I should have seen through your evil humorous scheme, but people running out of arguments and ridiculing other people according to spellos or language fluency are one of my pet peevees.
Since you appear not to be from this category, peace, love & happyness, etc...
Sorry, but when I read Real time credit card processing in the same sentence as MySQL backend it gives me the jitters.
Now, before you folks unpack your baseball bats and woodoo dolls. This is not an attempt to degrade MySQL, but it's transaction processing capabilities are in beta at best, and I wouldn't consider it a proven enough platform to handle any financial transactions.
That doesn't discredit it's qualities as a proven backend for retrieval mostly databases which are not mission critical.
You may want to look into PostgreSQL for a transaction capable open source db.
A large part of why you want to have a monitoring policy is the deterrent effect. That is, people will avoid doing questionable things just because they know you might be monitoring them. This is a win-win: the company avoids having to enforce anything, or even review anything, and the employees just keep their noses clean, fearing being caught doing something nasty.
Well, your statement is rather diametral to just about everything I said. The model you propose is based on distrust and fear and knowing how and when you might get spanked and why can absolutely be openly communicated without missing out on the deterring effect, examples ?
You have a lot of permanently installed traffic cameras in Europe (red lights, speed). The installation is a grey box which might or might not contain an actual camera. Although every driver knows how and where he might get caught, the system has an extremely preventive effect. 90% of all boxes are empty at all times, but would you gamble your license even if the mathematics (1:10 chance of getting caught) are on your side ?
Yep, you need a privay policy (as part of the employees manual) since you guys are undoubtedly stepping into the sharks pool. Congratulations, btw...
I truely believe that honesty in all dealing between employer and employee is of paramount concern, this affects all policies regulating employee (and employer) conduct.
If you can lay your hand on a Digital Equipment employee handbook from the beginning of the nineties, that can provide you with good ideas about - what I believe - fair and open communication. Of course it requires adaption in the age of downloading pr0n and filling 60% of the disk capacity with MP3s.
The tricky issue is that you guys have to cover your backs, because if you grow and there's money floating around, somebody will sue.
I'd recommend a top-down approach. I.e.
Set the ground rules in employees dealing with each other and communicating with outside entities. Emphasize an environment of common sense and trust
Go into the tools. Mail, web, phone, company letterheads, public statements. The focus should be on self responsibility
Detail the dos and dont's for each form of communication. Try to keep it liberal. I.e: we don't really care if you fire of a private e-mail or surf/. while munching a sandwich. Make it clear however, that you expect that performance doesn't suffer. Explain why certain control measures are not to be avoided (protection of trademarks, company secrets, legal threats)
If you monitor, be very explicit about the tools you use and the data which is monitored and why. Explain what data is stored for how long and how it will be analyzed.
Make consequences for abuse crystal clear
Grant certain rights to the employees. I.e. open door policy (and stick to it), escalation pathes in case of management abuse, the right to browse/. while munching a sandwich (ok, maybe in more general terms)
Emphasize mutual respect and personal responsibilty
Be very specific and unambigeous regarding the wording, and
unfortunately, have it tripple checked by legal and lawyers
Again, be fair in treating your employees and vice versea. This should be reflected by the manual.
Well, of course. Nevertheless a good choice in terms of influence after all.
However, I think in shoot-em-up category there's probably Castle Wolfenstein - actually a predecessor of doom - which introduced the 3D scenario into gaming. Also Duke Nukem should probably be on the list.
What I missed is the best game ever crafted:
The Castles of Dr. Creep
Broderbund
That sucker merged adventure into arcade into role playing. And - it was proof that frizzy graphics and dorky sound effects are not really essential as opposed to the actual scenario of a really great game.
I wonder how much longer they will be considered the top chipmaker
Where they ever ?
Maybe, but only in terms of market share. In terms of technological edge Intel seems to have lost it years ago. Compare it with an Alpha and they are probably not yet there where DEC started out in the middle of the nineties.
Now, if DEC would have had such a thing like an only halfwitted sales - and marketing organization in the first place they wouldn't be called Compaq today.
The whole development in IT reminds me of the sequence in Fantasia, where Micky just can't get rid of the ghosts that he summoned.
Microprocessors (& Software) got so bloated and complex, that it seems inconceivable that we will ever return to the stability we used to have with far simpler systems.
