At 16:58 6/29/98 -0700, Boom Shaka wrote:
>dear redhat support,
[many accurate negative comments about Linux as desktop OS snipped]
The person(s) (if any) that recommended Linux to you as a replacement for
Win95 for personal productivity either misled you or you misunderstood
them. There are desktop apps available but they're not yet as easy to
install and use as Win95 equivalents.
There will never be another vendor that offers complete interoperability
with MS Office. Even successive versions of MS Office are not completely
compatible. If they were, then MS wouldn't make money. Word97, as
originally shipped, was not capable of saving files in Word95 or earlier
format. I found this out the hard way. I had to actually download a filter
from the MS site in order to send files to my coworkers who were still
using Office95. The only reason for MS to do this is to encourage
organizations to buy new versions of Office. If it seems that Linux folks
dislike Microsoft, it's because there are good reasons. It's not all just
resentment and hype.
That said, I've consistently compared Linux to NT, not to Win95. We've
reached a consensus on this list that that comparison is more reasonable.
In our office, we had a sysadmin that had been trained in NT
administration. We have two NT boxes, one is a file/print server that also
runs IIS for intranet services. The other is a database server. Every time
some configuration is changed on the IIS/file server we lose file and print
services while it's rebooted. Sometimes when the print queue won't respond
it has to be rebooted. Once a user filled up the disk with files and the
server stopped responding to requests... it needed to be rebooted before
the sysadmin could find and fix the problem. Since we're a small workgroup
we only had a five-user license. When our office size was increased
temporarily, we had to purchase more seats in order to allow everyone to
use files and print. There were other incidents, but these are the ones I
know the reasons for and can remember.
In contrast, I ran a Linux box on a 486 with 32MB RAM. Until I took it down
to put up a new box, it had been up for 46 days. I've never had to reboot
it to fix anything. It provided Web/CGI, POP3, SMTP, FTP, and file sharing
services. It has a quota system to keep users from filling up the disk. As
far as the Win95 boxes are concerned it's just another file server. The
only limit on the number of users that can connect is system resources.
In addition to the services provided on the old box, the new box (P90, 32MB
RAM) provides an incoming fax server. In one day I was able to put together
a quick & dirty script that sends email to us when a fax is received,
including the network path of the graphics file the fax was stored in. A
freeware Win95 graphics viewer completed our paper-saving measures. The
modem also doubles as a PPP dialup that allows us to access the LAN
remotely using standard file sharing techniques. I also plan to provide
database services on this box. I don't anticipate taking it down until it's
time for a hardware upgrade.
I can change just about any setting without rebooting the machine. I can
administer the machine remotely via telnet from elsewhere on the LAN, or
via dialup if I'm at home or at a branch office. I don't have any formal
training on any automation topic other than a single class on dBASE III
about 10 years ago. But I don't need formal training to know that Linux
makes a great server platform. It can be a desktop OS too, but it wasn't
designed with that in mind, and it shows.
It's getting easier, but it's still not to the point where I'd recommend it
to someone primarily interested in personal productivity. I hope your
negative experience won't keep you from considering Linux in this light and
keeping an open mind about it if you ever need to consider a server OS.
Tony
--
Anthony E. Greene <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<http://www.pobox.com/~agreene/>
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