Is it time to exit from Windows? By Alan Shipman

There were already very good desktops when I tried Linux, but the experts seem to frown on use without extensive coding. This became an issue for me when I tried to network my Linux PC.

With regard to installation, this was very easy even back then.

Wilson,

As an engineering student I am sure you understand the difference between assertion and well supported statement.

Usability - Here's a study for you to read from 2003 comparing a Linux Distro with Windows XP. It's not a one way street, however 2003 is so last century in free software years.

www.linux-usability.de/download/linux_usability_report_en.pdf

QA.

Do you know what QA goes on in a proprietary company? And if so how?

If you were to spend time on e.g., www.kernel.org or any of the developers lists for e.g., KDE or Gnome you find out quite clearly what kind of QA goes on in Free Software (open source, if you prefer)

You may or may not be aware of the lawsuit that sought to claim that Linux contained stolen intellectual property. Luckily, the fully documented provenance of Linux (part of QA as I am sure you are aware) came to the fore. Some proprietary software has proved more lawsuit vulnerable.

If considering relying on the Linux fora and user-groups for help, one should bear in mid that, whilst Linux geeks are very friendly and eager to help, they insist on only giving answers that involve you writing code. It is anathema to them to use menus and icons. This is why I gave up on Linux a few years ago. I might start again, given the comments made here, but I will not rely on the fora and user-groups for help.

It is unfortunate that some people still propagate the idea that Linux users only use the command line. The _biggest_ opensource project is KDE www.kde.org - an extremely well polished desktop which I personally prefer to the other famous one - Gnome. www.gnome.org (but it is always your choice - that's the point).

It is also unfortunate the people still propagate the idea that it is difficult to install. There are about 5-10 main "distros" (see e.g., www.desktoplinux.org or www.distrowatch.com) and they are each a joy to install - about three clicks and drink your coffee. Personally I think openSUSE is the most business friendly.

Just to let you know I am not entirely uncritical - it is is only with the new iterations of these distros (approx Q4/2007 ) that WiFi will be pain free

Of course, over in accountancy land, one blocker is government provision of tools only for MS/Apple.

There are some other cost savings in running Linux rather than Windows:

Anti-virus and anti-spyware software costs are significant for Windows PCs - around £30 per PC per year. With other security measures in place, such software isn't needed with Linux (or MacOS X).

Running a Windows Exchange email server costs around £40 per user per year for the client licenses, (£60 if calendaring is used). Using a Linux or MacOSX email server can eliminate these client licensing costs altogether.

You don't need VMware if you're using Linux on a suitable machine. A modern PC is capable of splitting itself in two at the hardware level.

The virtualisation technology on Ubuntu is called 'kvm' and works at hardware speed as long as your processor is good enough. The latest Core 2 Duo and AM2 AMD processors support the technology, and before long every new PC is likely to have the capability.

So you can already mix Open Office with proprietary Windows software quite easily under Linux. That's a load of Office licences saved for starters.

And as anybody who as actually used manufacturers 'support' will testify it is vastly overrated. Much better to hire somebody who knows Linux and PCs. I can guarantee that they will be a much higher quality of individual than the dross that purports to 'support' Windows.

NeilW

..."Linux (which can run all familiar programs including Microsoft’s)..."

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate.

You can certainly get Word-processors, Spreadsheets, Databases, etc for Linux, but NOT Word, Excel and Access - so there may be another retraining cost to absorb in switching to OpenOffice or StarOffice.

However - I would suggest you're going to have a tough time locating business software - let alone specialised compliance applications.

Linux comes from the world of servers and specialised applications - and the range of software tends to reflect that background. If you're an enthusiast, a web-designer, a general-office typist, or even a home-user wanting to do letters, emails, photo-managment, etc then there's no reason NOT to go to Linux, but if you want specialised business applications, you're going to encounter problems.

So - do you give the admin staff a Linux PC and finance/fee-earners a Windows one? I would suspect not.

(Before anybody mentions it - I'm aware of the Windows emulator projects such as 'Wine', but I would suspect that NO provider of Windows software - including Microsoft - would feel obligated to support their products on such an installation - is that a risk your business is willing to take?)

If Linux usage grows, then I have no doubt that suppliers will put the effort into writing specialised and vertical-market software for that new market, but right now - it's Catch 22.

A final observation - the one thing that might break things open is (once again) the Internet. If your 'must have' software product is actually web-based, then it doesn't matter if you have Windows, Linux, Apple, or anything else on your desk - all you need is a Web Browser...

That's a solution - but surely you now just running Windows in another form (in a restricted capacity certainly) and not really breaking away from it.

plus - VMWare might be free, but you still have to pay for the copy of Windows that VMWare is now hosting for you. Does that not impact the overall calculations for moving across?

If you replace Windows with Linux on an exisitng machine, then you may be permitted to re-use that Windows licence within VMWare - but if you buy a Dell with Linux, then you'll need to purchase a new Windows licence as well.

Really????

2 maybe in my experience

Richard Murphy

Lets not forget that in addition to the actual operating system, most distros package a huge amount of free software with them.

Office suites, databases, desktop publishing, games, etc etc are all catered for out of the box - The Debian distro for instance has upwards of 10,000 packages available for it which are all supplied for free on the installation media.

Linux has a firewall is built into the Linux kernel (IPTables) and for those who are really security conscious there are hardening packages such as SE Linux (developed by the NSA).

As most software is open source it is generally of very high quality (many eyes make for shallow bugs).

And although I have heard that Linux viruses exist I have never come across one. Most 'Linux Anti-Virus' programmes actually target Windows viruses.

I was taken with the idea of running both windows and linux on my home computer. I really wanted to learn linux. I even bought the Xandros distribution because it was most like windows. I found that the learning curve was such that I couldn't get anything done for trying to figure out how to do it. I even looked at Open office. If one is knowledgeable in and use say Excel then the OO Calc is really frustrating when you try to do simple things like you would do in Excel.

Long story - short. I have deleted Linux from my pc. I guess that I am just stuck in windows.

I would like to learn more about linux but I haven't found forums to be that helpful.

LinuxWorld San Francisco 2007 - Novell's CEO Ron Hovsepian
'.. application availability is the key to the success of Linux ..'
'.. the Linux Standards Base (LSB) isn't enough to enable software vendors to write applications across various Linux distributions ..'

DevX Quote
'.. Virtualization is the key to wide application availability on Linux. It is also the key to the widespread use of Linux.

As virtualization becomes the dominant compute paradigm for IT, the question no longer is which operating system has more application support. The question becomes which platform is best for virtualization.

The role that Linux plays in the virtualization space is as the enabler, the plumbing, the operating system that lets applications run virtual machines on top. It is also the underlying operating system in the virtual machine appliances themselves ..'

Yes, a current Linux will run satisfactorily (of course depending on the apps you wish to use) on a lower-spec machine (GHz, GB) than a current Windows demands. See latest items about Vista hardware requirements.