Of course those lacked dancing paper clips and a kisuaheli spell checker...
If you leave your living room window open, that gives me the right to throw trash into your living room. I mean hey, you can just dish out the vacuum cleaner and clean it up, can't you?
Streetcars are still in wide use in Europe (Amsterdam, Zurich, Frankfurt, Vienna and a lot of other cities). Strasbourg, home of hearty food and the European parliament, introduced them not two decades ago.
As a matter of fact cities not giving in to the rise of the subway system are real happy campers today, since it's sorta nice not being damned to a filthy, smelly underground when using public transport and it's also good for tourism. Problems such as clogged streets where solved with dedicated tracks and clever traffic flow control systems. Zurich, despite the fact that it relies mostly on street cars, is considered the most punctual and reliable public transport system in Europe (yes they really do run according to time tables).
The automatic watch has'nt and quite certainly will not go away. Especially in the medium to high price sector buyers scoff on quartz watches. This makes sense when you consider coughing up 2'000$ to finally get the same $1.75 watch mechansism as you have in a Swatch.
A few of the most reputed Swiss watch manufaturers (i.e. Vecheron Constantin) never did and (according to their marketing spiel) never will manufacture a quartz watch.
Oh, yes - let's discuss food in this geeky type forum !
One of my observations with national cuisine which is outstanding is the democracy of the eating process.
Like in Italy, everybody eats well. It's not a matter of status or wealth and it can be very simple fair (pasta, risotto, pizza) but it's essentially always of great quality. A lot of those dishes actually emerged as "poor mans dishes" like the paella in Spain where people used what was available.
Thailand is another example where there is a branch of high class, expensive cuisine. But the basic fair is cheap, readily available, well prpared, tasty and has a high priority with the people.
Au contraire eating well in France is quite a bourgeoise thing. You can eat outstanding, but Avarage Q Parisien is acording to my experience quite at the bottom of the food chain. The average Steak Frittes is - well - degueulas.
Being in consulting for quite some time and being inevitably part-time abused for support issues I've seen both sides of the medal. I truely believe Linux support at this time is as good as it gets.
Let's see. Depending on who you want to sell on the issue, we certainly have the big boys. IBM , HP and quite likely Compaq (the TrueUnix/VMS folks, not the crappy box assemblers) can quite likely deliver expensive support and professional Linux services. Of course it's up to you to determine the quality. But you also have to do that when EDS is shipping 10 of their clones with bad haircuts to you.
Then there are specialized companies whose most prominent representation is probably Linuxcare.
Finally and - in my experience most importantly there are the distributers who base their business model basically on services. I had outstanding experiences with SuSE (American site) which guided me through struggles getting X up on my notebook. They made a very idealistic, determined and goal oriented impression and delivered far better support then what I've seen with companies that charge $1/4 million a year (and that was the free issue installation support). They run a professional services department and they have various support plans including 24/7 - and dedicated resource plans. Pricing looks quite reasonable.
So, here we go. There's a lot around to chose from and compare. If the gentlemen in the suits insist on an IBMHPSUNDEC rubber stamp, here you go and you probably pay for it through your nose. Not that the distributers quite give away theire services, but from what I've seen there seems to be excellent value there.
make sure their applications can handle longer phone numbers correctly.
Serves those morons right if they designed their input fields in a format like ___-___-____ or restrict the phone # attribute to 10 digits (not allowing +).
Especially if it's a required field on an web page catering to an internation clientel. You'll either have to lie to go through a transaction or simply forget it, if you' re not blessed with the grace of an American phone number.
I agree that support is a top notch priority in every organization running computers.
However, if you run a Linux only shop you gear your support appropriately. Two years ago you where right. Linux support was - well - not quite up for corporate entities requiring professional support (you sometimes need external help, etc). This changed drastically.
Besides that, there's nothing to hinder you to create a reference installation under Linux and deploy it within your organisation. The only difference is that you wont have to re-install your image that often, since the users can only mess within their directory tree.
Besides that, the image thingie gets a big drawback considering that the evil empire changed its licensing conditions, so that you are charged for images now. This really hurts education institutions big time (Enterprise customers are exempt as much as I know).
