Office-Worker Linux: It's Here and It Works

A few weeks ago, dot.kde.org featured a great why-should-this-be-amazing story about Linux being used as the day-to-day desktop operating system for city employees in Largo, Florida. Roblimo got a chance to see the system in action to find out how ordinary office workers are proving that the old "Linux is tough to use" shibboleth is nothing but FUD, and how a medium-sized city is saving buckets of money by minimizing the tax dollars spent on licenses and hardware. Oh, and they've also pre-empted the kind of costs (in hassle and money) that can face any organization that Microsoft suspects may have some licenses out of order. This is the kind of thing every elected official should have politely waved in his or her face by concerned taxpayers. The Largo system uses KDE on Red Hat, but since both KDE and Gnome are paying much attention to user interface, similar systems could easily be running on various combinations of hardware / distribution / desktop system.

Re:This reminds me of...

[rikkards]

One common stumbling block I've come across in trying to build these types of office environments is management fear that if I (or the admins with experience with open source setups) were to leave then they'd be stuck - after all it is much easier from a corporate view to find someone familiar with setting up/running a wintel / nt backend environ than linux.

This is what happened at the last place I worked at (an IP Law firm). They wanted robustness in their Servers so I implemented both a Linux firewall and a Samba Server for home directories. WELLL! they didn't like that since if I got hit by the proverbial bus they felt they wouldn't be able to find someone qualified (course this is Ottawa where the two biggest employers are the government and High-tech) so I had to rip them out and implement boxes running NT 4 and Proxy.

The ironic thing is that before I left they were way over the amount of licensed workstations/servers they should have had and this place does intelectual law!! Sooner or later I am going to snitch on them to CAAST (www.caast.ca) just need a job first.

No I'm not bitter ;)

hahahahahaha

[jon_c]

I just installed Win2k and Redhat 7.2. Both bootable cdroms, both on mix match newish machines:

From first POST to "installed":

Linux: 35 min
Win2k: 45 min

Time to get drivers up to speed.

Linux: 0 min (had all my stuff)
Win2k: 25 min (nvidia, creative)

Time to get Quake3 running

Linux: 5 hours (still doesn't work right)
Win2k: 10 min

Time to get my RAID ATA-100 card working

Linux: 0 (it doesn't work)
Win2k: did it at boot, only took 2 min

-Jon

The end-users ARE idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

That only happens if you are an idiot and store everything on your desktop instead of an appropriate place. >/i>

The trouble is that the end users *ARE* idiots. No matter how thoroughly we train then on how not to abuse their desktops, they always keep putting several-hundred megabyte MS Access database files on their desktops instead of in the right place. Then when everything craps out when they log onto another workstation, it's *our* (the sysadmins) fault that it don't work right.

Face it, whoever designed the Windows implementation of roaming profiles must have been smoking crack or something. It's another half-assed, hurriedly slapped-together and shoved out the door before it was finished, and not well-thought-out "feature", so typical of MS.

Re:total cost of X-Windows

[mjh]

That only happens if you are an idiot and store everything on your desktop instead of an appropriate place.

True but misleading. The default place that office 2k takes you when you want to save your files? My Documents. Since this is a folder that's on the desktop, it gets stored in your roaming profile. Every user that I have, and I mean every single one of them, stores their files in "My Documents", and I can see why. Not only is it easy when saving, it's also easy when loading. Guess where office 2k takes you when you choose "File->Open".

How is an nfs mounted home directory any different from a windows share that gets mounted with the user logs in?

The difference between roaming profiles and NFS shares is significant. Specifically, an NFS share only requires the user to send data over the network that they are actually going to use. Everything else just sits on the network server until its needed. But with a roaming profile, the entire profile whether it will be used or not, gets downloaded everytime you log into a computer you haven't used yet. Of course, it gets cached there so that you don't have to do it again the next time. But then when you logout, if you made a change to any part of your profile, the entire profile gets uploaded to the server. Combine this with the fact that Microsoft does darn near everything they can to encourage users to store stuff in their profile, and you end up with roaming profiles being a *huge* drain on the system.

