If you are an IT pro...can you comment on Linux?

[Tekk]

Hey Im just looking for opinions of IT Professionals who are currently in the IT field what they think about the future of Linux as an operating system. Please keep replies to only people who have a real answer. Im just trying to get opinions from different sources about Linux's future and what they think about it.

Also if you could provide your full name and title of your current position and the company you work for. Also if its alright...a contact (email).

I appreciate anyone's answer!!!

This is for a my research paper for a career class btw

[Ptrper]

Hi Tekk,

My name is Ed, I'm a Communications Specialist with SBC. I work in one of three Data Centers for SBC.

Currently, our enterprise is comprised of mainly Windows, with certain internal groups that use Sun products and other smaller departments that use various flavors of Unix.

You ask about the future of Linux as an operating system. The question is not a matter of if, but rather a when.

For the average user, they could care less about the Open source movement. All they really want is a computer with which they can 1, play games, 2, access the internet, email, and 3, use some sort of office productivity applications. Other gripes they may have is that they occassionally get the blue screen of death or that the system is such a resource hog that it slows their system down to a crawl. Quite honestly, this is all they are looking for. This is the majority of "John Q. Public".

Now, for those of us that work in the IT industry, this is a double-edged sword. First, some of us get into an almost religious-like zealousness to "convert" people to something that we feel is the moral right. We disagree with the marketing practices of unsaid company. Therefore, we push Linux on those who we feel would benefit from using such an operating system. But I will be the first person to admit to you that Windows is my "bread and butter". Even while working as a consultant before making the corporate plunge, all of my paychecks were the result of supporting Microsoft products.

The other side of the coin is this. If you were to install Linux on say your parent's computer, would they be able to recieve minimal instruction before trying to strike out on their own? Linux has definitely come a long way from what it used to be, yet there is still some work to do. Especially in the area of applications.

My beef is this. At this point, after having used Suse Linux 9, KDE, Gnome, whatever GUI you choose to use is good enough. The current kernel works for what I need it to do. What I need are applications to run on such a fine operating system. Where are the Encyclopedias on CDROM? Where are the tax return applications? Let's get the applications out. Some may say, why don't you get the cross-over plugins to use Microsoft products? Hello? If you're asking me this, you've never seen the point I'm trying to make. I want to use alternative software that does not include Bill Gates.

I know, you're saying when is this guy gonna get to the point? Heres the point. Amidst all of this, there is a silver lining in the clouds of Linux. People are getting tired of using Microsoft. Have you read the EULA lately. Next time you are able to, take a really good look at it. Yes, you've bought the CD, paid for a legal license for it, by all rights, you should own it. But, the truth of the matter is, all you've done is to lease, once again, I say leased the Operating system. You can't make changes to it, you can't fix it, and if you do something that Microsoft feels is important enough, they can at any time take it away from you. On top of this, if they feel that they have been wronged, they will sue you. Take for example, Ernie Ball Strings company. They got sued for $90,000 for three unlicensed copies of MS products. At that point, Sterling Ball, the owner, migrated his whole company to Redhat Linux. Microsoft is now trying to woo him back. His response? The proverbial "bird".

The future of Linux is looking very bright. Apple Computers use of FreeBSD as the underlying chassis for OS X (in fact, I'm using it now...) is quite impressive. Many people are looking for alternatives to Microsoft.

Once again, it isn't a matter of if, but rather a when.

[Praetorian]

I'm no IT pro, but I'm just going to make a small comment. I just adopted OS X as my mobile platform, and so far I'm loving it. Just this week alone (I recieved my Powerbook on Monday) I've had numerous chances to use OS X's Unix goodness to assist in my job, and perform some pretty fun/interesting network junk.

I work for a small wireless ISP who used to run misc web services from Linux. I don't know why they switched to Windows, but it looks light we might start going back. Within the past month we've had 4 computers hacked, all of which provide misc network services for us. :-/ It's not my job to keep the Windows machines up-to-date, but either the network guy isn't keeping up with patches, or Winows is seriously flawed.

I did replace one of the hacked Windows boxes with a FreeBSD installation a few weeks ago. Sadly it realy isn't of great importance to our ISP operation, so it just sits at a remote site and does things for us back at the office. Still, hopefully this has gotten Unix a foot in the door, and possibly a chance to make a comeback in our server dept.

BTW, if this makes no sense, it's 1:30am and I haven't had a good nights sleep in days. I'm hitting the hay right now.

[CMonster]

Ptrper -well said.

The only thing I would add it that we need to have hardware vendors interested in supplying drivers. I find Linux works fantastic on the home desktop with one huge condition -that all of the hardware is supported.

[implexant]

Hey Tekk,

Get DVNT1 to respond, he's an IT pro that works in a mid-sized biz that would have a good perspective.

I'm not "really" an IT pro, so I'll keep my mouth shut

Good luck on the paper, I know the feeling

-Chris

[IQB]

I am an IT Pro who works in a mid sized business.
We've got 8 servers. 1 running Netware 6 the others running Win2K adv server. The decision has been made by people higher up on the food chain to dump Netware for Win2K3 server on our main file server.

