To Buy and Operating system or not to buy (and go with Open Source) [Archive]

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DSnetworx

20th June 2010, 19:45

Hi all

Every one has heard of Windows, we have been using it for years, it has its pro's and cons like most things but is every one still willing to pay the price tag? not only for the operating system, software and then no end of virus scanning software that you have to add to it due to around 60000 virus's and spyware out there. Not only this but when a new version is release your options are to buy a new pc or a mass update to ram hard driver and processer (almost like flogging an old nag)

But is there any other options?

Yes Linux......... there one of two things people say at this point

1. but that hard to use and for geeks

Linux umm what are you talking about
its free there no support

Linux Open source Operating systems such as Ubuntu have come along way in the past few years and have become a lot easier to use, theirs only around 40 virus's out for the OS. But most of all its free to use and access to free applications such as open office. Its more efficient and cost-effective IT solution for all who use it

So what is open souse:

Open-source Software:
Open Source software is a free alternative to licensed software (such as Microsoft or Apple programs). It can come in many forms such as operating systems to word possessors/office packages. Open source software is published and made freely available to the public, enabling anyone to use it at no cost. Programmers can also use, copy and modify the software codes without having to pay any royalties or fees. Open source code evolves through a very friendly community cooperation and understanding of the needs of others. These communities are composed of individual programmers and Non- Programmers as well as very large companies throughout the globe. The most well know software of these types include the operating system Linux and Mozilla Firefox internet browser.
Around 11% of U.S businesses now are opting to use open source operating systems and software and this number is growing at a very accelerating rate while,it is believed, up to 49% of European companies are using some form of open source software**
**Figures approx at May 2010

So if you have tried it then let us know what you think, if not then its free to try there are loads of forum out there which are willing to help you. If your interested in looking at it for your company's use then feel free to give us a shout. We can install and support you every step of the way.

remoradea

20th June 2010, 20:03

Windows is so widespread because it has become the standard in PC use. Everything I learned in school was based on Windows. The thing is that if you are gamer you have no other option than Windows, but if you use the PC for multimedia tasks than Linux is a better option.

RedEvo

20th June 2010, 20:24

I've been banging this drum for many years but people like what they know....

d

KM-Tiger

20th June 2010, 21:01

From a business perspective (given that this is a business forum):

IT is never free in business, there will be costs involved in setup, configuration, maintenance. But with Open Source there will be no software licence fees, now or ever.

Open Source is scalable. An Open Source server, for instance, won't care whether there are two or fifty users connected. This is an important consideration for any business that will grow, as there will be no costs (other than hardware) to add an extra user.

Mixed environments are both feasible and work well. Windows clients can connect to Linux servers (as can Macs), or a Windows server doing one job can happily co-exist with a Linux server doing another. It's even possible to run both types on one set of hardware.

So it's not that it must be Windows or Linux. It could be both, if that's the best way of meeting business needs.

DSnetworx

20th June 2010, 21:06

I've been banging this drum for many years but people like what they know....

d

Linux is making its way into schools across the UK, DSNetworx are now supporting one and working on many others, heres some other useful info

"The government of Uruguay has chosen linux as the OS for the upgraded
OLPC device XO-HS. Uruguay already has 380,000 of the original machines
in its primary schools, and has now ordered 90,000 of the more capable
laptops for its secondary schools. The XO-HS is capable of running
Windows but the Uruguay government has decided to stay with linux. I
expect that this decision will have saved them several million pounds."

Quote from the Hampshire Lug in ref new report on the BBC Web site :)

DSnetworx

20th June 2010, 21:11

DotNetWebs

20th June 2010, 21:17

...So it's not that it must be Windows or Linux. It could be both, if that's the best way of meeting business needs.

Exactly.

It doesn't matter what the government of Uruguay are using - it's your business requirements that are important.

Many of us are happy using both and don't need a beating drum to help us choose which platform to use for any given situation.

