Speaking as out IT Manager, we've standardized on Gentoo for all 4 of our Canadian Offices, and we've found support to be far better than it was when we ran our legacy systems.
I think Debian would be in a similar situation.
When we had a problem with a driver once, Compaq took it pretty seriously.
I'd feel comfortable running either.
When I worked at Palliser Furniture this is exactly the situation they had. The pay wasn't great, but it was adequate.
Building a team like that is DAMN hard though.
I totally miss that place.
I've seen maybe 3 movies in the theater during that time.
I can't remember the last album that was even WORTH buying, nevermind actualy doing it.
Media is only pervasive through TV. People barely talk about movies, and really, having read LOTR, If they talk about the movie, I'd know about it anyway (That's maybe a poor example, I DID see that one).
Here's what I've found.
There's WAY more sex at night when my wife and I don't watch TV until we're too tired.
My marriage is better because I actually talk to my wife, rather than jsut watching TV with her. She loves when I help her make cookies (or whatever) and it's been great for us as a couple. Interestingly, we've both gained weight. (She needed it, but I didn't).
I can't remember my kids asking for (Insert new toy of choice). My youngest daughter still wants barbies, but she actually plays with them (albiet naked), so that's fine. No "I NEED this" item that they had never heard of before, and would either break of forget within a day. They ask for downhill skis, or a kids motorcycle (so it doesn't save you any money, just forget that whole idea.) But the gifts they do ask for get well used.
So dumping the whole media influence is hard, sure. Especially in the beginning. But we were soon 'cured' and when we tried having TV a few months ago, nobody watched it much anyway, so we just cancelled it again.
Missing movies sounds important, but when you don't really hear anything about them, then it doesn't matter. We watch 'em when they come out on video (DVD with the company's projector).
Much like any other addiction, there is a side benefit to dropping it. Money. Cable is $40 a month, plus $50 a month if we go to a movie as a family once a month (popcorn, etc incl.) Intangible savings would be silly impulse buys thanks to good advertising that no longer happen. I figure that's $1500 a year after tax. Which gives us a fair bit of 'play money' for when we go camping, or whatever else. I suppose we also spend a bit because we quickly found we needed a newspaper subscription.
After 2-3 Months, anyone could be TV free. The rest pretty much falls into place from there. It is a willpower/convictions issue. Though to be honest that isn't why *we* dumped it.
I have no television, and rarely go out to movies anymore. I see ads in the newspapers but I pay them basically zero attention. I'll wait for a recommendation.
It's actually pretty awesome, After 2 years without, we hooked up the TV, but even the kids didn't want to watch it anymore. I'm sure the 'addiction' would return, but we opted to ditch the TV before it happened.
The Grateful Dead (who encourage file trading) never appeared to me to have their livelihood destroyed.
Decent Musicians get popular, and have a solid following.
My Niece, Danalee has a sight at MP3.com. It's worked well for her, and sure she'd like to sign with Sony or whatever, but for now, she does it because it's fun. Your argument falls apart with her. She is (or wants to be) up and coming. And her preferred method of distribution is MP3 on the net.
At our Christmas party, the music they played was old. All but about 5 songs over the course of 5 hours were at least 10 years old.
There simply wasn't anything from the new music scene that people wanted.
And that isn't new. The same thing happens at my kids school when they have their sock hops.
I'm far more likely to hear AC-DC or Ozzie, than 'Flash in the Pan' band X.
Even The Osbournes focuses on what is basically an old band. Does anyone think that The Speers, or the Aguleras whould be as watched?
The new music isn't popular. It might be for a while, but it quickly fades. Even in movies. If the movie isn't just an advertisement for a soundtrack, it'll either be classical (LOTR, Green Mile) or Old (The Santa Clause, Jack Frost, even Goldmember).
Unfortunately, LOTS of old albums are unavailable. I've tried to buy TU, but couldn't. I've tried to buy Gregg Tripp, but couldn't. Even the Original Alannis album from her teeny bopper days. It's unavailable.
Thankfully, All of this can be downloaded. There simply is no other way to get it.
Once up and running, they call me in occasionally to add a user, or otherwise make some type of change. The server emails a few people there with various statistics every week, so they can resolve problems before they occur (Even if that's just by calling me in). That was 6 months ago. Other than adding a user occasionally, I have not been back. Everything is scripted. When the backup completes, it does a quick restore and verifies that the file is readable, then it ejects the tape. Basically, they are problem free. My bill for them was slightly higher than the cost of purchasing licenses had they continued with their legacy Windows network. They still would have needed an admin, and they would have had me in comtinually to update them against various vulnerabilities. They certainly haven't needed me in to patch the server's media player against a buffer overflow vuln, or something equally stupid.
