Re: [newbie] Choosing flavors and Window Managers
I'll tell you that I am planning on going 'school-wide' with Linux. But it's a gradual process. and we're a small organization. In our school, we have one computer lab with 20 machines and about 3-4 machines in every classroom. The lab is completely linux now, with all but two of t eh machines bootable to Windows. With the kids, when they hit 7th grade, they're mine and I teach them linux right away. They love it. The teachers are different. Even though I taught them how to boot into linux or windows in the pre-school inservice, most of them can't get tha figured out. then, when it comes to having them find a word processing document or even surf the internet, they have problems. Still, as we get new machines, these linux machines are going to be forced into the classrooms and they are going to have to learn how to use them. Eventually they will. They learned windows when I pushed out the macs. It wasn't much different. As far as teh different window managers and versions of linux, they are not that different. Last year, we used redhat on a couple of machines. This year, the kids that did that new exactly how to use mandrake. Some of the kids use gnome, some use kde, some use blackbox. They seem to take that transition easily. Then again, my business is teaching. I have all year to do that. jim Quoting Mark Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I'm not sure I truly understand the advantages of all these different flavors of linux. I understand that Debian is the super secure, and Mandrake is the super friendly, and Redhat is enterprise oriented. But what I find is that flavors mean non-standard directories and other nuances. The only linux part of a flavor is the kernel. This is actually pretty annoying because one can never truely say I know linux in a deep sense; all one really knows is one's particular flavor of linux. My impression is that if you switched flavors on somebody they would be nearly as lost as they would be if you switched their PC for a MAC even though it's still linux. Is this flavor thing good for linux in a long term sense? This goes for window managers too: if the Window Manager is the gateway to the system switching WMs on somebody is pretty close to switching the OS on them. One of the main reasons that I bring this up is if you were to choose to deploy linux desktops for your company, you should probably think long an hard about the flavor and the WM that you are going to standardize on because if you let people run different WMs willy nilly (much less flavors) it would be a adminstrative nightmare. You can't really count (never will be able to count) on any baseline functionality of access points amongs WMs can you...? Has anyone deployed linux desktop company-wide before? Do you have any juicey stories to tell about what worked and what didn't? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Fwd: Re: [newbie] Choosing flavors and Window Managers
-- Forwarded Message -- Subject: Re: [newbie] Choosing flavors and Window Managers Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 15:51:52 -0500 From: Randy Donohoe [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: jennifer [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Thursday 06 September 2001 22:38, you wrote: Randy...I just read the first few sentences of that article and knew i had to respond. I work for a good size company (5000 or so users) and will tell you that not all of them are secretaries who use word, excel spreadsheets and the like. I also think it is condescending to subrscribe to that articles implied knowledge that secretaries are dumb, so secretaries would not know the difference I am an experienced windows user/professional desktop supporter and I have trouble with the basic functionality of linux. I can only imagine what it would be like to be desktop support for such an O/S. I wouldn't know where to begin let alone be a new user to all the programs that linux offers. I am here to learn the O/S, not how to create a spreadsheet in Koffice. Do you know how to do that with absolute proficientcy? Why expect your users to do so when they are the ones making million dollar investments so your comapany makes money and can pay you your salary? In mine line of work, the end user is the my money maker. Keep them in business and I get paid. Enable them to do what they do best is my job. Thier downtime hurts business. I work for them, no the other way around. That is not to say that linux is not right to rollout comapny-wide. It takes time, patience and knowledge. Could you imagine rendering a company useless to perfor high dollar trades on wall street becuase they couldn't recreate their all important calculates with Koffice? In my book the customers are all important. i work for no moron, no idiot, an no I D 10 T. I support a business and the people who run that business no mater what their staus Now mind you, I want to learn this O/S as well as I know windows. Challanges intrigue me. But, as a newbie, I must concede with Mark that On Thursday 06 September 2001 16:57, Randy Donohoe wrote: The sysadmin's words haunt me as I think about how to deploy a linux desktop environment for say a typical business dept. Does a linux desktop meet the usability requirements of a typcial user (as opposed to typical linux sysadmin/programmer). This should answer most of your questions. http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/08/10/1441239 Randy Donohoe If you read the entire article you'll find the entire city staff uses KDE under Linux. They also use a lot more than Koffice. The article is not condescending in any way. They're not saying that secretaries wouldn't know the difference, they're saying they don't need to know the difference. Using thin clients accessing the server administered by just two techs, they just need to know the desktop and applications. You have to know that with any OS and these workers are happy with Linux. As far as Wall Street goes, IBM zSeries mainframes operate portions of both the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange. Read the entire article, it's a good piece. Randy Donohoe --- Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] Choosing flavors and Window Managers