Don't get me wrong: Do I recommend to kick away a couple million $ because Linux is so bloody cool? Certainly, no way! Do I recommend to deploy it when you can start an organization from scratch? Yes, absolutely. At least if you're running a technically oriented ship.
OK: Let's agree that I oversimplyfied the situation some and you paint it a tad too dreadful.
For example: Of course you will (probably) have to have new database client applications, but there's no need to migrate the database data per se.
Also, users might be pissed initially about not being able to use Outlook. OTOH it's harder to wreck total havoc in your company for a sixteen year old boy in the Philippines.
Granted, it's not that easy a switch but it's doable and - depending on the situation - it might be profitable in the medium to long run.
It sure as hell was my best business decision to run Linux, but then I had the ability to start from scratch
Maybe the ones who say their registry is screwed up all the time, need to stay out of it because they don't know what they are doing.
Ok, then get this: I installed Y2K 10 days ago. Then I installed some Canon software to link a digital Ixus to my laptop and guess what: Somehow everything is screwed up now. The software can neither be de-installed nor re-installed and the laptop won't go into standby mode "because the 101/102 keyboard driver" is somehow messed up since then and I never even dreamed of messing around with the registry.
Granted, I don't have a clue about what's going on and frankly: I dont want to have a clue. The point is: I installed software, which was supposed to be installed and to run on the target platform, but it doesn't and it messes things up and that annoys me.
Of course, not everything under U*X works perfectly, but the major difference is transparency. If I install a Sybase Data Server and / or Replication server (which is by definition rather complex software) I know precisely what goes on on an Sun Solaris, an HP U/X or a Linux box. If something messes up I can clean the system perfectly. After cleanup there is no evidence that anybody ever attempted to install those products.
No such luck on NT/W2K. If something goes wrong there you might have a very serious problem and you might never be able to get back to a clean state, safe for a complete re-install.
And this deal about be able to find the expertise to set up all these pc's, sure you can find them, but it's a lot easier finding IT people that know M$ stuff because it is so widely used.
No offense, to all of you that wasted time and money to achieve being a MCSE, but:
I disagree that it's so much easier to find Windows then U*X expertise. Sure, there are zillions claiming to be Windows experts because they're fully capable of double clicking a setup icon.
My experience is that a lot of those self proclamed Windows experts are totally clueless when it comes to the internals of a box and even more cluesless when it comes to vital concepts like a multi user environment, locking, concurrency and consistency problems.
That's certainly not to claim that everybody claiming to be a UNIX sysadmin can tell his ass from a hole in the ground. But I'm quite convinced that the overall quality of folks dealing in UNIX, Open VMS or mainframe operating systems is far superior then the quality of the average Microsoft "expert".
For the rest, I can see your reasoning and you might be right in the short run. In the medium term a company might save cash significantly. Even if there are initial expenses for training, learning curve and general screwups.
But of course, the butt of a manager making such a bold decision is on the line. It's sort of the "let's buy Oracle, I might not be the best database, but since 90% of the market runs it...", you're at no risk as the decision maker.
But I digress of course, since I see where you are coming from and yes, probably in most cases Linux is not (yet) a viable replacement if you are dependent on the Office suite. This dependency is not only caused by external entities transferring (sometimes virus ridden) documents, but also based on heritage within an entity (usually).
However, based on my experience (as a one man consultancy show) I would not hesitate to set up a department by using Linux entirely. Granted: It depends on the amount of external document exchange. But if the department is more or less self-reliant: why not.
The only reason I do have Windoze 2000 installed on (20% of the hard disk of) my laptop is that I sometimes work on customer documents when riding the train home. Else then that I run a pure Linux shop and that very happily.
Oh, the fact that W2K for which I paid on OEM license came as one of those dreaded "recovery CD's" which is completely useless for a dual-boot configuration and the fact that I feel extorted and robed by the evil empire (by being forced to buy the full version) makes me think twice if I really want to make business with such cowboys if there are painless other routes.
Mind you, not to use intuitive commands like chmod, chown (or my favorite) awk.
But, when Granma logs into a thingie that resembles a PC. Enlighenment opens and Granma knows that when she clicks the left mouse button she can open all applications she loves. She can save her documents with ease, because everything defaults to/home/granma and it's totally transparent to her.
