Jumping To Ubuntu At Work For Non-Linux Geeks 181
twigles writes "I'm a network engineer, meaning I spend my days dealing with things like selective route advertisements, peering, and traffic engineering; I'm not a Linux admin or developer. About 6 months ago I finally got fed up enough with my experience on Windows XP to jump ship to Ubuntu 8.04, despite not having much Linux experience, particularly on the desktop. Read my ramblings for an engineer's take on taking what can be a pretty intimidating plunge for us Linux noobcakes."
Yawn (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Traffic Engineer? (Score:3, Insightful)
He's also quite madly irresponsible, if he's advocating non-techie people switching to Linux in work without the support of a sympathetic admin. Sounds like a sure way to lose that promotion.
Re:Linux will not "get there" until this happens (Score:1, Insightful)
A single desktop, so that Linux is one desktop, not several. Otherwise the other efforts, such as the help desk, marketing and research all multiply their efforts making everything impractical.
Many GNU/Linux users like the possibility to choose your own desktop (window manager). The possibility to choose is a feature and advantage of FOSS and who doesn't like it, simply shouldn't use it :-)
If KDE or Gnome was the only window manager in GNU/Linux, how would be possible to make a lightweight distribution for older computers?
I don't think GNU/Linux will become main stream neither it's users really want it. //Dan KrÃtký
Re:How would you replace Visio? (Score:1, Insightful)
Did you read the bit where it's a "de facto" industry standard?
From another comms person's view, without visio you will struggle
Re:Linux will not "get there" until this happens (Score:2, Insightful)
Please remember one thing, Linux is not trying to be Windows.
I wish people would stop trying to lead and or label it that way.
Re:Linux will not "get there" until this happens (Score:4, Insightful)
Use Alien [softpedia.com].
My troubles switching to Ubuntu at Work (Score:3, Insightful)
Exchange support. Evolution just doesn't cut it. It won't load my global address list and it doesn't seem to handle the "location" field for meeting invites. That means when I get an invite or try to send one I have no clue where our meeting will be.
CVS. I really like TortoiseCVS and can't find an equivalent that is as easy to use. I guess it's not a big deal, I could go back to using the cli, but what can I say, I am lazy.
Everything else has been good so far.
Re:You got it wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Statically link your binaries or create a startup script to include the necessary (and included) libraries. It's done all the time. Lots of proprietary software that's distributed on Linux is packaged this way. It's no different, really, than OS X's disk image method.
Do you even understand the system you denigrate?
Re:Linux will not "get there" until this happens (Score:2, Insightful)
...
Anyone who has ever tried to install a program not in the repository will know what a pain it can be. Getting stuck in dependency hell is still a very real problem, and while repositories help they are no substitute to fixing the problem.
In Windows, if you get an installer you have a reasonable expectation of being able to run it. Sometimes you hit dependencies, but not often, and they're generally the same for most programs.
...
Instead, what you get with Windows is programs
a) forcing their way into unnecessarily running at startup.
b) forcing their way as the default for any file types they handle.
c) contacting the internet for who knows what purpose.
d) interfering with other installed programs, including the O/S itself.
e) ".dll Hell" I've had far more problems with this than "dependency hell". In fact, I've never suffered from "dependency hell" in 5 years of using Linux as my primary O/S.
f) DRM
Not to mention that Windows itself can affect all the above issues whenever you update.
Titles (Score:4, Insightful)
I've got some special insight into this argument since I've been on both sides of it. ...an engineer. (Note what I'm doing with Capitalization here). Specifically, I was a stationary engineer and a member of the International Union of Operating engineers. I served a four year apprenticeship in order to be a journeyman stationary engineer. There can be a certain amount of "hell" associated with that process too (that most academics would underestimate).
I've been through all of the hell that you described above and gotten my BS in Mechanical Engineering from an accredited university. I've now worked as a Civil Engineer for several years, and have recently taken the PE exam. (I'll be retaking it soon. My score was one point too low).
Before I got my degree, I was working my way through college part-time as
The title is traditionally applied in two different (and probably more) senses. The first, Engineer, is given to a range of professions requiring a high degree of mathematical, scientific, and a well-rounded academic education, that is (supposed to be) typical of at least a four-year college degree. The second sense, engineer, is to refer to members of a range of vocational trades that branched out of heavy equipment operations, (especially steam-powered equipment) in the nineteenth century. Both of these traditional uses of the term have well-established precedent.
Today the academic Engineers would like to restrict the use of the term to distinguish themselves from the vocational engineers. But the latter naturally object to the loss of the respected title. My take on this is that vocational side underestimates the expectations that the most recent use of the term Engineer evokes. I would continue to have considerable respect for current members of my former trade, if they were to use the titles of "technician" and "operator" instead. But I suspect that many of my current colleagues, i.e. Engineers, don't adequately appreciate the difficulties encountered in acquiring a skilled trade and don't have much respect such titles or vocations.
Re:Traffic Engineer? (Score:1, Insightful)
"Until you go through the same hell in college"
No need even to put the bar so high.
"I spend my days dealing with things like selective route advertisements, peering, and traffic engineering [...] I only have three semesters of computer science [...] don't really have time to sift through forum posts for someone's custom Perl script that made something work, it just needs to work."
He's a damn network operator.
"In the methodical tradition of engineering, I'd like to evaluate Ubuntu's performance as a Windows substitute"
And he's stupid too. How long has been engineering tradition mixing apples to oranges?
"To replace SecureCRT I chose SSH Menu along with the stock OpenSSH client. This keeps track of my connections, allowing me to avoid having to memorize IP addresses of jump off boxes, and it also remembers my window sizes. "
Oh, my god, so damn ignorant. He has not the slightest idea what he's talking about. Besides, Konqueror does everything SecureCRT does and much, much more. With ease.
"If you really like Putty, it's available in Ubuntu."
Simply insane.
"I've found that most of the pain in switching comes from having to tinker a little to get the Linux equivalent of your Windows program working."
Your problem is twofold: on one side thinking that you can speak Danish to a Chinese, so to say. Don't try to bring your prefigured ideas from Windows to Linux (neither do it the other way around); they are simply two different beasts so focus on the way to do things on the given platform instead. On the other hand you are too full of "I'm a network ENGINEER" when you are not much more than a mildly savvy user: don't take yourself too seriously. No, you don't know half you think you know.
"The downside you won't easily escape is that many sites are built expressly for Windows."
Not even that. I only have to visit two sites that require Internet Explorer and the last version of Wine will run IE 6 OK. Just download, double click and there you go.