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Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace (ComputerWorld)
ComputerWorld has a
"Windows user tries Linux" article; this one is rather longer and more
detailed than most. "Unlike many of the applications included on new
Windows systems, these don't seem to come with annoying self-launching
advertisements, such as the irony-challenged Trend Micro Anti-Spyware
pop-up upgrade pleas that plagued my HP system at home. Novell's SUSE also
boasts some of the on-screen eye candy corporate users have come to expect,
such as a 3D swoosh when a window minimizes."
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Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace (ComputerWorld) Posted Mar 21, 2007 16:38 UTC (Wed) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] I've read a lot of these over the years and am generally not impressed, but I found this one surprisingly well-written and honest. The author "did it right" by making a real attempt to live with Linux full time, and for more than a day or two. She also is clear about where the blame for many of her issues lies... but doesn't gloss over the fact that regardless, they are issues. I was particularly impressed to see how easy it was to get printing working (and my experience installing Ubuntu on my desktop at work mirrors this): kudos to those who have worked so hard to fix up Linux printing!
I do wonder what lessons we can learn from experiences like this, though: it seems an impossible task to follow along after every user who wants to switch and try to gin up a new (or enhance an existing) open source alternative for every proprietary applet that they find it too painful to live without. I also don't see how we can reasonably expect Wine/CrossOver to take up all the slack (frankly I find it amazing that it works as well as it does). Can this problem be solved? Perhaps the best we can hope for is to drive adoption of Linux on the desktop from the top-down in the corporate world, rather than bottom-up as was done in the server space. After all, the vast majority of corporate IT departments aren't going to care that you can't sync your iPod or watch QuickTime videos on your work computer.
Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace (ComputerWorld) Posted Mar 21, 2007 18:53 UTC (Wed) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link] I found this review to have about the same flaws as the others, despite thecommendable effort of the reviewer to be open-minded:
1) Review performed on old hardware: even though it did not lead Linux to
3) Comparing apple and orange: e.g. comparing Linux hardware support on
4) Gratuitous conclusion: 'It does not work for power user but it work
5) Very small experimental data: a single user experimenting a single distribution in a single environment is about the minimal amount
Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace (ComputerWorld) Posted Mar 22, 2007 3:06 UTC (Thu) by CyberDog (guest, #29668) [Link] 1) I don't see anywhere in the article's conclusion that the user holds the hardware responsible for wanting to go back. They fully recognized the shortcomings of the hardware, and I don't think they held it against Linux at all.
2) This was done in a business environment where they had fairly specific software requirements. Do you expect the entire company to change their infrastructure to support Linux clients for the purpose of this test? I don't see many cases where the author missed any obvious alternative applications, either.
3) What? I really don't know what this is supposed to mean, but it seems like in terms of "hardware support" the user was applying nearly the same hardware in both cases (printers, ipods, etc).
4) No idea what you mean here. I think you're trying to say that they're generalizing in their conclusions, in which case, yes, they're generalizing a little. Clearly they should be banned from every printing an other stories, ever.
5) These stories crop up all the time, and they're nearly always very similar. Either you're going to suggest Microsoft is sponsoring all these stories in a giant conspiracy, or there's a pattern here.
Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace (ComputerWorld) Posted Mar 22, 2007 12:46 UTC (Thu) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link] 1) The last words are invariably "I will go back to my Windows box". That is the message. But in fact this was planned from the start.
2) They should have gathered a list of application they were running on Windows, and look for availability or alternative for Linux before making the switch, instead of diving into Linux and then fighting to get anything done.
3) The review provide no evidences that the Palm T/X would actually sync under Windows on the same box. It works on a different box, but that's it.
4) The article state that "After several weeks, I can report that desktop Linux does appear ready for no-frills home users.". But the reviewer later claims to be a power user instead of a 'no-frills home users', so this is not from personal experience.
5) There is, yes, a, pattern of sloppy methodology in review. I ascribe it to poor training rather than to MS but your guess is as good as mine.
Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace (ComputerWorld) Posted Mar 25, 2007 1:56 UTC (Sun) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link] It was reasonably fair, with one GLARING exception: the author compared apps that they had training on, had books on, in windows, with an app they had no training on, and had no material about. That is just patently absurd, and totally unfair.
