[TriLUG] awesome article

[Rev. Christian J Hedemark]

acoliver said:

> http://www.robval.com/linux/desktop/index.asp

Oh yeah.  But it is hurting his credibility, I think, when he continually
refers to "Linux Red Hat 7.1".  Speak like Yoda he does, hmmm?

Some other observations:

Web browser - Konqueror, included with KDE, is quite a capable browser.
Very fast & lightweight.  He advocated downloading Opera which I have no
experience with.  Before downloading, try what is already included.  His
later comments on Konqueror don't match with my own experience with later
versions of the app (early versions were pretty buggy though).

E-mail client - Functionally, Netscape Communicator will be the easiest for
an Outlook Express user to move to.  But there are significant stability
issues.

Firewall - He describes the included firewall as "capable".  IMHO it is
superior to a lot of the commercial add-on firewalls for Windows.

regarding the cost savings, they are more significant I think than what was
quoted.  The software licenses he quoted showed upgrade costs.  For a
start-up with new systems, the upgrade pricing isn't appropriate.  The
software licenses will cost more.

Some other observations, in case anyone else here is not yet a Linux user
and is considering such a migration.  Linux runs great on old hardware.  My
fastest machine is running Windows 2000, but only because it needs the
faster hardware.  My oldest machine that is still in full-time use is a
Cyrix 233MHz box with 64MB RAM.  This runs Linux fine.  Star Office is a bit
slow but KOffice seems to run better on it.  The very cheapest machines that
you can buy today will work excellently with Linux.  I have used Pentium II
450MHz machines with 128MB RAM in a business environment with excellent
results.

Also most Linux distributions today come with more software than you'll ever
want.  Are you setting up machines for office productivity?  Most of the
commonly used app types are already in there.  Are you setting up a
development environment?  It's already in there (if you're working with Java
you'll need to download that in many cases, but it's free).  In an MS
environment you need to keep shelling out more and more money for these
tools.

If you're retrofitting older machines (3 years old or so) the best thing to
do is slap a bunch of memory in there and put a modern video card in it.
Those two things will breathe new life into old iron.  Also using a newer
video card will make OS installation go much smoother if you have an old
oddball video adapter.  Make sure to standardize on a video adapter with
good linux support.

Star Office 6.0 is due out "real soon now" and should be getting rid of that
proprietary desktop environment.

The author of this article gripes about documentation, or lack thereof.

> Some of the Linux documentation is inaccurate, incomplete or missing. Many
authors
> simply say "I do not have the time to write documentation", or "The
program is self-
> explanatory". Give us a break!

Ever hear the saying "You get what you pay for?"   That's not quite true.
For nothing, zero, zilch, nada you get a very robust evironment to work in.
Most open source programmers aren't being paid for their work, and if they
are they often aren't paid for documentation.  If you don't like the lack of
documentation, stop whining and start writing.  Give something back you
lousy freeloader.  ;-)

I do agree with him on Gnome.  I know it's a matter of personal taste but I
really don't see how people can prefer Gnome over the other fine WM's and
desktop environments out there.  KDE is a great blend of Windows and CDE, so
if you're coming from Solaris (or any other UNIX that uses CDE) or Windows
environments you'll be right at home.

Reverend Christian J Hedemark II
Hillsborough, NC
http://yonderway.com
"Those who are willing to sacrifice essential liberties for a little order,
will lose both and deserve neither." - Benjamin Franklin