I'm not sure I truly understand the advantages of all these different flavors of linux. I understand that Debian is the super secure, and Mandrake is the super friendly, and Redhat is enterprise oriented. But what I find is that flavors mean non-standard directories and other nuances. The only linux part of a flavor is the kernel. This is actually pretty annoying because one can never truely say I know linux in a deep sense; all one really knows is one's particular flavor of linux. My impression is that if you switched flavors on somebody they would be nearly as lost as they would be if you switched their PC for a MAC even though it's still linux. Is this flavor thing good for linux in a long term sense? This goes for window managers too: if the Window Manager is the gateway to the system switching WMs on somebody is pretty close to switching the OS on them. One of the main reasons that I bring this up is if you were to choose to deploy linux desktops for your company, you should probably think long an hard about the flavor and the WM that you are going to standardize on because if you let people run different WMs willy nilly (much less flavors) it would be a adminstrative nightmare. You can't really count (never will be able to count) on any baseline functionality of access points amongs WMs can you...? Has anyone deployed linux desktop company-wide before? Do you have any juicey stories to tell about what worked and what didn't? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Choosing flavors and Window Managers
On Thursday 06 September 2001 01:01 pm, Mark Johnson escribió: I'm not sure I truly understand the advantages of all these different flavors of linux. I understand that Debian is the super secure, and Mandrake is the super friendly, and Redhat is enterprise oriented. Any Linux distro is only as secure as the USER makes and maintains it. Deb's claim to fame isn't security, it's being a step or two down from the latest to provide stability (or so they claim). Mandrake is the cutting edge of security as far as most leading distros go. YMMV But what I find is that flavors mean non-standard directories and other nuances. Read up: http://www.linuxbase.org/I think you'll find Mandrake as a partner in this endeavor The only linux part of a flavor is the kernel. This is actually pretty annoying because one can never truely say I know linux in a deep sense; all one really knows is one's particular flavor of linux. Not so. My impression is that if you switched flavors on somebody they would be nearly as lost as they would be if you switched their PC for a MAC even though it's still linux. Is this flavor thing good for linux in a long term sense? I don't know how you came to this conclusion. My take is you can switch Linux distros with little notice. Ask a IT manager about switching Windoze versions. This goes for window managers too: if the Window Manager is the gateway to the system switching WMs on somebody is pretty close to switching the OS on them. For the average USER, I'd agree One of the main reasons that I bring this up is if you were to choose to deploy linux desktops for your company, you should probably think long an hard about the flavor and the WM that you are going to standardize on because if you let people run different WMs willy nilly (much less flavors) it would be a adminstrative nightmare. You state the obvious, any OS You can't really count (never will be able to count) on any baseline functionality of access points amongs WMs can you...? See LSB link above -- Tom Brinkman Galveston Bay Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Choosing flavors and Window Managers
Randy...I just read the first few sentences of that article and knew i had to respond. I work for a good size company (5000 or so users) and will tell you that not all of them are secretaries who use word, excel spreadsheets and the like. I also think it is condescending to subrscribe to that articles implied knowledge that secretaries are dumb, so secretaries would not know the difference I am an experienced windows user/professional desktop supporter and I have trouble with the basic functionality of linux. I can only imagine what it would be like to be desktop support for such an O/S. I wouldn't know where to begin let alone be a new user to all the programs that linux offers. I am here to learn the O/S, not how to create a spreadsheet in Koffice. Do you know how to do that with absolute proficientcy? Why expect your users to do so when they are the ones making million dollar investments so your comapany makes money and can pay you your salary? In mine line of work, the end user is the my money maker. Keep them in business and I get paid. Enable them to do what they do best is my job. Thier downtime hurts business. I work for them, no the other way around. That is not to say that linux is not right to rollout comapny-wide. It takes time, patience and knowledge. Could you imagine rendering a company useless to perfor high dollar trades on wall street becuase they couldn't recreate their all important calculates with Koffice? In my book the customers are all important. i work for no moron, no idiot, an no I D 10 T. I support a business and the people who run that business no mater what their staus Now mind you, I want to learn this O/S as well as I know windows. Challanges intrigue me. But, as a newbie, I must concede with Mark that On Thursday 06 September 2001 16:57, Randy Donohoe wrote: The sysadmin's words haunt me as I think about how to deploy a linux desktop environment for say a typical business dept. Does a linux desktop meet the usability requirements of a typcial user (as opposed to typical linux sysadmin/programmer). This should answer most of your questions. http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/08/10/1441239 Randy Donohoe Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; name=message.footer Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Description: -- Jennifer #221463 Yahoo IM: jlynn2k #include wisdom.h void ignorance (it offers no value) Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
