We just order a new PC for the office. As the guy go about installing the necessary softwares, I reflect on what went into the desktop and how I could influence and introduce opensource applications into the software mix.
Operating system : Windows XP
As much as I want to use Linux as the office desktop platform, Windows XP is still the dominant OS. The learning curve is too steep for the staff to climb. Time is also a factor.
My plan is to allocate time for one of the programmer to explore Linux. Already he had setup a FreeBSD server in the office.
Office productivity : Microsoft Office, Open Office
MS Office is also very much ingrained. Most user learnt to use it in school and is very familiar with it.
I have Open Office installed. My observation is that it us easier to get a non-tech person or less compute-savvy user to start using OO. They do not have much prior experience so learning OO or MS Office isn’t too much of a difference to them.
Browser: Firefox
Firefox is installed and set as the default browser. Especally for the less savvy user, using IE is a potential hole for exploit and melware.
Whenever someone got infected by melware through IE, they are reminded to use Firefox.
File archiver : 7-zip
Graphic viewer: Irfanview
Anti-virus: ClamWin
Development tools: XAMPP, TortiseSVN, WinMerge
What opensource softwares do you install on your new system?
Popularity: 35%
ClamWin? I’ll need to check that, is that open source/free software?
Yes, ClamWin.
It is based on the ClamAV engine.
I start with Ubuntu Linux and move on from there :)
If I’m using Windows, chances are most of the software I’ll be installing is not only NOT open-source, but probably pirated commercial software as well.
The dynamics for an individual is probably different from an business environment.
As much as I want to do that, using Linux on the desktop is too big a chasm to cross for my people in the office.
I will be training up one the guy and maybe roll-out as trial.
really, with today’s distributions and stuff like KDE, is the step really that big? I mean, they have their “start” menu in the usual place (just with a different icon, and you can even change that), they can start all the stuff they need. Evolution for e-mail (even with Exchange servers) or Thunderbird for e-mail if you don’t need exchange, Firefox is what you are using already anyway, OpenOffice you are also using already. There’s great utilities for compression, image viewing and especially great development tools. It should not be too hard to have people switch to linux. Or at least, that’s what I would think ;)
Frankly you might be right. I’m speaking from impression so I cannot say for sure.
Think about it this way. How many of your friends/colleagues are using Liunx? Do you think it is easy to “convert” them? Is it really a technical issue?
Also in a business (especially small business) environment there is a fine line deciding whether the time spent getting Linux to work is for ideology sake or real benefits.
Fact is even an enthusiast like myself did not find the energy jump across. How much more can I expect the other guys to do it?
And I forgot to mention that I will need the system to support Chinese. Sometime we are so used to English that we forget that there are people not comfortable with it.
The bottom line is I’m keen to try, but at the same time I appreciate there are factors that I have to handle and consider.
Stay tuned as my adventure continues. :)
yes, you are right. and it’s maybe a bit hard to judge for me, working in a hi-tech company such as TomTom is. Everyone speaks english here, and even the non-technical personel have more than a basic understanding of technology.
but yeah, I’ll be reading your adventures with interest. It’s fun to see some other perspectives