Rikard Johnels wrote:
On Wednesday 13 October 2004 21.42, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
<STUFF DELETED>
I'd be interested in ideas on how to sell Linux in this environment, but I have to be honest about it, and the office staff, unlike me, has little inherent reason to make the change and a big reason (the learning curve) not to.
Paul Abrahams
Congratulations to a work well done! ¨ The way is paved for your "dream" to get rid of MS.
Why don't you help the community (ie. us) and write a nice HowTo on how you did, and what you encountered as problems.
As for the exchange of desktops, try and see if you cant get a few "testpersons" (handpicked of course) to evaluate Linux for a few weeks, and have them tell the others how they have found the new OS.
Just make sure you have the specifications for what the system i needed to do. So that all of their needs are met. I have seen several places changing into Linux when they have found it to be equal or better in functionality, and a lot better in speed and stability.
Especially in the area of programming and sysadministration.
Good luck in the future!
Sometimes it can be difficult to get even knowledgeable colleagues to use Linux. I've had some with mainframe and Sun/Solaris as their daily chores not eager to move from Windows to Linux on their laptops, some have installed Linux on a partition, then used Windows exclusively, still wondering what they could use Linux for in their daily grind, even though they knew I exclusively use Linux, having blasted 95 off my laptop years ago. There was one guy who installed Linux and found it more suitable for projects internally and developing stuff for part time consultancy, that was after he'd installed SuSE 8.1 all by himself as I'd been called down the office to look at something else, I only had to setup /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf for him. He's no wizard at Solaris, but he has a way with anything computing. I think possibly the best approach would be to introduce Linux for anyone new to the office, perhaps have a couple of spare PC's with Linux on that could act as temporary replacements when their PC's have problems. Also mozilla/firefox (many use them on Windows) together with OpenOffice.org would ease the transition. Six years ago I was tasked to produce a set of tools on top of RedHat 6.2 that would allow our guys to switch worldwide, my boss sent the CD's off to HQ in Sunnyvale, California via our Vice President of Product Support, when later I quizzed him after the guys asked when they would get them, he said he thought he distributed them - perhaps in litter bins at Heathrow airport. With lack of support from top management, the Linux development manager who had been rehired from Cisco to do the job of bringing Linux to all products, got fed up and went back to Cisco, the company fired all 30-odd Linux guys and a year ago I heard they (Fujitsu) were busily trying to hire Linux guys. There was an article some months ago where a new IT director was bent on deploying Linux, he fired the most dyed-in-the-wool Windows guys and hired fewer Linux guys, TCO benefits resulted. Regards Sid. -- Sid Boyce .... Hamradio G3VBV and keen Flyer =====LINUX ONLY USED HERE=====