear to have the skills necessary to work this out properly - if you don't know how, than I don't suggest trying it out.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because exchange will continue to cost you money. Just because you sunk money into the initial purchase of exchange doesn't mean you're done spending money on it. A mail server in general will cost you a lot of man hours just dealing with spam alone. Many setups I've seen have another blade that does nothing but handle spam. So now you have to pay someone to maintain two boxes and pay a subscription fee for your spam filter. Lets not forget the price of deploying and maintaining Outlook either. Nothing but a constant PITA maintenance drain. We used to play that game. Life is easy with Gmail.

Re:Why?

[gravis777]

I'll take it one step futher - why get rid of Windows 7? You already have licenses, probably already have some patch deployment method in place, and your users are probably happy and familer with it. There is going to be a ZERO cost benefit of going from Windows to Linux because the company ALREADY HAS licenses. Now, if you are talking about bringing in future people, and in future computer purchaces, going open source, that is different.

All going from Windows to Linux is going to do is frustrate users, and going from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice is yet ANOTHER new Office product they have to use. You will have to incure a cost of training users, and suffer from a temporary loss in productivity while the users learn the new system. In other words, converting from Windows 7 to Linux will probably ADD costs, not save them. On top of that, you would have to incure the costs of reimaging your entire Windows user base, and backing up user data, then porting it over to Linux.

I say, stick with Exchange - your department has already sunk money into it, and leave your Windows users alone. Your solutions are going to COSTS money, not save it.

Re:why?

[Red Flayer]

congrats for failing. the ribbon is great. but mostly those "20 years in business and i can't get my head around new things anymore so i have to diss it massively" guys are why people still think it's stupid.

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

I despise the ribbon. Why? Because I'd rather spend my time doing work or commenting on slashdot instead of learning a new UI when the old one is in my fucking muscle memory.

I despise using a mouse when keyboard shortcuts work well... and the ribbon killed many, many keyboard shortcuts.

Here's the thing about the ribbon: for beginners, it's easier from the get-go. For intermediate users, it's worth the switch. For expert users of the menu-driven old UI? Not worth it... those users will never be faster and more productive with the ribbon then they were under the old UI. Any time spent learning the ribbon UI is time that is 100% wasted.

Re:Why?

[lucm]

> Life is easy with Gmail.

That is, until your company is using Gmail and you are the one in charge of IT. Even when you pay Google instead of using the free service, frequent outages of a few minutes are excluded from Gmail SLA (and they happen often!) and as the IT guy you end up being overwhelmed by angry people asking you what is going on... while having no control at all, except refreshing a blog page on some Google server to see if there is more info regarding the duration of the outage.

Gmail is ok for a small business that does not rely on email, but the support model is not ready for bigger environments.

Re:Why?

[polaris20]

GMail was more expensive over 5 years than Exchange was, so we kept with Exchange (2010, in our case). Our spam filter is quite effective, and barely needs to be touched. Exchange 2003 was extremely hands off, and now having implemented 2010 I don't see how it's going to be any different. It works well with Windows and OS X via Office 2010/2011, and the Linux users (Ubuntu, Debian) are all content with Outlook 2010 via Citrix XenApp. As for pushing Linux on people; right tool for the right job. Trying to get CS to run in WINE is borderline incompetent if you're using it for business to facilitate the money-making process. Sure, it may be good fun at home, but there's no place for that shit in a business. Windows does the general office crap fine, so we use it. Linux does the engineering/compute stuff fine, which is why we use it. OS X does the marketing/sales/creative crap just great, so we use it. They all integrate into Active Directory easily, so I don't see why giving employees choice is a problem, provided you have a competent IT staff.

Re:Why?

[smash]

The thing is that then you have TWO operating systems to maintain (patch, secure, update, etc), and more memory to run the Windows VM effectively.

If you need to run Windows apps, run Windows. If you need Unix apps run a Unix variant.

Trying to get rid of WIndows by running it in a VM *on client machines* is retarded, you're just creating work for yourself. If you want to do that run a virtual desktop off vSphere. NOT via virtualbox running on a client machine.

Windows as a client is fine if you have a half competent admin to maintain the environment.

Shifting OS simply due to zealotry or lack of knowledge of the existing platform is stupid.

For what its worth, I run a heterogenous environment here (FreeBSD, Linux, WinXP, Win7), but its because i use the relevant tool for the job. I don't do shit like replacing every screw in the building with a hex head and demand that all people give up their screwdrivers for a set of allen keys - for no reason other than not liking screwdrivers...

Re:Why?

[jon3k]

No. Not it doesn't. GMail will not encrypt ePHI at rest or in transit (except reading it, via HTTPS) as required by HIPAA. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Please climb back under your rock.

