[TriLUG] Windows NT to 2000 or Linux?

[Jon Carnes]

On Wednesday 26 September 2001 17:47, Rick Gatewood wrote:
> I am a network administrator at a local government agency that has a
> single NT Domain with 250 w95 and w98 clients. all but a few clients and
> all the servers are three years old. We have been considering upgrading
> to 2000 but are finding the cost of upgrading all software and hardware
> plus continuing license fees to be scary. Microsoft is asking all current
> users to upgrade within the next six months or lose upgrade privileges
> forever. As an alternative, we have been considering going all linux or
> using linux with existing NT licenses. One sticking point is that our
> main database vendor (specialized billing program) only wants to support
> their product on NT or 2000 terminal server. I know that there is a
> citrix client out there for linux and thought that it might be a
> solution. Anybody have any experience with the Citrix Linux client and
> WTS setups? Any other ideas for using linux in this situation?

You should start out by replacing your Domain Controllers with Samba 2.2.x 
on Linux servers.  Immediately that will break you away from the major cost 
of MS licensing.  Keep any of your servers running NT that you have to for 
now.  In time you will find replacements and bring them on in parallel.

The next step you might want to take is moving over to either Open office 
or Star office.  This is a small move as both work on either Linux or MS.  
Once you have the knack down of using an open Office application, you can 
start the movement of folks over to Linux workstations.

If you have a proprietary program that you use to access a database (and a 
lot of folks use it...), and that application only runs on MS, then you 
should start looking right away at moving that service onto a gateway/web 
app.  Believe it or not, this is not as difficult as you may first assume.  
At Haht, we regularly move folks off of proprietary front-end apps onto Web 
based apps, and we do it in as little time as one month.

If you grab a couple of kids in college they can probably port you over in 
3 to 6 months at a bargain price.  I would be happy to look at your 
"business" and give you an over-all project plan for such a port (anything 
to get you away from MS!).

You will really like the results of moving off of a Citrix type solution 
and over to a web based one.

BTW: if you want to keep your Citrix type solution, then you are in good 
luck with Linux, because X-server is much easier and works very similarly.  
If you are just doing console type apps, then you can even use a lower 
resource secure shell, or even telnet.

Once you have ported any proprietary MS apps over to a web-based service, 
you can choose any OS for any user - well accounting may insist on staying 
MS, but that's okay - they can afford it!

Good Luck - Jon