Ask Slashdot: How To Start With Linux In the Workplace?

An anonymous reader writes "Recently my boss has asked me about the advantages of Linux as a desktop operating system and if it would be a good idea to install it instead of upgrading to Windows 7 or 8. About ten boxes here are still running Windows XP and would be too old to upgrade to any newer version of Windows. He knows that i am using Linux at work on quite outdated hardware (would have gotten a new PC but never requested new hardware — Linux Mint x64 runs quite well on it) and i always managed to get my stuff done with it. I explained to him that there are no licensing issues with Linux, there is no anti-virus software to deal with and that Linux is generally a bit more efficient on old hardware than operating systems from Microsoft. The boss seems interested." But that's not quite the end; read on for this reader's question. "Since I am the only guy with Linux experience I would have to support the Linux installations. Now the problem is what works perfectly fine for me may be a horrible experience for some of my coworkers, and even if they would only be using Firefox, Thunderbird and LibreOffice I don't know if I could seriously recommend using Linux as a desktop OS in a business. Instead I want to set up one test machine for users to try it and ask THEM if they like it. The test machine should be as easy and painless to use as possible and not look too different compared to Windows. Which distro and what configuration should I choose for this demo box?"

Comments

Group policy, OU's, ad, acl?

[Billly Gates]

Can you assign permissions for some root like things but not all? Can you apply patches by the thousands? If an update fails will you receive a log back via sccm? Does Firefox support .pacs for monitoring? Can you create a GPO to lock gnome profiles with ease for PCI compliance?

Until then keep dreaming Linux college boy. In the real world shit needs to get done and doesn't who gets em done. Linux maybe a fine server OS but Microsoft got it beat well over a decade ago in the field of business and management.

Re:Lol don't

[AlphaBro]

Your mentioning of findstr and robocopy, two tools completely unrelated to Powershell, make it apparent that you're either disingenuous or completely ignorant of what Powershell is.