| Tobias DiPasquale on 28 Oct 2004 01:19:02 -0000 |
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Oct 27, 2004, at 7:56 PM, W. Chris Shank wrote: This is the first time I've posted for a while, we've been pretty busy here. Anyhow, I wanted to relate a story/situation regarding Linux, it's use, and it's perception as a business ready operating system. DSICLAIMER: This is a rant and probably not worth your time reading. First, let me say that we've all been there. Every one who uses Linux that's had a taste of Windows before it can find something that they can't do as well or at all after switching to Linux. I totally feel where you're coming from. I still can't get my fonts to look right on my AMD64 box, and I write Linux kernel code for a living! Having said that, I hope you understand the rest of what I'm about to say. DISCLAIMER: Its not clear as to the extent of your involvement prior to this development, so if I'm insulting you personally, I'll apologize in advance. That's not my intent at all. We were recently contacted by a small company currently running about a dozen FC2 desktops and server. They had been running RH7.2 and upgraded to FC2 sometime within the last few months. Their server is more or less ok, but their desktops aren't. Apparently RH7.2 was working fine but their current setup is a mess. None of the apps are integrated well, printers rarely work, users are forced to use the command line to switch printing, openoffice defaults are bad, none of the mozilla plugins work well, I could go on. Basically everyone is pissed because they are inundated with problems - their computers are downright unproductive right now. The current maintainer is obviously way over his head regarding how to really configure these systems. Since I haven't touched Fedora in a while, I suspect much of their problem has to do with Fedora being only a half an implementation - the real one being saved for $$RedHat. But I'm not really sure.
1. Try upgrading Windows NT 3.51 desktop machines to Windows XP and see if you don't have as many, if not more, problems than you're having currently. They just jumped up 5 revisions of software, which represents something like 4 or 5 years of changes. Perhaps they should have tried RH9 first before moving all the way to FC2, or even gone with another distro like SuSE. There are a number of them out there that resemble RH enough to be manageable without much particular experience in the particulars. 2. I think the real problem brought to light here was that of a lack of testing. Attempting to bring an entire office up to a new version of any software all at once with minimal testing isn't the greatest idea in any circumstance. If I'm wrong about the testing, please let me know, but it sounds like the person doing the job previously didn't have much knowledge in system administration. I personally find it much better to spend some extra time testing and working out the kinks of a new system before installing it, rather than going through the kind of hassle you're currently experiencing. It doesn't sound like you were at the helm for this decision, so I guess this is all moot. But I believe also that its critically important for Linux in particular to do this kind of thing, since, as you stated, if things go wrong you'll get that knee-jerk, "Linux is a toy" attitude from most businesspeople which would prematurely limit its exposure in that environment. Anyway, the current perception at this company is that this "Linux" thing is a joke, or just crappy, or a fraud being perpetrated by zealots. The current maintainer is on his way out the door (literally) - so the owners are looking to "fix" their mess and migrating to Windows is one option they are seriously considering. I hope we can keep them from doing that - but they are pretty badly burned over this fiasco.
Roll them back to RH7.2 for now. Then tell them that you could have a tested, working configuration of their software running on a newer RH rev/distro within X timeframe. And tell them that if you can't, that you'd be happy to help them migrate to Windows however they would like it. As I'm sure you're aware, their biggest concern is just getting back to work, so I think rolling them back is probably the right move in the immediate term. And by promising to investigate both avenues, you will place yourself above the current ill feelings towards Linux without totally ruling it out for them. Remember: they will save money over time running Linux and have less hassles. You just have your Linux hassles all up front, IMO. So the real meat of my posting here is how something like this can really hurt any chance Linux has for desktop adoption. The person who set this up obviously meant well but just didn't have the knowledge to execute well. I have to wonder how many other companies have "played" with some half configured Linux and deemed it not enterprise ready? I'll bet a lot. We installed OpenOffice on our CFO's box and he was digging it for a while. But one night, he tried to do something that was a snap in Excel but took him four hours to get right in OOo and that turned him all the way off. To him, free wasn't a good enough reason to switch if he had to give up any kind of functionality and I'll bet a lot of people in the business setting are the same way and I can't always fault their decision. So we switched him back to Excel the next morning. I really don't have a point here btw- just venting. I know that desktop Linux can work - but I've also learned that it's not Windows and can't be treated like Windows. Every one of our clients uses Linux in some capacity - even on the desktop - so we know it works. But for companies like these folks, I wonder if it's even possible to get the bad taste out of their mouth at this point? And worse than that - I'm certain they will spread their bad experience with Linux with their friends and colleagues. This only continues to make it difficult to get businesses to consider Linux. I guess if I have a point - it's that bringing Linux into a company and failing to give it the chance it deserves is 100 times worse than letting Windows remain. Even with Windows XP, I'm not bothered if my clients want to install that - because I know they will begin to see pressure to migrate with 2 years - and who knows where Linux will be by then. I think its important to stress to them that the problems they are having are due to a lack of solid upgrade plan and not any particular fault of Linux. They could just as easily have had these problems with Windows or OS X or BeOS or whatever doing what they tried to do. I hope you can get this worked out with these people. I'm rootin' for you, buddy. Take care. - -- Tobias DiPasquale 202A 04C4 2CE6 B985 8520 88D6 CD25 1A6C B9B5 1595 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (Darwin) iD8DBQFBgEjHzSUabLm1FZURAvVQAJ4peJYY3sS2kI+V+7AtNLDQiuz6xgCfTHgc Rjrr1C8Dx1U9ym9qrRYU1XI= =0Fhi -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ___________________________________________________________________________ Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
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