Linux was cheaper for them. In the short term, it maybe wasn't. MAYBE, but even 6 months later, it's paid off.
Their desktops are running Win2K, so other than me continually evangelizing, they wouldn't even know they were running Linux.
There are no shortage of big "hit movies" which are not made with that budget.
Off the top of my head, Blair Witch Project is the first to come to mind.
Second, more and more "actors" are digitally animated. Heck, check out annanova for more evidence of this. We are less than 5 years away from creating a Shrek or a Toy Story in our basements with our desktop PCs. Anime is hugely popular already, but other than pirating, it's hard to find here in Calgary. Again, the cost of creating this is very little. Computer Generated Scenes even created the Character "THE CROW" after Brandon Lee died during production, remember? In 10 years, studios won't pay the actors, or the anyone else, because computer generated characters are less fickle, less expensive, and easier to work with generally.
By the time Broadband is fast enough, and common enough to kill the MPAA, alternatives will be cheap and easy to produce.
Rather than having users email crap all over the place, this was faster and more convienient for them, plus, it solved the problem for us. It works excellent.
This way, users see LINUX1, LINUX2, LINUX3, etc in their face over and over. Linux won't seem so 'fringe' if users are extremely familiar with even just the name and know that they're running it. Further, if they see better performance, LINUX get's credit. This helps you expand Linuxes realm, but it also helps me, because when your user leaves your shop, and starts working at mine, he'll know what Linux is, and he'll prefer it to Legacy Microsoft alternatives.
Second, Microsoft == Legacy.
Neither the word Microsoft nor Windows will be allowed to leave you mouth from this point forward without being preceeded by the word Legacy. Legacy has some ugly connotations involved with it. SO... talk frequently about replacing Legacy Windows servers with Linux. It makes Linux look good, and it makes Legacy products look bad. It also can't really be argued succesfully. And people look stupid if they start arguing it.
Lastly, reassure users that you want what is best for them. And for now, that means leaving their desktops alone. You can tell them that Linux is rapidly making inroads towards being a desktop product, but reassure them that replacing their desktops isn't even being discussed. People feel like they own their desktops, and changes to a user's desktop 'feels' threatening. Reassure them that you'll leave it alone until Linux is a perfect fit for them. That isn't to say that Linux isn't a good desktop, it is, and I run it as one. However, it means that users will trust your decisions as they see the situation improve on the servers. Management will trust you more as they see lower operating costs on the servers, or even the same costs, but better uptime. Once the trust is there, THEN you can discuss upgrading from the legacy desktop solution.
We saved well over a hundred thousand dollars in the process, we have literally maintained 100% uptime since, and the users can see no difference.
I could set you up to talk to either end users or management. Either would provide an excellent reference regarding their experience with using Linux servers instead of legacy Windows servers...
> Or the best: if I can download this movie for free, it will encourage me to steal^H^H^H^H^H buy more DVDs!
Water is free from my tap, but I buy bottled water anyway.
Why?
Because the bottled stuff is better.
The same thing applies with these movies. If I don't save myself $5 by buying a VHS tape, why would I copy a DL rather than the original DVD. It's even worse.
About the only things DLs are good for is that I don't want to pay to se lilo & stitch 200 times in the theater. I'll pay once, then DL the movie. When the viedo is released, I'll delete the DL.
I thought massive doses of radiation would be a good thing. We would dramatically accelerate the speed of mutations throughout the general populace, and thereby evolve at a much faster rate.
If you're saying that mutations would be detrimental, and would result in a dead populace, perhaps evolution is a fraud.
Blue is Microsoft's Color. Therefore, blue is the color of choice for legacy users, and legacy equipment.
Red would be Novell's Color. And Netware still rules, even if their marketing sucks (do they have any?) It'll be another decade before anything works as well as NDS.
I'm not sure how to get Black, Yellow, and White lights on the thing to symbolize Tux. But judging by how much my kids like the penguin, I'm sure there's a market for a mouse that looks like a penguin, or a mouse that shines a penguin beneath itself like a Batman Signal shining into the night... Heck, they could flip the thing upside down, and it could double as a nightlight.
This doesn't work when you need to see all of this information more or less simultaneously.