Granme will even see analogies to the c:\ directory on a Windows machine and realize that she can organize her filesto her hearts desire.
Of course, somebody has to set up the box and it's probably not Granma. But granma can be shielded from the gory inniards of a U*X type box nowadays.
Oh, and after Granma turns into HackerGranny she can open those cool, transparent Eterms through which she sees the wallpaper - A photo of her grandchildren.
With all due respect, but I still think a M$ network is easier to maintain than a *Nix one.
I disagree. Let me back that with a story. An ex-colleague of mine worked as a sysadmin for the second largest computer company world wide.
They first tested Micro$oft Exchange within a group of ~ 40 people and then decided to deploy it world wide.
That was bad news from the admins point. The reason being the GUI to maintain all acoounts.
The key word here is scripting. When you have to change the properties for 50'000 users it's sort of more efficient to work on a script for half a day and then just run it. With a GUI you click on a user, change her properties and click OK. [Repeat 50000 times].
Sure, you may argue, but there is perl. True, but the internals of Windows is so screwed and intransparent, that it's very hard to apply scripting. And M$ native script capabilities are a badly documented joke
Most people have trouble using and adminstering Windows (there are lots of silver surfers who aren't used to technlogy and can't manage Windows, never mind anything else). Can you imagine these people trying to use/configure Linux.
You're right in one point. Administering a Windows system (let alone thousands) is hard. I disagree with the other part of your statement however.
You have a point that setting up a Linux box is hard for Average Q User. Expertise that can set up a reference distribution exists and can be bought. When a Linux box is set up well it runs and runs and runs. From that point on adminstering a UNIX type box is significantly easier.
You don't have to deal with everybodyisroot. Remote administration is easier and you have no such thing as a screwed up registry within a couple weeks.
Ah, the gold old times when a company purchased 120 DECWrite licenses and got half a standard containers worth of certificates and the good boys in system administration had to hack in 120 PAKs (ho!ho!).
Now, that was easy, since hardly any organization had thousands or ten thousands of VAXstations that must be licensed.
This is very different in todays world. Even if there is such a thing as a central purchasing department they have to deal with just a helluva mess regarding software licenses, upgrade licenses and client licenses.
To make matters worse there very often is no such thing as a central purchasing department but every department runs its separate purchasing. This is especially evident in larger communities.
Considering that the blokes could have bought exactly one copy of - say - SuSE Linux and deploy it (including most applications) as they saw fit. That should have left a bunch of cash to hire good Linux administrators, especially considering the manpower you need to maintain and administer an NT network.
Unfortunately this eposide does nothing to impact Micro$ofts image, since this is so much down the toilet already that I really don't think playing bully towards communities can impact it any further.
Reliability Win2k is almost as reliable as unix now!
Err! The source here is not accidentally some M$ marketing literature?
It required me all of a week and some Canon Digital Ixus software installation attempt to make my Win2k(f) installation behave very, very strange.
Thanks god I only need this piece 'o shit to occasionally edit a customer document on my way home and there's this 15Gb Linux partition which assists me in actually getting work done.
Slashdot Mirror
I should have seen through your evil humorous scheme, but people running out of arguments and ridiculing other people according to spellos or language fluency are one of my pet peevees.
Since you appear not to be from this category, peace, love & happyness, etc...
But, have you ever considered that a large part of the /. community is not located in the US and English is not necessarily their mother tongue?
Could it be that some of those grammatically not quite pure folks have something to say?
As oposed to you, I grant you the right to live, even though you're a moron
Now, before you folks unpack your baseball bats and woodoo dolls. This is not an attempt to degrade MySQL, but it's transaction processing capabilities are in beta at best, and I wouldn't consider it a proven enough platform to handle any financial transactions.
That doesn't discredit it's qualities as a proven backend for retrieval mostly databases which are not mission critical.
You may want to look into PostgreSQL for a transaction capable open source db.
duck & cover
Well, your statement is rather diametral to just about everything I said. The model you propose is based on distrust and fear and knowing how and when you might get spanked and why can absolutely be openly communicated without missing out on the deterring effect, examples ?
