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Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

[Posted November 13, 2006 by corbet]

ZDNet UK reports on the Birmingham Linux project, which has been mothballed. "[City council manager Les] Timms said the council had compared the cost of the Linux desktop migration with an upgrade to Windows XP, and had found that a Microsoft upgrade would be cheaper. Most of the difference was made up of costs attributed to 'decision making' and 'project management', largely brought about because of a shortage of skills in open-source networking and the changes to IT processes that would result."
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Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 13, 2006 15:41 UTC (Mon) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link] (19 responses)

There were a range of problems with the open-source implementation, Timms said, including desktop interfaces and lack of support for removeable drives

What on Earth did they install on those machines? SLS?

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 13, 2006 15:52 UTC (Mon) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link] (4 responses)

Found a bit more: The city's library management software, Galaxy, works only on Microsoft Windows. DS, the supplier, was prepared to produce a Linux version, but this would have taken too long and cost too much for the trial.

Looks like a perfect case of vendor lock-in to me. This said, I would like to be sure they really tried hard to make it work. Did they at least try Wine?

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 13, 2006 16:23 UTC (Mon) by sdalley (subscriber, #18550) [Link] (1 responses)

I wonder if they considered Koha and what they thought of it?

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 13, 2006 16:32 UTC (Mon) by pate (guest, #10) [Link]

Umm, Koha is library management software, not quite the same as document library management software. Not to say that there are good document library management tools out there though.

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 14, 2006 15:53 UTC (Tue) by cpm (guest, #3554) [Link]

Sounds like they could have installed a ms terminal server to handle that, and didn't bother.

Found the particular library software mentioned above

Posted Nov 16, 2006 12:55 UTC (Thu) by dank (guest, #1865) [Link]

It was a bit hard to track down, but here's the package
they referred to; it's called OpenGalaxy:
http://www.ds.co.uk/page.asp?id=58
Perhaps some Wine developer could contact them
and get a demo copy...

It's supposedly based on an older product called Galaxy,
which I gather ran on VMS. See also http://polarislibrary.com
for another windows-only library package related to Galaxy.

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 13, 2006 16:16 UTC (Mon) by DG (subscriber, #16978) [Link] (8 responses)

I saw a presentation by the team behind this at a local LUG and disagreed with some of the technical decisions they'd made in selection of $distro (Slackware) and how they intended to update machines etc.

As an ex-Slackware user, I couldn't see the advantage of this, over something more desktop oriented like e.g. Ubuntu or RedHat/Fedora or SuSE.

(I think the LUG meeting was ~ 2 years ago, but I may be wrong)

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 13, 2006 17:13 UTC (Mon) by marduk (guest, #3831) [Link] (2 responses)

I can't believe they decided on Slackware. That seems to indicate that they didn't want the project to succeed from the start. I had been a long-time Slackware user, but in 1999 when I had to pick a distribution to use at the company I worked for I chose Red Hat. It just made business sense. Unless you've got some hardcore Slackware admins/support then Slackware is probably the last distro you'd want to use in the workplace.

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 13, 2006 18:54 UTC (Mon) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link]

Yeah same here: Slack is good and I used it a good many years, but for a desktop for ex-Windows users there were a lot of much more adapted choices, back in May 2004.

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 14, 2006 0:33 UTC (Tue) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link]

Yes, well put.
I'm using Slackware since 1997 and I still think it rocks, absolutely
stable and blazingly fast.
But for something like this I would have prefered SUSE(maybe not
anymore)/kubuntu/maybe Redhat/Mandriva/maybe Debian/Xandros.
Maybe Xandros would have been the ideal choice, they focus especially on
Windows-converts.

Alex

Slackware morons won't even understand *this* :-(

Posted Nov 14, 2006 13:14 UTC (Tue) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link] (3 responses)

I'm afraid that's a perfect illustration of what I've been telling for years:

Slackware usage must die

since those who muck with it tend to proclaim it to be "da best" because they can do all those things to it (ignoring that they can make slackware out of anything just fine, but then can also choose not to -- if it's not slackware already of course)

and since newbies are caught on this fad way more frequently than they should (if they could ask the right questions, like "why?" or "for what?")

and since after gaining slackware experience these bastards often think that they have Linux experience!

...and finally, the most profound idiots take on projects like this with yeah, slackware under their kilts.

Great. How should you be beaten by events like this, localhost weenies, to learn that SLACKWARE IS OBSOLETE?..

PS: no, I'm not against freedom of choice or "hobbyist approach". It's just that "hobbyist approach" rarely stays that way.