Re:skeptical

[flbeachlf]

The 18GB of disk is used for just KDE and not other applications. Those are on other servers. The server could run on far less than 18GB, but you can barely get your hands on smaller drives now. WordPerfect, email and other items that are saved are on the other servers. The 300,000 savings comes from projecting out having about 450 units, and swaping them out on 3 year rotations. 150 per year, budget 2000 each. 3 year upgrade cycles is not 'aggresive', and in fact about 1/3 of your users will be disatisifed with performance in the last year of the user of their machine. While thin clients are 750 dollars, they have a 10 year duty cycle. That comes to 75 dollars a year. A 2000 dollar machine every 3 works out to about 700 dollars a year. Plus you know darn well you have thrown a few extra parts into each of those machines during the 3 years. Some extra RAM, some extra harddrives, etc. The 750 dollar price for a thin client is a sealed terminal, with no moving parts. No extra costs, because nothing is upgraded. I wish as you mentioned that no one here at Largo used email, because it should would make my life easier! ;) In fact, all 800 employees have email and probably 600 of them are heavy users. Around 200-250 users are in email during the day. Email comes from another server, currently GroupWise on OpenServer. This isn't a shop where people just have a few green screen windows open. We have graphical software running all over here, some from NT and most from Unix. The price quoted for Exchange is accurate, and perhaps could go higher. Everyone forgets that you have to start up the Win32 *client* software on NT then too in order to use it. It isn't just bringing up Exchange, its bringing up 250 concurrent Outlook sessions too on WTS. That means 800 NT logins, CALs. Centralized NT doesn't hold as many users, so then we have to bring up clustering, and *hope* we can run 50 users per server....and run 7 servers just to provide Outlook. Instead, using Bynari/Insight the server AND gui Client will all be brought up on the same machine. The post office will deliver email, and the 200-250 clients will all run on the one machine. The cost savings is high, along with much better stability. Anyone that doubts this model is welcome to fly to Florida, we would be happy to give you a tour! ;)

Re:Do they use StarOffice?

[Rob Mac K]

Because if they do, I feel compassionate for them. Word sucks, but StarOffice sucks even more. Word hangs up very easily, but StarOffice hangs up, in Linux and Windows, and, besides, botches installation, so you have to install all over from scratch!

Unfortunately, I have to agree with this. I work for a retail chain that has installed Linux systems in all our (350+) stores. Mostly they run our custom app, but fire up KDE to get their email from the corporate center. When someone sends them a MSWord document, they can read it by just clicking on the attachment, which fires up StarOffice.

The problem is, StarOffice takes *forever* (and a day) to start up! I mean, 30+ seconds is not unusual. So what happens is impatient people at the store click on it half-a-dozen times, which - several minutes later - brings up half-a-dozen instances of SO.

I'm trying to get them to swtich from SO to something that starts up almost instantly (AbiWord or KWord), but they're reluctant to change (needless to say, I came on board after it was too late to get them to install something that would actually work...)

NT/2000 getting flaky at 40 or so connections?

[ryszards]

OK. So I can't remember my PDC's/BDC's, Exchange, SQL Server and Terminal Servers (all NT4) at one of the world largest Oil companies supporting hundreds (500+) of authenticated and working clients without any significant problems?

Puhleez.

The cost issue is real, but the software being flaky is not. NT is as solid as you make it. Typical Linux FUD if you ask me.

Ryszard

Re:I'm afraid it is you who are FUDding now...

[flbeachlf]

It probably would have helped to describe what the 10 people in Largo are doing. NONE of the 10 are allocated for desktop support. 1 - MIS Manager 3 - System Administrators (working on future projects, NOT working on desktop support). 2 - Programmer/ Analysts (working on software, NOT support desktops). 2 - Operators (Work fulltime support the standalone PCs - mostly at the library for patrons - NOT supporting desktops described in the article). 2 - Operators (Taking all calls that come into the help desktop, including software questions, settting up user accounts, changing tapes, ordering necesary hardware and software, and taking the occasional desktop question or problem). It is known that each 50-75 PCs easily take 1 person to run. That means we would have 7-8 people running around here fixing machines. And since we can't increase the size of our staff that means that Admins and Programmers would be fixing PCs. I think that having 1/4 of 2 people supporting 400 desktops is a pretty desirable arrangement.