You have a lot of permanently installed traffic cameras in Europe (red lights, speed). The installation is a grey box which might or might not contain an actual camera. Although every driver knows how and where he might get caught, the system has an extremely preventive effect. 90% of all boxes are empty at all times, but would you gamble your license even if the mathematics (1:10 chance of getting caught) are on your side ?
I truely believe that honesty in all dealing between employer and employee is of paramount concern, this affects all policies regulating employee (and employer) conduct.
If you can lay your hand on a Digital Equipment employee handbook from the beginning of the nineties, that can provide you with good ideas about - what I believe - fair and open communication. Of course it requires adaption in the age of downloading pr0n and filling 60% of the disk capacity with MP3s.
The tricky issue is that you guys have to cover your backs, because if you grow and there's money floating around, somebody will sue.
I'd recommend a top-down approach. I.e.
Set the ground rules in employees dealing with each other and communicating with outside entities. Emphasize an environment of common sense and trust
Go into the tools. Mail, web, phone, company letterheads, public statements. The focus should be on self responsibility
Detail the dos and dont's for each form of communication. Try to keep it liberal. I.e: we don't really care if you fire of a private e-mail or surf /. while munching a sandwich. Make it clear however, that you expect that performance doesn't suffer. Explain why certain control measures are not to be avoided (protection of trademarks, company secrets, legal threats)
If you monitor, be very explicit about the tools you use and the data which is monitored and why. Explain what data is stored for how long and how it will be analyzed.
Make consequences for abuse crystal clear
Grant certain rights to the employees. I.e. open door policy (and stick to it), escalation pathes in case of management abuse, the right to browse /. while munching a sandwich (ok, maybe in more general terms)
Emphasize mutual respect and personal responsibilty
Be very specific and unambigeous regarding the wording, and
unfortunately, have it tripple checked by legal and lawyers
Again, be fair in treating your employees and vice versea. This should be reflected by the manual.
Good look with your venture
However, I think in shoot-em-up category there's probably Castle Wolfenstein - actually a predecessor of doom - which introduced the 3D scenario into gaming. Also Duke Nukem should probably be on the list.
What I missed is the best game ever crafted:
The Castles of Dr. Creep
BroderbundThat sucker merged adventure into arcade into role playing. And - it was proof that frizzy graphics and dorky sound effects are not really essential as opposed to the actual scenario of a really great game.
Where they ever ?
Maybe, but only in terms of market share. In terms of technological edge Intel seems to have lost it years ago. Compare it with an Alpha and they are probably not yet there where DEC started out in the middle of the nineties.
Now, if DEC would have had such a thing like an only halfwitted sales - and marketing organization in the first place they wouldn't be called Compaq today.
Microprocessors (& Software) got so bloated and complex, that it seems inconceivable that we will ever return to the stability we used to have with far simpler systems.
Of course those lacked dancing paper clips and a kisuaheli spell checker...
If you leave your living room window open, that gives me the right to throw trash into your living room. I mean hey, you can just dish out the vacuum cleaner and clean it up, can't you?
As a matter of fact cities not giving in to the rise of the subway system are real happy campers today, since it's sorta nice not being damned to a filthy, smelly underground when using public transport and it's also good for tourism. Problems such as clogged streets where solved with dedicated tracks and clever traffic flow control systems. Zurich, despite the fact that it relies mostly on street cars, is considered the most punctual and reliable public transport system in Europe (yes they really do run according to time tables).
The automatic watch has'nt and quite certainly will not go away. Especially in the medium to high price sector buyers scoff on quartz watches. This makes sense when you consider coughing up 2'000$ to finally get the same $1.75 watch mechansism as you have in a Swatch.
A few of the most reputed Swiss watch manufaturers (i.e. Vecheron Constantin) never did and (according to their marketing spiel) never will manufacture a quartz watch.
One of my observations with national cuisine which is outstanding is the democracy of the eating process.
Like in Italy, everybody eats well. It's not a matter of status or wealth and it can be very simple fair (pasta, risotto, pizza) but it's essentially always of great quality. A lot of those dishes actually emerged as "poor mans dishes" like the paella in Spain where people used what was available.
Thailand is another example where there is a branch of high class, expensive cuisine. But the basic fair is cheap, readily available, well prpared, tasty and has a high priority with the people.