You are doing it wrong.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

You dont actually migrate users out of Windows to Linux and out of Exchange to gmail. You make a lot of presentations and charts etc with lots of bogus numbers, with just enough credibility to convince your local Microsoft sales guys think you are serious. Once they give you some discounts, you mention that as a big savings achieved by you in your annual report and try to wangle boni [1] and/or raises. Then rinse, lather and repeat for the next year or in the next job.

[1] Glossary:

Boni: plural of Bonus.

Re:You are doing it wrong.

[rvw]

You dont actually migrate users out of Windows to Linux and out of Exchange to gmail. You make a lot of presentations and charts etc with lots of bogus numbers, with just enough credibility to convince your local Microsoft sales guys think you are serious. Once they give you some discounts, you mention that as a big savings achieved by you in your annual report and try to wangle boni [1] and/or raises. Then rinse, lather and repeat for the next year or in the next job.

[1] Glossary:

Boni: plural of Bonus.

Hi! I'm Boni of Malta. I'm single, and I want to exchange bones and stuff. Please be my friend. I'm on facebook! Woof!!!

Re:You are doing it wrong.

[HangingChad]

Boni: plural of Bonus.

I think it would be funnier if the singular was boner. Then you could come home and proudly announce, "I met with the boss today and got a boner!"

At my age that is a bonus.

Re:You are doing it wrong.

[Red Flayer]

I think it would be funnier if the singular was boner. Then you could come home and proudly announce, "I met with the boss today and got a boner!"

At my age that is a bonus.

Hence the nick "HangingChad" instead of "StandingChad"?

ask slashdot: HR department

[MichaelKristopeit161]

i recently hired an IT staff that outsources their job responsibilities to online chat message boards. has anyone else had experience in replacing such a staff?

Step aside, I can answer this one

[BattleApple]

No.

Why drop Windows 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is Windows 7 failing to do for you that Linux will improve upon without causing problems in different areas? I find it hard to believe that a business that already paid for Windows 7 is making a smart business decision by dropping it in favor of Linux (or even Mac OS X).

Changing to Linux because you can is just stupid. Good luck following through with your "savvy" users actually using Linux on a daily basis without a lot of trouble. You're going to need it...

Re:Why drop Windows 7?

[AnonymousClown]

Because if he puts Linux and OSX in the environment, he now has paid experience deploying those OSes and he can then put that on his resume thereby improving his job prospects. Because employers want those ridiculously long laundry list of skills these days.

He also needs to get some Java, C#, C++, SQL, Oracle, SQL Server, Perl, VBA, .NET, Visual Studio, and iPhone coding under his belt too or otherwise he'll be unemployable.

Kids - be ruthless in building your skills laundry list because employers want you to have it all and you're competing with people from all over the World who'll work for much less than you will. Also, make sure you're in management by 35 or you'll be working at Starbucks - if you're lucky.

What else can we help you with?

[GPLDAN]

Post pictures of your girlfriend, and we'll tell you if you should propose. Give a snapshot of your kitchen, and we'll make redecorating suggestions. Post your eTrade login and password, I'll take a shot at helping you revise your portfolio. Thinking of buying a house?


We know nothing about your company, what it does, what the people are like. We have no fucking clue what you should do, because every situation is different. If there is one decent bit of advice to be had, and this comes from the Veep level with 20 years in:
1. Everything starts with the directory system and
2. Calendaring derives from it.

Short anwer: no

[H0p313ss]

Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Realistic Answer: Dumbass

[dbesade]

Lets break this down: "I see this as an opportunity to bring up the topic of migrating the majority of our office from Windows 7 to Linux and from Exchange to Gmail" -Why? Most users are not comfortable with anything other than Windows. Second Windows 7 is still somewhat fresh, I mean, your going to depreciate software that you likely purchased less than 6 months to a year old? Sounds like an immediate waste of money rather than a long term savings. The Second part of your question makes it seem like your some dumbass fresh out of college. Really? GMail over Exchange? Are you willing to hedge your business needs on a free email service, not to mention the loss of collaboration options, etc? All in all it sounds like this situation: 1) You're a Junior Administrator or Helpdesk Engineer 2) They fired the ACTUAL IT Staff and left you since you are cheap enough to keep on the books. Look, want to save money? Look into Virtualization Options, Open Office instead of Microsoft. Linux is not the end all at the workstation level, no matter what they tell you in college.

Re:Realistic Answer: Dumbass

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me the solution to his problem is to move everyone to Windows 7. All the software he wants to use work on Windows so he'd only have one OS to maintain.

Be careful, beyond here there be dragons!!

[mrnick]

This all depends on the size of your network and number of each type of system deployed. Plus don't forget there are political reasons for making or not making certain recommendations that generally outweigh any technical/economic reasons. I have seen people fired for making recommendations that had less exposure than what you have suggested.

Re:My input

[jaxtherat]

Sorry mate, but some of the advice you give is rubbish:

- "more professional to have a @companyname e-mail over @gmail."

You do know you can use google apps for your own domain, right?