The reason is simple. Other than me there are no others in the department who could admin a Linux server. Also, all of our userland apps are written for Windows servers.

I have broached the subject with the higher ups and brought up the reliability, scalability, price, etc... of using Linux as a server OS. They come right back at me with implementation and training costs. To them it's a push between Windows and any other OS, meaning unless they've got a real good reason to dump windows it ain't gonna happen.

Everyday I check the uptime stats on our Netware server, 8 months and counting, against the best of the rest running windows. We get maybe 6 weeks out of Win2K adv server before a re-boot................It make sme chuckle.

[Dave Anderson]

PC Technician for PC Warehouse.

I use Linux at home and love it. I also administered a small Linux server for my prevous company.

While I love Linux and would love to see it replace Windows, as of today I would never, ever recommend it to an end user. So, while I consider myself a Linux zealot, I'm also realistic enough to know it's not for the average joe just yet. There are several reasons for this, and I'll give a few examples.

Browser plug-ins. It should just be install and go. But that is hardly ever the case. I always find myself searching google and making symbolic links here and there to get things working. End user: "Symbolic who? Command line what?" 'Nuff said.

Applications. Users need to be able to go to CompUSA and buy applications. Some will argue with me on this, but it's true. We need Quickbooks, Turbotax, and other "biggies" like that. More and more users are downloading, even windows users. Whether it's in the store or not isn't so important, but we need big apps. I agree that using some sort of emulation (or API-layer) to run a Windows app under Linux sort of defeats the purpose. I do think Linux has solid apps for a lot of major programs - Word Processing (Open Office), Finance (GNU Cash, or MoneyDance), Photo Editing (Gimp), and there are tons of native Linux games too.

And Linux needs to be more user friendly. If someone installs an RPM, it should be a defacto standard that a menu entry is added to KDE, Gnome, or whatever. There must be some way to do this. Users having to manually add entries is just plain stupid.

I switched from XP to Linux over a year ago and have been pretty happy. I still occasionally boot to XP, but I'm nearing the point where I won't have to do that.

[Ruler2112]

I take care of all IT related matters for two stores in my organization. I've started integrating linux into the environment, using it for servers and such. I love the stability and flexibility.

However, the lack of application and vendor support is what is preventing me from using it more widely here. There are several websites that we *need* to access in order to do work. Two major companies don't feel the need to support anything other than IE and their non-standard way of doing things, so we cannot use Linux on the majority of the desktops. (I use it exclusively on my work machine and can't foresee ever switching back.) It really is too bad, as it's a great OS. I have changed a few minor programs to make them do what we need and love the ability to do so.

At home, I have a different opinion. While I'm still sick of Windoze and the BSODs, random screw-ups, and unexplainable and seemingly unfixable problems, Linux just doesn't cut it for gaming. I have had heretic 2 and quake 2 for linux for about 4 months now, playing with it every now and again trying to get it to work. No-go, even though I've done everything I can think of and find online for hints. I want to install the game and start slaughtering minions, not screw around with drivers, various versions of graphics libraries, and symbolic links all day. Once it matures on the desktop and the games are easier to install (more like business apps), I'll be using it more.

The application and vendor support is where the problem lies for the future of Linux. if companies will start accepting it as an authentic OS instead of something people in a specific clique use, it's impact could be enormous.

[DVNT1]

My thoughts from an IT Manager perspective for mid size company. I have a couple Novell servers and many Microsoft servers. Just limited experience with Linux though.

Desktops: Linux for the corporate desktop has a long way to go. W2K and XP make great corporate machines because of central managability in desktop control and application deployment; along with a huge vendor compatibilty list.

For a while it seem that Java and Web based interfaces would potential help with vendor compatibility on the Linux destop. But now Java seems to have slowed and the web browser interface for apps is also at a reducing pace and promise. As touched on already, even though some things are more web based they often require IE as the browser.

I want to change our company over to Linux because of costs, but the hurdles are still too big. That said, OpenOffice is very close to replacing MS Office for us and that would be a great savings itself. If MS keeps screwing around with product licensing and costs then they will effectively push people to Linux even before it looks like the perfect replacement.

Mainstream Linux corporate desktops still seems 6+ years away.

Servers: Linux is a great choice for things like IDS, firewalls, simple email servers, and all those things that are still mostly "stand-alone" roles. In these areas Linux will continue to grow fast.

Other server functions which are more likely to have an articulate relation with Active Directory will still not change to Linux in the near future. Novell has NDS on Linux but there is only a slim chance it will displace Active Directory. It greatly lacks in support by other vendors. Active Directory is a good feature that kept MS in many server roles it may have otherwise lost to Linux. Of course support is another big concern but I don't think I need to elaborate.

Within a couple years Linux servers should firmly have a position in most mid and large businesses for the roles I mentioned. I do not see it even coming close to replacing all Windows servers in a majority of these businesses for over 10 years.

[CMonster]

Oh yeah, Linux also needs some Language learing series (I'm not talking about language "support," but tutorial learning suites) - like the Rosetta Stone series -there are no less than three major software vendors offering Language suites... not one for Linux.