Au contraire eating well in France is quite a bourgeoise thing. You can eat outstanding, but Avarage Q Parisien is acording to my experience quite at the bottom of the food chain. The average Steak Frittes is - well - degueulas.
The Italiens are world champions.
Let's see. Depending on who you want to sell on the issue, we certainly have the big boys. IBM , HP and quite likely Compaq (the TrueUnix/VMS folks, not the crappy box assemblers) can quite likely deliver expensive support and professional Linux services. Of course it's up to you to determine the quality. But you also have to do that when EDS is shipping 10 of their clones with bad haircuts to you.
Then there are specialized companies whose most prominent representation is probably Linuxcare.
Finally and - in my experience most importantly there are the distributers who base their business model basically on services. I had outstanding experiences with SuSE (American site) which guided me through struggles getting X up on my notebook. They made a very idealistic, determined and goal oriented impression and delivered far better support then what I've seen with companies that charge $1/4 million a year (and that was the free issue installation support). They run a professional services department and they have various support plans including 24/7 - and dedicated resource plans. Pricing looks quite reasonable.
I can't vouch for Red Hat, Mandrake , or Caldera, but at least Red Hat has a good reputation.
So, here we go. There's a lot around to chose from and compare. If the gentlemen in the suits insist on an IBMHPSUNDEC rubber stamp, here you go and you probably pay for it through your nose. Not that the distributers quite give away theire services, but from what I've seen there seems to be excellent value there.
Serves those morons right if they designed their input fields in a format like ___-___-____ or restrict the phone # attribute to 10 digits (not allowing +).
Especially if it's a required field on an web page catering to an internation clientel. You'll either have to lie to go through a transaction or simply forget it, if you' re not blessed with the grace of an American phone number.
However, if you run a Linux only shop you gear your support appropriately. Two years ago you where right. Linux support was - well - not quite up for corporate entities requiring professional support (you sometimes need external help, etc). This changed drastically.
Besides that, there's nothing to hinder you to create a reference installation under Linux and deploy it within your organisation. The only difference is that you wont have to re-install your image that often, since the users can only mess within their directory tree.
Besides that, the image thingie gets a big drawback considering that the evil empire changed its licensing conditions, so that you are charged for images now. This really hurts education institutions big time (Enterprise customers are exempt as much as I know).
Don't get me wrong: Do I recommend to kick away a couple million $ because Linux is so bloody cool? Certainly, no way! Do I recommend to deploy it when you can start an organization from scratch? Yes, absolutely. At least if you're running a technically oriented ship.
Of course; and moreover I really enjoyed our exchange.
Have a most delightful weekend.
For example: Of course you will (probably) have to have new database client applications, but there's no need to migrate the database data per se.
Also, users might be pissed initially about not being able to use Outlook. OTOH it's harder to wreck total havoc in your company for a sixteen year old boy in the Philippines.
Granted, it's not that easy a switch but it's doable and - depending on the situation - it might be profitable in the medium to long run.
It sure as hell was my best business decision to run Linux, but then I had the ability to start from scratch
Ok, then get this: I installed Y2K 10 days ago. Then I installed some Canon software to link a digital Ixus to my laptop and guess what: Somehow everything is screwed up now. The software can neither be de-installed nor re-installed and the laptop won't go into standby mode "because the 101/102 keyboard driver" is somehow messed up since then and I never even dreamed of messing around with the registry.
Granted, I don't have a clue about what's going on and frankly: I dont want to have a clue. The point is: I installed software, which was supposed to be installed and to run on the target platform, but it doesn't and it messes things up and that annoys me.
Of course, not everything under U*X works perfectly, but the major difference is transparency. If I install a Sybase Data Server and / or Replication server (which is by definition rather complex software) I know precisely what goes on on an Sun Solaris, an HP U/X or a Linux box. If something messes up I can clean the system perfectly. After cleanup there is no evidence that anybody ever attempted to install those products.
No such luck on NT/W2K. If something goes wrong there you might have a very serious problem and you might never be able to get back to a clean state, safe for a complete re-install.
No offense, to all of you that wasted time and money to achieve being a MCSE, but:
I disagree that it's so much easier to find Windows then U*X expertise. Sure, there are zillions claiming to be Windows experts because they're fully capable of double clicking a setup icon.