- "I don't know if you are currently using or plan to use active directory"

You do know that Active Directory is a requirement for Exchange, right?

Why, why, why????

[Dynedain]

Why Linux? If it's simply license costs, well then keep people on Windows. The per-seat software license costs are pretty small compared to your labor + overhead costs of what your IT people will need to put in to retrain user expectations. Even if you're paying $500/user for Windows + Office, that's tiny compared to overall productivity differences.

If people need posixy goodness, give 'em OSX. For the most part they'll probably be happier to not need to mess around as much with desktop config and software installation. Leave Linux to users who can self-install and self-support.

Do not take MS Office away from your Finance and Management teams. Sure, they could learn OpenOffice if they needed, but there's a lot of stuff that Excel does really well that OpenOffice Charts can't. And if a Senior Manager spends even 1-2 hours trying to learn how to use OpenOffice, well, that wasted time just blew away the license cost savings. Re-training and loss of productivity is very expensive, very difficult to factor into your budgeting plans, and impossible not to underestimate.

Finally, why move from Exchange to GMail??? If you don't want to pay as much, consider Kerio or Zimbra, but do not force users to give up integrated messaging, group calendars, and contact databases. We're moving right now from a lousy group calendar to Kerio (Exchange wasn't right for us) because we waste so much time just trying to schedule meetings.

Go Slowly

[gQuigs]

The last transition I ran (had to leave due to personal reasons) was looking like it was ultimately going to fail.

Why?
OpenOffice - found several critical bugs (all fixed now) that kept people from being able to work effectively
Intel video drivers - found a fun critical bug whenever they plugged into a projector
Didn't have control over what other groups bought as software (big one, make sure management is actually willing to back you up)
      * think hard about this one, is there anyone (manager) in the company that will end up buying something without consulting you and who no one wants to go against...

The 3 OSes can easily coexist. Here's how I would go forward:
Don't touch the different platforms at first, start with the applications.
  * Web browsers - make sure everyone is running firefox. I found out that 1 person was using IE6 for an important project. they hadn't mentioned it, even when asked directly. Solution: Block Internet explorer access, (I forced the person to move to IE8, yay for small victories)
      having people complain when you have it blocked on Windows is much better than having people complain when they are now on Linux. (They will blame Linux)
  * Best in class applications - DON'T start with OpenOffice. Make open source applications a regular part of discussions for new software. Evaluate other software you use for open source applications. Make sure they are successful.

  * Make sure the other people in IT actually want this change.
  * Move them to Linux/OpenOffice and observe problems over at least 1 full release of Fedora, trying to get problems fixed for the next one
  * Transition office to OpenOffice on all machines (have just installed first, then default, then uninstall MS Office - very important) watch for issues over at least 6 months
  * Transition office to Linux

Yes, this is more like a 2 year plan. But well. Go Slowly. :)

One other point, if anyone wants to move over let them, and help them do it. If they are choosing to switch they could be very very helpful down the road.

Leave the sales force alone

[dave562]

Your job as the IT resource for the organization is to give the staff the tools that they need to do their job. Do the sales people want new tools, or are you trying to force new tools upon them? The sales staff pays your salary. As much as it sucks to hear it, that is the bottom line. They have a workflow and a way of doing things that is centered on the tools they have. Why are you trying to upset the apple cart?

Linux has matured to the point where if you are starting from scratch, it is a viable path to take. You can get the functionality you need at a fraction of the cost. Linux is not enough better than Windows (or OSX) to migrate onto it (for most organizations). If you like Linux, bring it in where you can. If you need to develop a new application, consider a LAMP stack instead of SQL and IIS. If your boss randomly starts whining about licensing costs for Office, suggest OpenOffice.

Do not take it upon yourself to "make things better" if you are the only person who seems to care. Let the users tell you what they need, and help guide them to the best solution. I have seen careers ruined by people who truly wanted to make things better, but were too caught up in their own heads to realize that nobody else seemed to care. They end up "solving" problems that do not need to be solved, and in the process create a lot of upset and headaches. Migrations are never simple. Often times going from one version of an application to another is a big enough headache, nevermind one OS to another.

How about another crazy question?

[Mr. Underbridge]

If you put a wolverine, a badger, and a mountain lion into a box, will they cuddle?

Use Gmail - go to Jail?!

[sonamchauhan]

What nonsense!

Personally, I think an Outlook/Exchange solution is much more productive for heavy office email users than the clunky thin-client Gmail offers, but this is one of the most egregious examples of FUD-seeding I've seen.

People think I'm joking?

[AnonymousClown]

Java, C#, C++, SQL, Oracle, SQL Server, Perl, VBA, .NET, Visual Studio,....Linux and Windows

I got that from a job posting that my father-in-law sent me.

And at 35, you're oooooolllllldddd in corporate IT.

You have been voted down for pointing that out

[judeancodersfront]

That will teach you to question the modding system!