Regards

Dotty

DSnetworx

20th June 2010, 21:30

Exactly.

It doesn't matter what the government of Uruguay are using - it's your business requirements that are important.

Many of us are happy using both and don't need a beating drum to help us choose which platform to use for any given situation.

Regards

Dotty

No problem with using both systems, have a few customer configs like that at the moment, Company need are always important with out them we would not have a job :).

But the point im trying to get across is that a lot of company or even home users are not aware their is even a true choice between OS let alone running one to both options :)

chip_y2kuk

21st June 2010, 06:57

Let's be honest for most home users there is no choice!......... i'll never forget the day i was talking to a home user about Centos linux and they said to me does that run on windows XP? is it any good?

for most home users microsoft windows is all they know take that away and they haven't got a clue!

consultant

21st June 2010, 07:12

It is all about perception and requirements!

Most business to live without MS and not be affected one iota! Running a Linux operating system with OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird etc on a relatively low specified PC will be more than adequate for 90% + of users.

maxh

21st June 2010, 08:36

You could get the new Google Chrome OS open source code now!

I think you build it in linux...or something?

I'm not a programmer but I want to see what Chrome OS runs like!

http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/building-chromium-os

Mike Glorfindel

21st June 2010, 08:56

Open source solutions can be great but it really does depend on what you need.

Open office can work with all MS Office documents & email & web applications cover those bases but if you are looking for accounting solutions or other CRM applications you may struggle to find one that employees know how to use.

I work in web design & have used all but the Mac OS & at the end of the day I would probably work on a windows machine as I know Photoshop & other graphical/development applications on that platform. I have tried to learn applications like the gimp & ink for photo & graphic manipulation but I find them difficult to learn & at the end of the day I do not have time.

If your business is fairly small & you just need email & web (my current company has all it's CRM online) you can get away with linux (I always liked the desktop from OpenSUSE) but if your organisation is larger I would say mixed windows & linux would be the only way to go.

ecenica

21st June 2010, 09:04

What about Mac OSX?

All our staff use Mac OSX for everyday support/dev work. Not open-source, but worth every penny. Also saves £'s in downtime/support savings. We restrict Windows to just basic tech support/testing.

I know not desktop based, but we use the awesome Linux CentOS on our core shared-hosting servers which is simply brilliant. Also have some Windows 2008R2 VPS servers which I must say are 1000x better than Windows 2003 but still long way behind Linux for some features. I believe Windows 2008 shares some features of Windows 7?

For an open-source desktop solution I would go with Unbuntu or Google Chrome.

maxh

21st June 2010, 10:32

Oh for what its worth I'm running windows 7 and it is an absolute dream!

Fast, easy to use, all the good stuff Mac OS has and none of the bad!

Mike Glorfindel

21st June 2010, 10:36

Oh for what its worth I'm running windows 7 and it is an absolute dream!

Fast, easy to use, all the good stuff Mac OS has and none of the bad!

I have to agree with that! Windows 7 is a dream to work on & also the licences are pretty cheap when compared to the price structure of XP. & most small business' can not even consider the expense of buying a load of Mac's. :)

edmondscommerce

21st June 2010, 12:39

I will never go back to windows... I love linux now

ecenica

21st June 2010, 13:38

Oh for what its worth I'm running windows 7 and it is an absolute dream!

Fast, easy to use, all the good stuff Mac OS has and none of the bad!

I guess that what you get if you tell your dev guys to copy OSX :)

Disclaimer first. Don't wish to take post off topic - but... I'm really interested what you think the bad bits are in OSX? Also nothing like a bit of healthy discussion.

JElder

21st June 2010, 15:30

Linux has been nearly, but not managed, mainstream for a long time.

There are too many variations, and mostly require too much skill to install and set up. I can get almost any new hardware and a Win7 disk, and give it to someone with little knowledge - they could have it up and running in under an hour.

Do the same with Linux (only give them the URL of a Linux distribution homepage) and the chances of them having a running system with a week.....