My experience is that a lot of those self proclamed Windows experts are totally clueless when it comes to the internals of a box and even more cluesless when it comes to vital concepts like a multi user environment, locking, concurrency and consistency problems.
That's certainly not to claim that everybody claiming to be a UNIX sysadmin can tell his ass from a hole in the ground. But I'm quite convinced that the overall quality of folks dealing in UNIX, Open VMS or mainframe operating systems is far superior then the quality of the average Microsoft "expert".
For the rest, I can see your reasoning and you might be right in the short run. In the medium term a company might save cash significantly. Even if there are initial expenses for training, learning curve and general screwups.
But of course, the butt of a manager making such a bold decision is on the line. It's sort of the "let's buy Oracle, I might not be the best database, but since 90% of the market runs it...", you're at no risk as the decision maker.
However, based on my experience (as a one man consultancy show) I would not hesitate to set up a department by using Linux entirely. Granted: It depends on the amount of external document exchange. But if the department is more or less self-reliant: why not.
The only reason I do have Windoze 2000 installed on (20% of the hard disk of) my laptop is that I sometimes work on customer documents when riding the train home. Else then that I run a pure Linux shop and that very happily.
Oh, the fact that W2K for which I paid on OEM license came as one of those dreaded "recovery CD's" which is completely useless for a dual-boot configuration and the fact that I feel extorted and robed by the evil empire (by being forced to buy the full version) makes me think twice if I really want to make business with such cowboys if there are painless other routes.
But, when Granma logs into a thingie that resembles a PC. Enlighenment opens and Granma knows that when she clicks the left mouse button she can open all applications she loves. She can save her documents with ease, because everything defaults to /home/granma and it's totally transparent to her.
Granme will even see analogies to the c:\ directory on a Windows machine and realize that she can organize her filesto her hearts desire.
Of course, somebody has to set up the box and it's probably not Granma. But granma can be shielded from the gory inniards of a U*X type box nowadays.
Oh, and after Granma turns into HackerGranny she can open those cool, transparent Eterms through which she sees the wallpaper - A photo of her grandchildren.
I disagree. Let me back that with a story. An ex-colleague of mine worked as a sysadmin for the second largest computer company world wide.
They first tested Micro$oft Exchange within a group of ~ 40 people and then decided to deploy it world wide.
That was bad news from the admins point. The reason being the GUI to maintain all acoounts.
The key word here is scripting. When you have to change the properties for 50'000 users it's sort of more efficient to work on a script for half a day and then just run it. With a GUI you click on a user, change her properties and click OK. [Repeat 50000 times].
Sure, you may argue, but there is perl. True, but the internals of Windows is so screwed and intransparent, that it's very hard to apply scripting. And M$ native script capabilities are a badly documented joke
You're right in one point. Administering a Windows system (let alone thousands) is hard. I disagree with the other part of your statement however.
You have a point that setting up a Linux box is hard for Average Q User. Expertise that can set up a reference distribution exists and can be bought. When a Linux box is set up well it runs and runs and runs. From that point on adminstering a UNIX type box is significantly easier.
You don't have to deal with everybodyisroot. Remote administration is easier and you have no such thing as a screwed up registry within a couple weeks.
Now, that was easy, since hardly any organization had thousands or ten thousands of VAXstations that must be licensed.
This is very different in todays world. Even if there is such a thing as a central purchasing department they have to deal with just a helluva mess regarding software licenses, upgrade licenses and client licenses.
To make matters worse there very often is no such thing as a central purchasing department but every department runs its separate purchasing. This is especially evident in larger communities.
Considering that the blokes could have bought exactly one copy of - say - SuSE Linux and deploy it (including most applications) as they saw fit. That should have left a bunch of cash to hire good Linux administrators, especially considering the manpower you need to maintain and administer an NT network.
Unfortunately this eposide does nothing to impact Micro$ofts image, since this is so much down the toilet already that I really don't think playing bully towards communities can impact it any further.
Err! The source here is not accidentally some M$ marketing literature?
It required me all of a week and some Canon Digital Ixus software installation attempt to make my Win2k(f) installation behave very, very strange.
Thanks god I only need this piece 'o shit to occasionally edit a customer document on my way home and there's this 15Gb Linux partition which assists me in actually getting work done.
Oh my! You have been sarcastic...