Re:Won't office working kill Linux?

[OpCode42]

Yeah, I know its a troll but I have to bite...

Where is our DirectX, our Cakewalk, our Quake III?

DirectX - Mesa
Cakewalk - not a musical guy myself but I'm told there are some good midi sequencers out there.
Quake III - Quake III. Sheesh... cant you use a search engine? Here's a tip... www.lokigames.com - you can even use your windows Q3 cd with the download!

Re:Then do your job for once

[Kalabajoui]

All you need to wreck that scenario is a highly placed clueless user to castrate your ability to run your network sensibly. They end up telling you to let everyone install and configure everything and anything. Then, there are still allot of shops running pentium 133's with Windows 95 A version and no patches because they see no benefit to an upgrade. As a contractor I more often than not run into situations where everything on an older computer is replaced except for the monitor. It doesn't matter that the screen is half burned out, blurry, and tinged heavily purple. You can make out text and images on it, and that's good enough. MOst people can't percieve a 60HZ refresh rate, so that is what a monitor ends up set at, along with a 640 x 480 resolution. I don't even bother trying to change the resolution to something more serviceable like 1024 x 768 anymore. It's next to impossible to explain to an end user why "Everything is so small now". I'd just as soon try to teach a pig how to sing as try and explain that font and icon size is adjustable. Most older computer illiterate managers are not only clueless, but they genuinely loath computers. They won't spend a single dime more on computers or newer office equipment than they absolutely have to and they will avoid changes to existing equipment and proceedures like the plague. All us techs can do is try and do things the right way as much as possible under the circumstances and maybe put a bug in the manager's ears about the more critical issues.

so, walk us through how it works...

[Karmageddon]

you want something from your PC on the network, throw it on your desktop. It'll be there wherever you boot from

So, if the something I want is not just a document, but the app that created it, I have to install the app on my desktop? And then Windows will not only launch it, but use the application settings from the registry on the other machine... are you seeing the problem yet? the various ad hoc one-size-must-fit-somebody solutions you Windows guys kluge up just don't solve the problem. Do you argue so hard because you can't believe that Windows can't do something, or because you simply don't understand the problem?

Why businesses aren't yet flocking to Linux

[timothy]

I think the real reasons more businesses haven't yet switched to Free operating systems are really a lot more complicated than "is it easy?" although that's part of it.

a) Current applications -- check out other responses in this thread. A lot of people have businesses that are tightly tied to Microsoft Windows and even to Microsoft Office (which some apps rely on as the printing system for generating reports, say).

b) Inertia -- "this has always worked before, and I don't like change" may not be on any corporate mission statement, but that goes to show you how much those worthless pieces of dreck really mean. Mission statements --BBLLEEEAAHHHHCCCHH. But it's true (I assert) that inertia is as great a force affecting human behavior as greed or even horniness is. Change involves risk and effort, invites attention to the changer ... we get used to things. I'm used to getting fish sandwiches at McDonalds -- I know there are better things to eat in the world, better uses for my food dollar, etc, but often, quick, easy, imperfect wins out. Knowing better alternatives is only enough when the perceived benefit it great enough to overcome the additional effort to obtain them ... in the case of Largo FL, that effort was clearly worth it! If it's not for a particular business, then ... ... it's not. I tend to think that people in my employ (government) promoting my general welfar have a greater obligation if not demonstrated ability to steward my money, and thus to damn well *perceive* that additional benefit with all their heart and all their might.

c) Ineffables -- which I think mostly are really sub-reasons for b). Many people have come to believe that certain multiple-key combinations are somehow intuitive, because evidently they were born with fingers poking at odd angles or something. So if someone says "Well, this system does basically the same thing your old one did, but in a slightly different fashion ..." the listener hears only "DIFFERENT, THEREFORE BAD." The vague feeling of normalcy one gets from booting up a commerical operating system with a famous name, like buying a car with a known name, is one that a lot of business buyers seem to find valuable.