For example. I work in Oil and Gas. I'm not a trader, but I support several of them.
They spend their day watching several different markets at the same time. If there are (say) 4 markets open, each takes basically a full screen to watch. (1200x1024) Add to that 2-3 different instant messanger packages (they are trading with other companies with different standards). When a trade occurs, that particular line changes color for a few seconds, and then fades out. With multiple monitors, I notice the color change. On multiple virtual desktops, I don't.
Our Internet connection is internally valued at several million dollars per minuite. (It's crap, that's a worst case scenario, generally, it doesn't matter for a few minuites here or there.) But anyways, the reason is because that is the value of missing that information which SHOULD appear on screen. Virtual desktops are even worse than a lost network connection, because by design it limits the visual input to a single screen.
A few thousand dollars for video cards, and flat screen monitors, properly arranged is far more productive.
If it's static documents on a few different screens, then there is no problem with virtual terminals. On the other hand, if each screen is displaying valuable dynamic data, then virtual terminals are the wrong solution.
Virtual terminals are the computer equivilent of an old telephone party line. It's better to share 1 phone line between 20 houses than not to have one at all, but it's far better each have your own line.
Our Shop uses exclusively Matrox on high end machines.
In the trading industry, some users have as many as 10 Monitors all running from 1 PC, and I've heard of more. Most traders have at least 4. There are a few companies besides Matrox that can provide that, and of the ones that do, none do it as well as Matrox.
It's worth the $1200 (CAD) to purchase a G200 MMS (quad) over anything else we've ever tried. Even on dual screens, unless you need 3D, Matrox is the way to go.
One nice benefit is that all 4 monitors can run different resolutions and color depths at the same time.
Do I have/want a G200 at home on my desktop? No.
But I don't have/want a s/390 as my desktop either. That doesn't mean an s/390 is crap. It just isn't suited to that particular role. Same with Nvidia. It's great for games, but it's crap apart from games.
Ok, Maybe I want to have an s/390 at home... Still... You get the idea...
Slashdot Mirror
Speaking as out IT Manager, we've standardized on Gentoo for all 4 of our Canadian Offices, and we've found support to be far better than it was when we ran our legacy systems. I think Debian would be in a similar situation. When we had a problem with a driver once, Compaq took it pretty seriously. I'd feel comfortable running either.
Actually my wife (when she was younger) had the same proportional measurements as Barbie except height. They aren't hopelessly out of proportion.
When I worked at Palliser Furniture this is exactly the situation they had. The pay wasn't great, but it was adequate. Building a team like that is DAMN hard though. I totally miss that place.
I've seen maybe 3 movies in the theater during that time.
I can't remember the last album that was even WORTH buying, nevermind actualy doing it.
Media is only pervasive through TV. People barely talk about movies, and really, having read LOTR, If they talk about the movie, I'd know about it anyway (That's maybe a poor example, I DID see that one).
Here's what I've found.
There's WAY more sex at night when my wife and I don't watch TV until we're too tired.
My marriage is better because I actually talk to my wife, rather than jsut watching TV with her. She loves when I help her make cookies (or whatever) and it's been great for us as a couple. Interestingly, we've both gained weight. (She needed it, but I didn't).
I can't remember my kids asking for (Insert new toy of choice). My youngest daughter still wants barbies, but she actually plays with them (albiet naked), so that's fine. No "I NEED this" item that they had never heard of before, and would either break of forget within a day. They ask for downhill skis, or a kids motorcycle (so it doesn't save you any money, just forget that whole idea.) But the gifts they do ask for get well used.
So dumping the whole media influence is hard, sure. Especially in the beginning. But we were soon 'cured' and when we tried having TV a few months ago, nobody watched it much anyway, so we just cancelled it again.
Missing movies sounds important, but when you don't really hear anything about them, then it doesn't matter. We watch 'em when they come out on video (DVD with the company's projector).
Much like any other addiction, there is a side benefit to dropping it. Money. Cable is $40 a month, plus $50 a month if we go to a movie as a family once a month (popcorn, etc incl.) Intangible savings would be silly impulse buys thanks to good advertising that no longer happen. I figure that's $1500 a year after tax. Which gives us a fair bit of 'play money' for when we go camping, or whatever else. I suppose we also spend a bit because we quickly found we needed a newspaper subscription.
After 2-3 Months, anyone could be TV free. The rest pretty much falls into place from there. It is a willpower/convictions issue. Though to be honest that isn't why *we* dumped it.
