Re: Time learning openSUSE
- From: houghi <houghi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:19:33 +0100
Michael Soibelman wrote:
The company I work for are going to have their first Linux machine. I
will be the person who will be doing the basic installation and training
of the IT department.
First, congratulations on your mission. They've chosen wisely. I'll try to
think of reasons for going in this direction and provide them when they pop
into my mind..
I am not exactly looking for reasons. I am more looking for what I
should think about when talking to Windows admins (not Windows users)
As I have just installed openSUSE on a friends laptop and have received very
positive feedback. I'll just run by a couple of thoughts for quick
consumption.
Did the same a few times already.
1. You (the user) will have a much more intimate knowledge of what your
machine is doing. All the code is 'visible'. Easier to debug if you can
see what is happening with your programs.
I will not be so much the user. The IT department will be. That means
extra time to get to learn it, so more a disadvantage then an advantage,
2. No hidden spyware, viruses, etc.
Intranet behind a good firewall, so not an issue.
3. Reliability.
I must honestly say I have had more downtime on the Linux server then on
the Windows websites, but that is most likely because of the hoster.
4. Lower cost of ownership.
In this case I very much doubt that. We do have a site license, so an
extraserver wold cost us nothing. There is the learning process to go
through and if things go wrong, the expertise is me, not an IT
department of 250 people. If I leave, they are screwed and need to hire
external help and thus (potential) costs will be higher/
5. No incentive for users to 'steal' (proprietary) applications, therefore a
more moral choice.
As we have a site licence, no need to do that anyway. They were
contemplating running Windows with Apache, MySQL and PHP. All free. They
decided to go with Linux for the chalange.
6. A friendly user community with help just a usenet post away.
I have been helped by the Windows community very well and quick.
Especially in the Excel group. They have no idea how to quote though.
7. Just type 'man something' for quick guidance or go
to /usr/share/doc/packages for more package information.
I persoanly have problems comprehanding man pages. Very few have been
helpfull to me. I asume that is very personal.
8. Easily customize things to work the way you want them instead of being
forced to use them the way the vendor wants you to use them.
I do not have any experiecne with Windows, but I asume that a WAMP won't
be that different then a LAMP server.
9. Lots of free applications for doing daily chores (OpenOffice, Vim, etc.)
and pretty much everything you alluded to in your post (file server,
application server, databases, web server, etc..) with large communities
AND commercial support where needed.
We already run Open Office on many of our Windows machines.
10. Everything is out in the open.
Yep.
11. You know where things go when they are saved. In windows you save things
and then can't find them.
Then I asume you do not have enough eperience as an admin. I know a lot
of people who have no clue where things go in Linux, but do in Windows.
12. No problems causing you to "just reinstall the OS". I've been able to
recover from the most serious problems and have not had to reinstall in
over 6 or 7 years...
Well, actualy I hope they would do that more where I work. :-D I have
done it in Linux as well, but that is because I was lazy. Sometimes a
re-install is just faster then trying to recover everything and look
where things went wrong.
13. Easy to do automatic backups/recovery.
They just need to add the name of the machine to what they already have
running.
14. Journaling filesystems for quick reboot on power failure (did I say
UPS)
Mmm. I have had my share of power failures and I must say that repairing
such a system is not always easy and certainly not always fast on Linux
15. Reliability (see #3)
Yep, see my answer there.
16. Excuse my rant here... Sorry. More to the point you asked it is fairly
easy to maintain and monitor your intranet web server as well as file
server & ftp server. Using Yast to set up both Apache and VSFTP is a
snap. Also, you could add groupware (eGroupWare, Kolab, etc..) and of
course there's CMS (Zope, OpenCMS, Xoops) and even WritersCafe for those in
the company that wish to express there thoughts on future developments at
the company...
Very good point about FTP. Didn't think about that. never installed an
FTP server, so I must get into that. (looks it up) Damn, where can I
find the setting to point to /srv/www/htdocs/ when I have the user
"intranet"?
We are using Outlook and I do not see any change in that in the
forseable future. We also have commited to some other systems on a
European level where there will not be any change in the next 10 years.
I will look at things possible once this is running.
So many usefull programs for corporations. You may even want to save the
executives a bundle of money by installing a ERP/CRM package such as
Compiere or Adempiere !! This could potentially save many thousands, if
not tens of thousands of dollars for administering your corporate assets,
keeping track of your billing, inventory, and payroll, etc....
I know and am aware of that. However they have commited themselces to a
CRM system that is on a European level. The billing system is a seperate
system and changing this would require way to much investment and too
little return.
And if you want a new feature(s) for anything you install you can either
develop it in house or request it/them from the friendly user communities
that created the applications in the first place..
We are too big and too specific to ask the community. If they would go
Linux completely, they would contact Novell or Redhat directly. It would
cost an enourmous investment over a middle long term.
I am talking several tousand spoints of sales worldwide and a multitide
in office desks. These people breathe closed source. I feel like
installing Linux on Bill Gates PC. :-D Even with hardware we do not have
always the choice.
Lots of good reasons to try it out.
I know.
I would rate the order of importance as:
1. Cost (both initial and continuing)
Hardware example. We are forced to take certain brands of PC and
printer, even though we can get cheaper elsewhere.
2. Security
Not an issue. The cost of securing it is higher, but it is secure.
3. Reliability
Not an issue. It works good enough apparently.
4. Openness (use and development)
Not an issue for them.
5. Incentive to use software illicitly is removed. If it's free you can't
steal it !
We pay for it.
Hope that helps somewhat.
Well, I was more looking at what I must not forget to tell them. The
local IT and myself already have made the decision on installing this
machine, but as they are unexperienced in Linux or do not have much
experience, I was wondering if I should know some things about explaing
Linux to a Windows sys admin.
The route I would love to see in an ideal world to go would be:
1) Intranet made friendly for Firefox
2) Use of OpenOffice and Firefox throughout the company
3) Intranet websites, fileservers, printservers and faxes and such move
to Linux
4) Point of sales move to Linux
That would leave the mailserver, specific CRM and billing and office PCs
on Windows. The next step would be the hardest, move all the rest.
Wether all this would be profitable or not, would depend on how much
time they would be looking at their ROI. On 3 years? Forget it.
Transfering would be way to expensive. On 5 years? Perhaps, although I
am guestimating a break even if lucky. On 10 years? Profit, but 10 years
is to far to look ahead for most managers. 3 years is what they can
grasp, 5 if they are true visionairs, 10 and they are talking out of
their ass.
Oh well, They said thay want to do it quicly, so perhaps tomorrow I can
already tell how it went. :-D
houghi
--
But I will accept the rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am
free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I
tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free
because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
.
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