Linux at Work - long report

[charlie bullen]

I had a good talk with the boss today regarding linux and linux terminal 
server in particular

. One of the older windows machines died today, softwarewise it seems, not 
hardwarewise. I've been using my linux box for several weeks now with a new 
Dell with Windows XP siting unused by its side. The dell was given to the 
person with the dead windows box. Several new Dells were purchased 3 months 
ago at close to 1000 per unit. The boss asked me how much my linux box had 
cost which was approx 300.00. He is planning an expansion in the future, and 
spending 3000.00 vs 10000.00 for 10 new computers really got his attention. 

I pointed out that by using linux terminal server, we could get by with even 
less cost as most of the new boxes wouldn't need Harddrives, CDRoms and even 
floppy drives if we got the right nics.

Aside from cost considerations, I pointed out that we can more closely control 
what software the users are using and since everything we have to do can 
demonstrably be done using linux (I'm doing it)  we get the job done with no 
extranious programs getting in the way.

Also we have recently had various windows virus problems that would not occur 
under linux. One day last week all computers except mine were rendered 
inoperable for about 2 hours. 

We can also really take advantage of the multiple virtual window aspect of the 
KDE or Gnome desktop to segregate various functions, each of which require 
several programs to be open.

To sum up the arguments in favor of linux
1. Lower cost
2. Higher reliability
3. Standardization
4. Better suited to our work.

I'm real excited about getting more linux users going.

Regards,



Charlie