Well said!

I want to bring up a point that has not been addressed to a full extent - 
deployment.  Any entity that has over 100+ desktops is typically using 
some type of rapid deployment tool.  These tools use images that contain 
the OS, software apps, everything pre-configured and ready to rock and 
roll.  Similar to you buying a $PEE-CEE from $MAJOR-VENDOR and turning it 
on for the first time.

We need to ask the county about their hardware environment.  Are all their 
machines the same?  What's the lifespan of a workstation/server in the 
county?  

If everyone has the same desktop (like at $MY-EMPLOYER), conversion to 
Linux/BSD would be a snap - you make one image pre-configured and working, 
roll it out department by department and BLAM! Bye-bye Windows.

If the county has a mish-mash of deployed machines, this could add to the 
adoption costs - and add headaches.  We need to provide suggested 
solutions in this case.  

Gary



On Wed, 3 Jul 2002, George Toft wrote:
> 
> The goal is to teach users how to point and click a slightly different
> GUI, not how to become admins, or even command line warriors.  The
> largest labor expense will be in defining a workable desktop environment
> that is robust enough to provide what the county needs, yet be secure
> enough to thwart the tinkerers, and power user wannabe's.