So no, I haven't hear of 8mile. I didn't really clarify that, did I...
I have no television, and rarely go out to movies anymore. I see ads in the newspapers but I pay them basically zero attention. I'll wait for a recommendation.
It's actually pretty awesome, After 2 years without, we hooked up the TV, but even the kids didn't want to watch it anymore. I'm sure the 'addiction' would return, but we opted to ditch the TV before it happened.
Decent Musicians get popular, and have a solid following.
My Niece, Danalee has a sight at MP3.com. It's worked well for her, and sure she'd like to sign with Sony or whatever, but for now, she does it because it's fun. Your argument falls apart with her. She is (or wants to be) up and coming. And her preferred method of distribution is MP3 on the net.
enjoy...
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/264/danalee_pescit elli.html
There simply wasn't anything from the new music scene that people wanted.
And that isn't new. The same thing happens at my kids school when they have their sock hops.
I'm far more likely to hear AC-DC or Ozzie, than 'Flash in the Pan' band X.
Even The Osbournes focuses on what is basically an old band. Does anyone think that The Speers, or the Aguleras whould be as watched?
The new music isn't popular. It might be for a while, but it quickly fades. Even in movies. If the movie isn't just an advertisement for a soundtrack, it'll either be classical (LOTR, Green Mile) or Old (The Santa Clause, Jack Frost, even Goldmember).
Unfortunately, LOTS of old albums are unavailable. I've tried to buy TU, but couldn't. I've tried to buy Gregg Tripp, but couldn't. Even the Original Alannis album from her teeny bopper days. It's unavailable.
Thankfully, All of this can be downloaded. There simply is no other way to get it.
There are no shortage of links to USAF use of Weather Control for military use. This is nothing new. Search their site.
Once up and running, they call me in occasionally to add a user, or otherwise make some type of change. The server emails a few people there with various statistics every week, so they can resolve problems before they occur (Even if that's just by calling me in). That was 6 months ago. Other than adding a user occasionally, I have not been back. Everything is scripted. When the backup completes, it does a quick restore and verifies that the file is readable, then it ejects the tape. Basically, they are problem free. My bill for them was slightly higher than the cost of purchasing licenses had they continued with their legacy Windows network. They still would have needed an admin, and they would have had me in comtinually to update them against various vulnerabilities. They certainly haven't needed me in to patch the server's media player against a buffer overflow vuln, or something equally stupid.
Linux was cheaper for them. In the short term, it maybe wasn't. MAYBE, but even 6 months later, it's paid off.
Their desktops are running Win2K, so other than me continually evangelizing, they wouldn't even know they were running Linux.
Kev.
Off the top of my head, Blair Witch Project is the first to come to mind.
Second, more and more "actors" are digitally animated. Heck, check out annanova for more evidence of this. We are less than 5 years away from creating a Shrek or a Toy Story in our basements with our desktop PCs. Anime is hugely popular already, but other than pirating, it's hard to find here in Calgary. Again, the cost of creating this is very little. Computer Generated Scenes even created the Character "THE CROW" after Brandon Lee died during production, remember? In 10 years, studios won't pay the actors, or the anyone else, because computer generated characters are less fickle, less expensive, and easier to work with generally.
By the time Broadband is fast enough, and common enough to kill the MPAA, alternatives will be cheap and easy to produce.
Didn't they evolve into us? Does nobody here believe in evolution?
I'll trust humanity's design capabilities when I no longer need to patch software against security or bug fixes.
Humans aren't as smart as they think they are.
Rather than having users email crap all over the place, this was faster and more convienient for them, plus, it solved the problem for us. It works excellent.
This way, users see LINUX1, LINUX2, LINUX3, etc in their face over and over. Linux won't seem so 'fringe' if users are extremely familiar with even just the name and know that they're running it. Further, if they see better performance, LINUX get's credit. This helps you expand Linuxes realm, but it also helps me, because when your user leaves your shop, and starts working at mine, he'll know what Linux is, and he'll prefer it to Legacy Microsoft alternatives.
Second, Microsoft == Legacy.
Neither the word Microsoft nor Windows will be allowed to leave you mouth from this point forward without being preceeded by the word Legacy. Legacy has some ugly connotations involved with it. SO... talk frequently about replacing Legacy Windows servers with Linux. It makes Linux look good, and it makes Legacy products look bad. It also can't really be argued succesfully. And people look stupid if they start arguing it.
