Last year I decided to go back to school to start the upgrade on my AS Degree in IT. Long story short is that I was at my schools poster outside their IT support door that states the Wifi will work with “Windows, OS X and Linux”. So being me I walked in and asked “Will the Wifi work with OpenSUSE” the guy at the counter replied “Work with…What?”. So I rephrased the question “Will it work will Linux”. He then turned around and asked a more senior tech, who replied no, you need to use Internet Explorer. While all of this all going on, my conscience was laughing at them because they believe their in the IT field. Laughing because they still have the Microsoft blinders glued on.
I’m going to try it the next time I’m on campus. Firefox has Java which their wifi authentication app uses so I should be in business. If it works I’ll go and education them.
I had the MS blinders on for about 5 1/2 years and I want the people I come in contact with to make their own choice of OS. Lastly IT professionals should at least know of Linux (distro’s like SUSE, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Red Hat and Ubuntu) also Solaris.
Not just Windows and OS X.
Yes, known problem for “long term admins” staying with their systems over the years (never touch… them
If you get it up and running, don’t beat them with their ignorance: try to give them something valuable - like a tutorial how to setup Wifi with “Non-Windows” Systems. I bet they would be glad to have such informations for other users. (And other Linux users don’t have to try again…)
Here in India, MS has big dominance. Linux might be next I guess, cause I see far less number of MAC machines. For them the computer is MS. Some are so ignorant that they do not understand the difference between a computer hardware and OS. And sadly their is lot of piracy. (good for linux I guess, since it is piracy-friendly ). People here believe in only paying for the hardware. The thought of paying for software is either completely unknown or totally comes as a shock. Many people even do not read and understand the EULA of MS. They just click Next. But somehow India is favourite global outsourcing destination. And it is turning into a R&D spot too as many MNC’s are establishing their labs here. This I believe is because they are able to get talent at cheaper prices.
Well whatever, MS still is seen as reputed company and many youngsters want to make it to MS as they pay you fat and they believe MS is supercool. Bill Gates is a superhero and Richard and Linus are never heard of (not that they are not super heroes, they are at least to me). They are known only with IT people. But Bill is famous even among farmers. Bill obviously beats thousands of Linus and Richards pairs combined at publicity.
The important thing about Linux though I feel is the freedom. What amazes me most is the amount of selfless work done. And the quality is top-notch. And as I come to learn more about Linux I realise how blinded I m by MS.
Think India has one of the highest numbers of linux users (percentage wise) so it’s even worse in the rest of the world.
I like how on my place of education they actually have linux running on every PC of one wing… (other wings are win2k) but why does it have to be Fedora 8… it’s not even supported anymore.
Not to mention they ‘upgraded’ to it like last year. Would be a good way to introduce people to linux… if it wasn’t so ancient. Firefox 2 for example is hardly the best way to surf the web, guess they’re having fun with an unpatched version of flash open to a security bug as well.
One of the myths about universities is that they are up-to-date in what they teach. Most departments in most universities teach what was fashionable when the tutors were themselves students. A small number make a genuine attempt to be up-to-date. If you can find one of this tiny minority of departments, as I did by accident twenty years ago, you may be in luck but the price was that no-one was interested in the skills I had learned because the department was so ahead of the field.
It’s a real catch-22 when departments are judged on the jobs their graduates get and most managers work on the basis of what they were taught at university which is what was fashionable when their tutors were students.
That’s one reason why uneducated managers sometimes turn out to be better to work for than the educated ones.
People with small business need to look at the amount of money they would save by using say SUSE.
Most office worker live and die by email, word processing, spreadsheets, Internet access and pdf documents.
The overhead of running Windows is just to high for a startup anyway. I just read the following article and thought “MS WTF…really” Windows XP Comes Integrated into Windows 7 I want XP to be buried…period, how long are they going to support legacy software. They are going for a “Longest OS Support” record that’s allrotfl!
On 4/27/2009 12:36 PM, vwbond wrote:
> People with small business need to look at the amount of money they
> would save by using say SUSE.
> Most office worker live and die by email, word processing,
> spreadsheets, Internet access and pdf documents.
