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Linux

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 8:04 pm
by AdrianLP-p40
You've written a good portion of MLS in Java anyway, why not make Linux the platform of choice?

You'd save what, about $300/machine in licensing fees.

Its good to see you're using the open source Open Office suite as the word processor (and office suite) of choice. Yay free ("as in [root] beer") software!

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 11:00 pm
by mkmurray
AdrianLP wrote:You've written a good portion of MLS in Java anyway, why not make Linux the platform of choice?

You'd save what, about $300/machine in licensing fees.

Its good to see you're using the open source Open Office suite as the word processor (and office suite) of choice. Yay free ("as in [root] beer") software!
This topic has actually been discussed on several different threads already (a few of which you have already posted to). One of the biggest hurdles seemed to be providing the appropriate training and support.

However, there really is no need to beat this discussion to death. The points you are making have already been made before, and I know for a fact there have been some Church developers who have seen these threads and probably made note of the suggestions.

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 4:38 am
by marianomarini
mkmurray wrote:This topic has actually been discussed on several different threads already (a few of which you have already posted to). One of the biggest hurdles seemed to be providing the appropriate training and support.
Appropriate training? I don't think leaders are Microsoft certified user. They need to use programs not operating system. This is better, even with windows, let a matter of specialists.

I think also that security, and malicious use of church technology, will be more safe with Linux than Windows. (I'm italian and hope this phrase make sense in english).

No games, no inappropriate programs, no new devices, ecc.

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 6:12 am
by AdrianLP-p40
mkmurray wrote:This topic has actually been discussed on several different threads already (a few of which you have already posted to). One of the biggest hurdles seemed to be providing the appropriate training and support.
Linux with say KDE installed is really no different to support then windows. Sure meny items are in different places, but that really isn't much of a difference :)

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 6:15 am
by AdrianLP-p40
marianomarini_vi wrote:Appropriate training? I don't think leaders are Microsoft certified user. They need to use programs not operating system. This is better, even with windows, let a matter of specialists.
Right. I mean the only *real* difference is the kernel, and I doubt many of them dabble with the WDK on their weekends.
marianomarini_vi wrote: I think also that security, and malicious use of church technology, will be more safe with Linux than Windows. (I'm italian and hope this phrase make sense in english).

No games, no inappropriate programs, no new devices, ecc.
Not to mention that full remote administration can be done in a non-obstrisuve manner.

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 6:33 am
by WelchTC
No one is a bigger Linux fan than me but until you know all of the issues in supporting a Linux operating system (like I do) you cannot understand the huge amount of work it would be to make the switch. As has been pointed out, these issues have been discussed in the past.

The Church is looking at all ideas on how to save resources, and I am positive Linux is one of them. Thanks for your comments.

Tom

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 6:44 am
by AdrianLP-p40
tomw wrote:No one is a bigger Linux fan than me but until you know all of the issues in supporting a Linux operating system (like I do)
I've never supported it (at least not as a job title), but I do know Linux well. I was a Linux system admin (Sun Raq4 and Debian). for ontarioweb.ca for a period of time, and my main development platform at work is currently Fedora.

Also have lots of hours with FreeBSD.

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:32 am
by WelchTC
AdrianLP wrote:I've never supported it (at least not as a job title), but I do know Linux well. I was a Linux system admin (Sun Raq4 and Debian). for ontarioweb.ca for a period of time, and my main development platform at work is currently Fedora.

Also have lots of hours with FreeBSD.
I was the CTO for Linspire, a very popular Linux distribution, until I resigned to work on this project. We sold and gave away many many copies of Linspire to OEM's and individual users and we had to support them. It was no small task!

Tom

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:40 am
by AdrianLP-p40
tomw wrote:I was the CTO for Linspire, a very popular Linux distribution
Very popular? ;)

We sold and gave away many many copies of Linspire to OEM's and individual users and we had to support them. It was no small task!
I'm not saying it would be trivial, then again supporting Windows is not trivial.

But with the money you saved on licensing, I think it would be worth it in the long run. And theoretically church computers are a fairly controlled environment, and you could ensure users do not log in as root so you could control what they can/can't break :)

Also, the church could provide your own repository for updates (whether it be yum, apt, whatever) and pushing updates (kernel, MLS, userland tools) would be wonderfully simplistic from a user point of view.

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 2:19 am
by marianomarini
I hope be able to contribute keeping a share friendly discussion.
Maybe we are looking the same thing from different point of view.
Let me show if I right understood the two.
My point of view is from a local environment, saying desktop use; tomw is looking from an higher an global point of view.
I tried many distribution, included Linspire. This means that I installed them in a desktop environment many and many times. Last is Suse 10.2 in a Compaq laptop with NVIDIA video and USB wi-fi. So I wonder to be the only one faithful member who made it in Italy or in other countries.
My point of view is that, maybe, we can create a network of Church's members Linux users (I hope make sense) as a basis of Linux migration.
My vision is an LDS/GNULinux distribution, but I'm not a prophet, just a dreamer.