Rationality is complicated.

timothy

Re:total cost of X-Windows

[Karmageddon]

those are "add-ons" and not built-in to the way windows works. thus, application software often uses the registry or temporary files in ways that are not compatible to a multi-user setting.

the desktop on a Unix machine uses X the same whether it's remote or local, and unix is multi-user so it's software is too.

These differences account for why you only very rarely see these setups, and then only in an environment with a restricted set of apps. And, support costs are not lower since most tech support needs to take place at the client workstation and the problems are more obscure because they configuration is so unusual.

Re:hahahahahaha

[Dr_Claw]

Time to get drivers up to speed.

Linux: 0 min (had all my stuff)
Win2k: 25 min (nvidia, creative)

Time to get Quake3 running
Linux: 5 hours (still doesn't work right)
Win2k: 10 min

Are these two linked perhaps? I'm guessing you have a NVidia graphics card. The XFree `nv` driver does not support OpenGL. You need to download the binary `nvidia` drivers from NVidia themselves.

I am trying to do the same, but...

[mwillems]

Being both CTO of a small company (100+ employees on 3 continents) and husband of a non-technical wife :), I am desperately trying to do the same in our company, and at home. Seeing the roadblocks I am hitting may be interesting to some of you.

I see two types of objection to switching.

The "Necessary Condition" objections are mainly "Office", "Outlook", and "IE". Which is, alas, what everyone spends all day using. And until MS gets spilt up, this will not change. But also "that new accounting package", "my scanner", "our new CRM software", "our ERP project", and so on. And these are actually much harder to overcome. I think maybe we can identify a small group of users who do not use accounting, ERP, CRM etc. If we have to change all those, implementing Linux would actually cost us a lot of money.

Eh, before you say it:

StarOffice etc do not work well enough. Always some problems converting Word and Excel files.

VMware is slow, but it also defies the entire object (you still have to pay for an MS license)

Anyway, then there's the...

"Usability" objections. These are easy to fix in time - or they should be. But we are not there yet! I just spent a whole weekend setting up a new desktop machine for myself - Athlon 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM, RedHat 7.1. I had to do a kernel upgrade before it would see my Envidia graphics card. I still cannot print to my samba printer. And having installed machines ([pre-]CP/M, DOS, Win, Novell, Linux) for 20 years, I am not new to PCs or to Linux, but I still cannot figure out how to rewrite the Gnome/Ximian menus! And the config tool core-dumps: I have had 20-odd core dumps in the first day alone. And the lack of "OLE" drives me mad - an experienced PC user spends his life cutting and pasting, and the lack of this in common Linux desktop environments are a real obstacle.

So now I am looking for small groups of "expert users". Our (mainly hardware-) engineers come to mind first. But I am looking hard for real interoperability so we can roll out across the company. My estimate: 2 years out. I hope I am wrong.

Re:Then do your job for once

[Lumpy]

That would be nice, and in your world it probably is true. But in the corperate world it dont work that way...

we run 3 seperate vertical apps that require, (that's right REQUIRE) administrator access to the machine. Now this is the Traffic and Billing software (also requires Admin access to the SQL server!) which by the way is the largest T&B software package out there... it is the de-facto standard in media, you use it, discussion over.

Second we have an AVID. everything MUST be run as administrator. Dont log in and use as admin? too bad.. you don't get to work.

finally. I have a nice self updating Software package for the sales software suite. Now I am 1 IS/IT guy that supports 3 offices spread about 2 hours apart and over 100 machines. If I were to do it your way I need to spend every thursday and friday installing software via VNC or by drivig there.

It may work for you in your small computing environment, but in a large scale corperate environment NT cannot be configured to keep the cluebies from demolshing the hardware....

Oh, and management responds to my request to reprimand users that trash their desktop pc's?
"What did we hire you for? go fix it and shut up."

so... I am doing my job... better than any MCSE ever has here (awarded 3 times for productivity and excellence) and NT cannot do what I need. Linux can. Hell Linux can force the user to drop everything in their user directory (documents and files) instead of spreading documents all over the machine. NT? not possible.