News from PANUG/BizNix - September 25, 2003 http://panug.org - http://biznix.org LINUX BOOT CAMP Get up to speed on Linux and Open Source software by attending the Linux Boot Camp. This is a "first course" for people who want to enhance their career prospects by adding Linux and OSS expertise. The course is cutting-edge. It's kept up-to-date on an almost daily basis. The course is November 10-11 and the cost is $395. PANUG and BizNix members get a $20 discount. Details are here: http://alcpress.com/training/schedule.html Call ALC at 503-635-6370 to sign-up. LABEL PRINTERS by Ed Sawicki If you ask my wife what her favorite non-game program is, she'll probably tell you it's the one that makes her Seiko label printer work. Seiko's software is Windows-only and that has prevented me from moving her off of her cutting-edge Windows for Workgroups PC (486SX, 16MB memory, 200 MB hard disk) to Linux. Now there's Linux support for label printers. The CoStar, Avery, and Seiko printers are supported. Support for the Seiko printer is limited. If you're buying a label printer new for use with Linux, the Avery is probably the better deal. LINUX VIRUSES Dick Pilz, PANUG President, points out this Web page that reveals the viruses being developed by the Open Source community: http://bbspot.com/News/2003/08/open_source_virus.html The page is meant to be humor. FEEDBACK We received quite a bit of feedback in response to Ed Sawicki's call for opinions in the matter of whether Linux desktops that look similar to or different than Windows should be demonstrated at the ITEC show. The opinions are quite diverse. Ken Barber: I think we should do both. I think people should be able to see how versatile X really is. I've always felt that it's a prescription for failure to try to emulate Micro$oft's user interfaces... but maybe I'm wrong. Look at how popular Evolution has become even though KMail is clearly superior to it. Ditto with the success of OpenOffice. So I think there must be SOME value in making some of the desktops look like 'Doze. But I'd hate to see the open source folks at the show enforcing a lack of diversity within their own ranks. Paul Rogers: It all depends on whether it's more important to you to feel a self-satisfied smugness about "being right" or to provide services your users will actually feel comfortable using. Once you get it in the door, once you overcome your users' fear of the unknown, then you can expose them to the additional benefits. But if you can't get them to use it, they lose, and YOU LOSE! Of course, you'll still know you were right and it's all those stupid lusers' fault. I'm afraid this is yet another manifestation of the traditional "Unix guru" attitude. Why is this even a question among people more mature than your typical twenty-something? Dick Steffens: The desktop should present an appearance that assures the users that they can get their work done. Linux desktops can work like Windows desktops, just as they can work like Mac desktops. If memory serves correctly, they aren't all that different from the Apollo desktops I worked on back in the mid-1980's. (At Apollo R&D, we bought one of the Apple Lisa machines when they came out, just to see if they could do what we were doing.) The bottom line is, can the users get their work done efficiently? If making demo desktops resemble Windows desktops is what it takes to convince management to try Linux, then so be it. Carla Schroeder: Hee heee, my fave hot button. If it's just the same, why bother? That's like traveling to exotic foreign climes and staying at the Holiday Inn and eating at Burger King. I disagree with "Linux will never be as good a _Windows_ desktop as Windows", unless "good" in this context means "sucky". Linux is not Windows. It's a gazillion percent better. What I have done with my customers is demo both easy Linux and power user Linux. Put up Lindows next to a Libranet box running KDE. I demonstrate all the amazing things you can do on a Linux desktop on the Libranet box - multiple desktops, console switching, running multiple X sessions for different users, EZ remote desktop with VNC, switch easily between command line and GUI, all the customizations for menus and look and feel... the one thing that gets a lot of users excited is being to type the program name into an application launcher in the bottom panel, instead of wading through menus. And the multiple desktops is a big hit. And AMOR. Libranet is slick for these kinds of demos because you can change window managers/desktops on the fly, without restarting X. Even though Lindows represents the "easy" Linux, they get blown away when they find out you can do all that stuff on Lindows too. I'm looking at both Lindows and Ximian for business users, because of their excellent software installation and system updates. Red Carpet is great, no more RPM hell. IT persons new to the Unix way of doing things are impressed by the separation of kernel/system files/application files/user files. It's difficult for ordinary users to hose the entire system, which of course is the exact opposite of Windoze. Even when you lock your Winduhs users down, there is no way to prevent applications from screwing around with the Registry and core system files. It's nuts. It's absolutely insane that any random malware/spyware should have free access to the guts of the system. So fie I say on wussies who fear the power of Linux. It's the ultimate power tool, and can be adapted and configured for almost any kind of user. That's the message I like. Raymond L. Robert: Whether a Linux desktop sort of looks like Windows or not misses the point. If you've been to McDonald's or Circuit City or an ATM or watched executives with their Blackberries or a self-checkout line at a supermarket you know that people readily accept different computer interfaces. Nobody uses the tens of thousands of features Microsoft Word has. Just demonstrate a reasonably competent word processor that can compose letters and save them on a Windows or Windows-like (Samba) file server. The danger is presenting Linux as a complete replacement for Windows desktops. It's all about app's, and there just aren't enough sophisticated ones on Linux (yet). John McKean: With regard to how the desktop looks you must ask, "What is the business reason for switching?" Since your message stated that, "Linux will never be as good a _Windows_ desktop as Windows so why try?" the business reason to switch is NOT the desktop. Instead there are economical, moral, security and stability reasons. I think that giving the end-user an interface that closely mirrors what they are use to using is fundamental. Having worked first hand with end-users in many companies I know for a fact that people do not want to change, familiarity=good. As an example as we migrate our Windows 2000 users to XP we are configuring the desktop with the "classic" interface simply because change confuses folks. It is for that very same reason I would make the Linux desktop as close to what people are used to as possible and introduce changes slowly over time. Marvin J. Kosmal: I think that Linux is Linux and Windows is Windows. Let Linux be itself. Christian Bayer: I don't think ALL demo machines should look like Windows, just at least one. DISCLAIMER PANUG and BizNix welcome contributions from all members. Member contributions do not necessarily represent the official positions of PANUG or BizNix. The views of members that contribute frequently may appear to be the official position of the group(s). If you contribute, you'll be adding vital diversity of opinion and outlook to these broadcasts.