Slackware morons won't even understand *this* :-(

Posted Nov 14, 2006 17:32 UTC (Tue) by DG (subscriber, #16978) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm not that anti-slackware; I just feel that if you're attempting to deploy a wide scale network, you may as well build upon the work done by others (e.g. wide package availability, device support, integration, bug fixes, knowledge etc), rather than re-implement everything yourself, which is normally what will happen with Slackware.

I'm sure there are some legitimate uses of Slackware, however widespread desktop deloyment definately isn't it. Good choices for this could be :

* Ubuntu Dapper
* RHEL
* SLED
* Something based around rPath

Slackware morons won't even understand *this* :-(

Posted Nov 14, 2006 19:27 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

I totally agree. When I saw that they chose Slack, my eyes bugged out of my head. Are they NUTS? I like slack, but the amount of manual labor it would take to maintain those machines just gives me the heebie jeebies.

I expect the guys who suggested this were hobbyists with very little real-world admin experience... I really hope they produce a post-mortem so that they can save other teams from making the same mistake(s) that they did.

Frankly, trying and failing is *worse* than not trying at all. This sort of thing tends to produce a strong emotional backlash. "I remember Linux... *shudder*" It will probably be many more years before Birmingham will even consider deploying Linux again.

Oh well. Besides, Birmingham was silly for allowing its consultants to choose a distro with so little support.

Slackware morons won't even understand *this* :-(

Posted Nov 16, 2006 22:17 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]

Do not feed the troll; it is a dangerou.

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 21, 2006 16:39 UTC (Tue) by DG (subscriber, #16978) [Link]

Perhaps my memory is faulty; this indicates it probably is anyway :

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/talkback/0,1000001161,39284683-390...

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 13, 2006 20:56 UTC (Mon) by ajross (guest, #4563) [Link] (3 responses)

This is, in fact, a really important point to internalize. The point isn't that Linux could not have worked for Birmingham. It's that they have a big staff, probably hundreds of people, who are accustomed to the platform they have. And, like all people faced with change, then will resist it. In this kind of circumstance, it takes very little escalation for a simple glitch with someone mounting a USB stick to turn into a "problems with removable media" line item in a proposal response.

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 14, 2006 7:03 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

This is also probably why moving a large orginization directly to Linux desktop is a bad idea.

Probably the most appropriate is to do it in steps.

Move the infrastructure from Windows to Linux while leaving the regular desktop arena as untouched as possible. DNS servers, ftp servers, web servers, etc. Stuff that is a slam dunk for Linux.

This will ensure that you have people with experiance with Linux are spread out through the orginization.

Then start moving more difficult things to Linux. Stuff like that library software mentioned. Get more and more people accustomed.

As that is going on then move desktop software from Windows-specific to desktop agnostic software. Stuff like moving from Outlook to Thunderbird. From IE to firefox, from MS Office to OpenOffice.org.

After the infrastructure is tackled and desktop applications are being taken care of, then migrate people slowly.

Take volenteers. Migrate the more software savy people first. Use VM to make it more palatable for your average admins and tech support.

Make people 'experts'. Have people out of departments choosen to be trained so they can be the first line of tech support to show people were icons are and were network shares are at on the desktop and stuff like that.

Then migrate in Linux desktops last.

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 14, 2006 13:55 UTC (Tue) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link]

I agree with that. And you know the best? A lot of people have heard of Firefox and friends, and it's sometimes just a matter of installing the thing for them and telling them why it's better.

Worked a treat with my parents! Unfortunately, as Windows comes pre-installed on PCs and they can afford it, no way for me to force Linux... yet!

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 14, 2006 16:45 UTC (Tue) by jedidiah (guest, #20319) [Link]

"Big Bang" upgrades in general are a bad thing and tend to lead to big disasters. This doesn't only apply to broad platform transitions but to simple upgrades. Changing n+1 things all at once just makes it harder to isolate problems and more difficult to revert if it fails.

This is just pisspoor IT project management in general.

Large public-sector Linux project flops (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 21, 2006 7:44 UTC (Tue) by salparadyse (guest, #41778) [Link]

They didn't choose Slackware, they chose SuSE 9.3/KDE.

They had a lot of problems unmounting floppies and USB sticks. In some cases the machines had to be rebooted between each mount. A developer was brought in to sort the problem out and couldn't. "Consultants" who charge £500+ a day, soon eat into the money.

Debian was looked at but it was decided that Debian was "just horrible", this ruled out using Ubuntu (which doesn't have any problems with floppies and USB sticks). All the desktops were to connect to the libraries central server, much scripting was required and various rules applied.

I'm not defending the outcome at all, just that it wasn't simply a case of amateurs messing up a slackware install.


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