On Fri, 17 Jan 2003 14:45:59 +0000 Louis Sabet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi all, > > I work for a small company whose long-standing staff have long adopted > an over-my-dead-body attitude towards change. > > At present our sales department is using windows on a daily basis, and > has done so for many many years. Our sales department only use IE, > Word, Excel, so having a dedicated machine each running around £400 of > software is a little wasteful. That seems to be the case in alot of places. People spend thousands on a system that they intend to use for web-surfing and email. I think that a company (by that I mean the IT manager for the company) needs to define the requirements for the systems that the users need. NEED is the keyword. If a company determines that users need to put their kids' picture as desktop wallpaper then so be it, although I doubt that would ever be the case. Once the needs are defined, then who cares what kind of system delivers the functionality?> > LTSP would be a perfect, cost-effective replacement for this setup. agreed > > I have configured the server to my liking (i386-RH8, LTSP4), all seems > nice and stable, and I have installed OpenOffice and Konqueror (KDE) > which is pretty much all they ever need to use. I have already checked > whether OpenOffice will open our existing word/excel documents, and it > does so quite happily. One word of caution: oofice uses ALOT of memory, make sure your server can handle it before committing. [...] > The other main reason I don't want to use KDE/GNOME is due to the fact > that it opens up whole new realms of user-fiddlage which I'd like to > avoid. Yes, user-fiddlage is a very emotional topic for me. > > With Fluxbox/WindowMaker etc, I can customise each user's desktop > using a single text file, remove their ability to access the shell, > and let them get on with their work without ever having to worry about > them buggering up their settings for me to have to fix. Single point administration is great isn't it? People here have complained about not being able to do this or that. Then I ask "Do you need to be able to do that?". The reply is usually no. If is is yes, then I find a solution. > > I'm really interested in peoples' comments/experiences here, as I > can't be the first person in the world who has wanted/needed to > convert a bunch of die-hard windows users to linux without having to > resort to the likes of KDE/GNOME. Here are a few things to consider: - Try to develop a migration plan. Switching cold turkey will give you and them lots of grief but, giving users an etherboot disk and saying "give this new thing a try" won't make it ever happen. A possible middle could be to change the applications before the OS. For example, convert the users to the M$ version of oofice and any other apps which run on both platforms. Pick a data in which you expect the be 'fully converted' and get buy-in from the top management. - Stress test the system if possible. Perhaps there are a few users who are not afraid to try new things and would be willing to help you stress test your new setup. - Define your requirements and make sure your setup can accomadate. There is nothing wrong with meeting just the minimum requirements. For example, my company's requirements say nothing about needing icons or screensavers - so those things no longer exist in our LTSP environment. Hope this proves useful. Cheers, -rob ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.NET email is sponsored by: Thawte.com - A 128-bit supercerts will allow you to extend the highest allowed 128 bit encryption to all your clients even if they use browsers that are limited to 40 bit encryption. Get a guide here:http://ads.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?thaw0030en _____________________________________________________________________ Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.freenode.net