They were clear enough to admit this, but they didn't draw the proper conclusion, which is that you can't compare two apps if you are trained on one and not on the other. The correct conclusion would have been: I can't actually say much about this because I haven't had a corresponding level of training on the Free application, so until I matched that training level the comparison is meaningless.
But overall, it was an ok article, better than usual. Although I'd like to see one of these authors try to install Windows from scratch, no driver cds, just install cd versus install cd. Then Linux type systems would rank WAY ahead, no comparison.
Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace (ComputerWorld) Posted Mar 22, 2007 12:00 UTC (Thu) by ssharkey (guest, #4451) [Link] One thing that I think we can do... Make it MUCH easier to install and run a Windows app. I'm a long-time linux user, been using it as my primary desktop since 1998. I have no idea how to make things work under Wine, nor am I gonna waste my time trying. If some distro installed Wine and configured it so that I can just slip the Windows CD into the slot and it auto-launched Wine, and set up a desktop icon for that app, then Linux would start to make progress.
I've not looked into Wine much lately -- maybe that's how it works now. But the last time I looked, it wasn't anywhere near simple, and there are precious few good pieces of info on how to use it or make it work.
We need to make running Windows programs on linux as seamless as possible.
Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace (ComputerWorld) Posted Mar 22, 2007 12:52 UTC (Thu) by hein.zelle (guest, #33324) [Link] ubuntu systems (and I believe even my debian unstable system) already ask if you want to open windows programs with wine when downloading them with firefox. I assume they also do that when you click on a .exe file in the gnome file browser, but I'm not sure.
I'm not convinced yet that you really want this to become any easier.
Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace (ComputerWorld) Posted Mar 24, 2007 1:23 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (guest, #24136) [Link] > slip the Windows CD into the slot and it auto-launched Wine PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NO!!! Autorun is a horrible misfeature. Do you really want things like the Sony-BMG rootkit to run on Linux distributions?
Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace (ComputerWorld) Posted Mar 25, 2007 1:51 UTC (Sun) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link] Each app that is installed by Wine is run in its own bottle, protected from interacting with anything else.
And when you install any app in user mode, it's installed with only user rights, no root privileges.
You can actually really have fun with Wine, install viruses even if you want, which just run in their little wine bottles, it's cute.
At worst your home data will get slightly broken, that's about it.
Wine still can't really replace windows though, it's more realistic if you need Windows apps to run windows in virtualbox or vmware. The emulation stuff just doesn't cut it.
Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace (ComputerWorld) Posted Mar 25, 2007 21:58 UTC (Sun) by rqosa (guest, #24136) [Link] > At worst your home data will get slightly broken, that's about it. That's worse than changing root-owned files; whereas damage to files from the distribution's packages can be undone by reinstalling, files in my home directory will be gone forever unless I have a backup copy. What's more, if it can change files in my home directory, doesn't that mean it can also read them and send them out? Also, couldn't it change .xsession or .bash_profile so that it is run upon every login?
Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace (ComputerWorld) Posted Mar 23, 2007 5:34 UTC (Fri) by ldo (subscriber, #40946) [Link] I, too, found it quite a worthwhile article overall. It's worth comparing it with this other item that was published at about the same time, detailing another author's experience trying to get to grips with Windows Vista. Especially the conclusions: if you think the Linux article suggests that the OS is getting close to ready for prime-time, but isn't quite there yet, then the Vista article seems to say the same. :)
Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace (ComputerWorld) Posted Apr 5, 2007 19:58 UTC (Thu) by hazelsct (guest, #3659) [Link] Great link and comparison, thanks! If upgrading Microsoft -> Microsoft on brand new hardware is as hard as upgrading Microsoft -> Linux on five-year-old hardware, we're just about there!
Now, time to make Palm and other devices work more robustly...
Vista reviews Posted Apr 6, 2007 7:26 UTC (Fri) by ldo (subscriber, #40946) [Link] Here's another review of Vista, which is even less flattering. They try hard to find nice things to say about it, but ultimately they suffered random reboots, data loss, DVD-writing problems, hardware and software incompatibilities, and performance lossage on two entirely separate machines. Verdict: it's a lemon (their words).
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