Linux Starts to Find Home on Desktops 364
WSJdpatton writes "The much-hyped notion that Linux would be a viable alternative to Windows to run desktop and notebook PCs for corporate users seemed dead on arrival a few years ago. But the idea is showing some new vital signs as companies look for cheaper alternatives to Microsoft products. The Wall Street Journal outlines several firms that are reaping savings and stability on their workplace desktops by rolling out Linux distributions. 'Auto maker PSA Peugeot Citroën last month said it will start using Linux on 20,000 of its workers' PCs. Novell Inc., which sells a version of Linux and is supplying it to Peugeot, says it has recently signed up several large U.S. financial institutions that are installing Linux on some employee PCs. Sales of Linux PCs are showing a really nice uptick at Novell, says Ronald Hovsepian, chief executive of Novell.' Not everyone is a convert, though. 'The State of Illinois recently consolidated its IT systems onto Microsoft software -- and has no interest in using Linux, says Paul Campbell, director of the state's Central Management Services department. "We don't have time for science projects in state government," he says.'"
Microsoft and Corporate Welfare (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Don't have time (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Illini Case Study (or Lack Thereof) (Score:3, Interesting)
New distributions are helping a lot the process (Score:2, Interesting)
I've never believed that linux would take over the desktop market, but now that exist distributions that may grandmother can install and mantain by herself and with corporations and governments pushing it more and more, every incentives for non-nerd people to adopt linux are in place.
Re:Don't have time (Score:5, Interesting)
CMS DIRECTOR RESIGNS
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- The head of a powerful Illinois government agency resigned today after a sometimes-rocky tenure.
Paul Campbell's resignation from the Department of Central Management Services takes effect immediately. He had been director for nearly two years and was assistant director before that.
A spokesman said Campbell will become a vice president at United Health Care.
Central Management Services is the agency in charge of most state purchasing and hiring. Its influence has expanded under Governor Rod Blagojevich (blah-GOY'-uh-vich).
But state auditors have repeatedly found management problems there, from paying improper expenses to overstating the results of cost-cutting.
The agency's hiring procedures have also been scrutinized amid questions about whether Blagojevich has awarded jobs based on politics.
Re:80% Solution - Printing? (Score:2, Interesting)
What sort of image program doesn't have printing support out of the box?
Re:Linux has found a home on my laptop (Score:3, Interesting)
My story is sort of the opposite of yours. I'm a long time user of many OS's, but lately I find myself using Linux less and Windows more. The reasons for this are a bit complicated. The recent trend towards hardware assisted virtualization has finally allowed me to consolidate all my workstations into a single laptop. That is very cool and it means I can directly run Linux at the coffee shop, whereas it used to be available only at my desk at work (not counting server use). You'd think that would make me use it more, but in reality it means I use it less. You see, I basically run Linux on the desktop for a handful of applications that operate best there (GIMP, InkScape, OO, XPDF, etc.) The drawback to this system is I can only run 2 OS's at a time. The VMs are running on top of OS X, which is my workstation OS of choice and runs 90% of my apps. I find myself more and more running Windows in the VM for an irreplaceable application, which means I have to shut it down to run Linux. That's not a big deal, but for most of what I do, there are acceptable replacements for the Linux software (Photoshop, Illustrator, TextEdit, Preview, etc.) More and more often I find myself just editing that vector graphic element in Illustrator so I don't have to shut down Windows. Linux may be winning corporate desktops from Windows, but I fear they are also losing a lot of home and power user desktops to OS X. I'll be curious to see if corporate Linux adoption really does take off and if that has the expected impact on home use. If wider adoption means those irreplaceable Windows applications become replaceable, the story will change in a hurry.
Re:Don't have time (Score:3, Interesting)
The remark "less important states" aside, we (Americans) would ALL like to know that our tax money was being spent wisely. But applying "tried and trusted" to Microsoft products seems a bit odd unless you are a Microsoft employee or are related to this Jefferson fellow. It is precisely the fact that Windows and office have been tried that leads so many people to the conclusion that they should no longer be trusted.
How much would it cost to make one application run by the state web-based (I'm not talking about Internet, I'm talking about using a web browser for the user interface)? Such an application would not require the wholesale replacement of Windows desktops, but WOULD allow for selected replacement of some systems. Many "desktop" machines in government are not really desktop, they are really "countertop", sitting in locations where government people interact with citizens and run a single application all day long. Converting just one such system to web-based (or even Citrix based) would allow the client machines to be Windows, Linux, or anything else that supports a full blown web browser (or Citrix client). That could be thousands of Windows licenses saved right there, or if you decided the experiment hadn't worked, you could keep them running Windows.
On the other hand if you don't even want that potential expense you could JUST focus on a relatively isolated group of true desktop systems and convert them to Linux and Open Office for some period of time.
I say "experiment", but really, some of us know that the results are that in most cases, it works just fine. I used Linux and Open Office in an "all Microsoft" shop for several years and the only noticeable change was that people started coming to me whenever they were having trouble fixing a messed up Word document, a messed up floppy disk (with Word files on it) or needed to burn a CD that was reusable outside the organization (for some reason the standard configured machines could only produce coasters most of the time). My Word documents and Excels files (produced by Open Office) never caused any compatibility problems and I never had to worry about my e-mail archive being corrupted by Outlook bugs. Cost to government (feds) for this "experiment" = $0. Well, really the cost was a negative number, as the Word documents I rescued would have taken many hours to reproduce and the readable CDs I produced saved tons of delay in sending information out to other agencies.
While I often characterize government workers as wasteful and lazy, there are pockets of enthusiasm for trying new and potentially better things. I have no doubt you could find departments with such people (even in the "important" state of Illinois) who would delight in trying a new OS/Office combo that would be much less susceptible to virus outbreaks and other malware. How many government workers would have loved to have a tabbed browser several years before Microsoft got around to it, or a machine that seemed to run about twice as fast due to less overhead that a properly installed Linux system has over Windows?
Switching to Linux is no magic pill. The potential savings in hardware and software costs would only be a fraction of total government waste. On the other hand eliminating the obstacles to such an experiment (see posts below) might be the key to even more savings.