> The overhead of running Windows is just to high for a startup anyway. I
> just read the following article and thought “MS WTF…really”
> ‘Windows XP Comes Integrated into Windows 7’
> (http://tinyurl.com/d524ul) I want XP to be buried…period, how long
> are they going to support legacy software. They are going for a “Longest
> OS Support” record that’s allrotfl!
>
>
What Windows overhead is that? Any upstart that buys new machines will
end up with Windows licenses for each machine, anti-virus can be got for
free, same with firewall if they don’t want to use the included one.
That leaves office which can be replaced with openOffice making the
overhead pretty much the same as supporting a linux box in the end.
What Windows overhead is that? Any upstart that buys new machines will
end up with Windows licenses for each machine, anti-virus can be got for
free, same with firewall if they don’t want to use the included one.
That leaves office which can be replaced with openOffice making the
overhead pretty much the same as supporting a linux box in the end.
And you wouldn’t have be spend for extra CAL’s (client access licenses). MS SB Server only comes with 5 CAL’s if you have a small staff of 20 people…you get the point. The file server would be cheaper to run also. As far as the free applications go- I see your point.
On 4/27/2009 5:06 PM, vwbond wrote:
>> What Windows overhead is that? Any upstart that buys new machines will
>> end up with Windows licenses for each machine, anti-virus can be got
>> for
>> free, same with firewall if they don’t want to use the included one.
>> That leaves office which can be replaced with openOffice making the
>> overhead pretty much the same as supporting a linux box in the end.
>
> Hardware can be purchased cheaper. Company could spend $400 for
> computer and monitor vice $800-$1200 for something that has the Vista
> Ready sticker on it. Most office workers don’t need more then say:
> ‘Biostar MCP6P-M2 Athlon X2 Barebone Kit- AMD Athlon X2 4400+ 2.3GHz
> OEM, 4GB Kingston DDR2-800, ATX Mid-Tower w 300 Watt PSU at
> TigerDirect.com’ (http://tinyurl.com/c9ojbx) In order to blaze though
> their work.
>
> And you wouldn’t have be spend for extra CAL’s (client access
> licenses). MS SB Server only comes with 5 CAL’s if you have a small
> staff of 20 people…you get the point. The file server would be cheaper
> to run also. As far as the free applications go- I see your point.
>
>
But it isn’t just as easy as that. First off, you can find many
non-barebones systems for around the $400 mark, just look on Dell’s
website. Secondly, total costs isn’t just the software and the hardware,
it is also measured in time needed to train the employees that have
never used certain apps that they would be switching to. Then you would
either need to train your staff on how to administer a linux system or
hire employees with that knowledge already which would most likely be
looking to make more money, at least going by job postings I’ve seen.
It pretty much comes down to me to use the tool best for the job you are
going to be doing. Make sue you research for the long term. In some
cases, windows might be the better platform, other times it could be
linux. And sometimes it might surprise you that Apple beats both of them
out.
Doing research before hand is good but SLED 11 should be able to service all the needs of a customer just as Apple or Micro$oft can. The administration maybe different but SLED 11 & SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 should be able to handle all the needs of a small or large company. If Novell can’t then we are using the wrong OS, don’t you think?
I work in a hospital and if it isn’t Microsoft they don’t want to know about it. I’m responsible for IT in the laboratory I work in so I manage to get Firefox installed. That’s about as much open source we have here. I would love to get Linux going since it will be cheaper for the hospital then Microsoft products.
The biggest laugh I had here was Convicker. It got in and completely paralysed the network. It’s still not fully gone. I was quietly thinking if you had Linux running you would not have this problem. The library has full PC’s running WinXP when it’s the ideal place to have Linux on a thin client basis for a fraction of the price. Also we could have used the older pc’s that were there rather then having to buy shiny new ones. It’s a such a wasteful business. I rescued various old pc’s and gave them to friends who had no pc’s or couldn’t afford new ones. They were running Linux by then
Visit Novell and Microsoft - Interoperability for info on SUSE and Microsoft working together. You can you the “Microsoft recommends it” line to get SUSE into your network, since they love M$.