Lastly, reassure users that you want what is best for them. And for now, that means leaving their desktops alone. You can tell them that Linux is rapidly making inroads towards being a desktop product, but reassure them that replacing their desktops isn't even being discussed. People feel like they own their desktops, and changes to a user's desktop 'feels' threatening. Reassure them that you'll leave it alone until Linux is a perfect fit for them. That isn't to say that Linux isn't a good desktop, it is, and I run it as one. However, it means that users will trust your decisions as they see the situation improve on the servers. Management will trust you more as they see lower operating costs on the servers, or even the same costs, but better uptime. Once the trust is there, THEN you can discuss upgrading from the legacy desktop solution.
Bynari Insight Server/Connector
We had some difficulties with Bynari, but Contact seems excellent. It's a huge cost savings as well.
We moved to a completely Microsoft Free back end.
We saved well over a hundred thousand dollars in the process, we have literally maintained 100% uptime since, and the users can see no difference.
I could set you up to talk to either end users or management. Either would provide an excellent reference regarding their experience with using Linux servers instead of legacy Windows servers...
mail me at consulting@myrealbox.com
Kev.
Not likely.
Water is free from my tap, but I buy bottled water anyway.
Why?
Because the bottled stuff is better.
The same thing applies with these movies. If I don't save myself $5 by buying a VHS tape, why would I copy a DL rather than the original DVD. It's even worse.
About the only things DLs are good for is that I don't want to pay to se lilo & stitch 200 times in the theater. I'll pay once, then DL the movie. When the viedo is released, I'll delete the DL.
If you're saying that mutations would be detrimental, and would result in a dead populace, perhaps evolution is a fraud.
God only knows...
Red would be Novell's Color. And Netware still rules, even if their marketing sucks (do they have any?) It'll be another decade before anything works as well as NDS.
I'm not sure how to get Black, Yellow, and White lights on the thing to symbolize Tux. But judging by how much my kids like the penguin, I'm sure there's a market for a mouse that looks like a penguin, or a mouse that shines a penguin beneath itself like a Batman Signal shining into the night... Heck, they could flip the thing upside down, and it could double as a nightlight.
But You haven't tried a Matrox, have you...
You wouldn't go back. The powercolor had OK NT drivers, but they were pretty unfriendly and limited cards compared to the Matrox cards.
And no, I don't work for Matrox.
For example. I work in Oil and Gas. I'm not a trader, but I support several of them.
They spend their day watching several different markets at the same time. If there are (say) 4 markets open, each takes basically a full screen to watch. (1200x1024) Add to that 2-3 different instant messanger packages (they are trading with other companies with different standards). When a trade occurs, that particular line changes color for a few seconds, and then fades out. With multiple monitors, I notice the color change. On multiple virtual desktops, I don't.
Our Internet connection is internally valued at several million dollars per minuite. (It's crap, that's a worst case scenario, generally, it doesn't matter for a few minuites here or there.) But anyways, the reason is because that is the value of missing that information which SHOULD appear on screen. Virtual desktops are even worse than a lost network connection, because by design it limits the visual input to a single screen.
A few thousand dollars for video cards, and flat screen monitors, properly arranged is far more productive.
If it's static documents on a few different screens, then there is no problem with virtual terminals. On the other hand, if each screen is displaying valuable dynamic data, then virtual terminals are the wrong solution.
Virtual terminals are the computer equivilent of an old telephone party line. It's better to share 1 phone line between 20 houses than not to have one at all, but it's far better each have your own line.
In the trading industry, some users have as many as 10 Monitors all running from 1 PC, and I've heard of more. Most traders have at least 4. There are a few companies besides Matrox that can provide that, and of the ones that do, none do it as well as Matrox.
It's worth the $1200 (CAD) to purchase a G200 MMS (quad) over anything else we've ever tried. Even on dual screens, unless you need 3D, Matrox is the way to go.
One nice benefit is that all 4 monitors can run different resolutions and color depths at the same time.
Do I have/want a G200 at home on my desktop? No.
But I don't have/want a s/390 as my desktop either. That doesn't mean an s/390 is crap. It just isn't suited to that particular role. Same with Nvidia. It's great for games, but it's crap apart from games.
Ok, Maybe I want to have an s/390 at home... Still... You get the idea...
I do not, however, control whether my wife will become pregnant with that child in the first place.
Santa is clearly false, because I impersonate him to make him "real" for my children.
God is arguable. I did not; for example; create the moon, and then attribute it to him.
Kev.