Offset against this is the lower costs, especially for servers, but likely higher costs for ongoing maintenance. Small businesses often do not have an IT professional, so someone with some basic Windows desktop experience does everything, so it has to be simple, quick and very straightforward to gain traction.

edmondscommerce

21st June 2010, 15:43

tbh, with Linux distros you can download a live CD, whack it in the drive, reboot and there is a fairly good chance that actually all the hardware will work.

If it works when you boot off the liveCD, then you simply do a full install and it will continue to work. In my experience this is the case most of the time these days. I have installed Ubuntu on something like 20 different machines without any problems.

I once bought a laptop that Ubuntu would not work on (no wireless) when testing on the live CD. However there was a new Ubuntu version out in a couple of weeks, so I downloaded that when it came out, tried the live CD again and it worked fine.

So to contradict you a little bit - I would say you could have a fully working desktop with all hardware within an hour or so.

However, if you try the Live CD and some of your hardware isn't working then this is where it can get complicated. First thing to do is hit Google and see if there are any easy obvious fixes.

One of the best things about Linux is the massive amount of user generated content, blogs, forums etc with support information and clear instructions. If you can find some easy looking instructions then there is a good chance you can get the other hardware working as well.

maxh

22nd June 2010, 08:29

I guess that what you get if you tell your dev guys to copy OSX :)

Disclaimer first. Don't wish to take post off topic - but... I'm really interested what you think the bad bits are in OSX? Also nothing like a bit of healthy discussion.

Other than the fact its apple. And apple suck. A lot!

To be fair I never spent much time with OSX but it tends to be slower, and it's also hard to get behind (backend) programmes to make fundamental changes to system and operational files.

A Mac is a nice toy, but if you want to do some serious computer work. i.e. if you want an actual computer, you need something more powerful with more freedoms!

Also OSX has that annoying bar that pops out with all your programmes.

MartCactus

22nd June 2010, 08:46

Surely it depends what you want to do on the OS?

If I had an office full of people just using web, email, and office documents, I'd have them on linux. If I were using free software to build websites I'd probably use linux too.

However our business is .net web development, and that means windows. I use Thunderbird, Firefox and Open Office, but the dev tools are Windows ones. Our voip system to link the UK and Dubai offices is windows too.

And I like windows. People go on about it crashing etc, but I haven't had a bluescreen for years. Windows is reliable now. I've also never had a virus.

The .net platform with SQL server is superb for web development. Smaller and Medium sized clients can use SQL Express for free. We've looked at completely free open source equivalents, but as yet we can't find anything to match it.

ecenica

22nd June 2010, 08:54

Interesting comments maxh. Thanks. Had similar views before I bought my first Mac 6-7 years ago. Prior to that I was a die-hard Windows user.

Ironically it's the very success of OSX's simple GUI, that belies the true depth of what you can do. Things like Windows's horrendous RegEdit are all in there in their own way (again it's clear from using both that MS copied Apple but poorly).

OSX is based on Unix, so when you know how to pop-the-bonnet you can pretty much do anything.

I do see the argument about Apple's stuff being pricey, especially when equipping an office. Key is unlike a Windows device, they have a vibrant second-hand market so the true cost of ownership is often lower.

DotNetWebs

22nd June 2010, 09:04

...The .net platform with SQL server is superb for web development. Smaller and Medium sized clients can use SQL Express for free. We've looked at completely free open source equivalents, but as yet we can't find anything to match it.
100% agree. IMO nothing comes close to the productivity and functionality that can be achieved with .net / Visual Studio / MSDN.

And don't forget, just because it running on .net / Windows doesn't mean it is not open source:

Here is a great example of a .net open source application we frequently use:

http://www.dotnetblogengine.net/

Regards

Dotty

MartCactus

22nd June 2010, 10:07

Other than the fact its apple. And apple suck. A lot!

To be fair I never spent much time with OSX but it tends to be slower, and it's also hard to get behind (backend) programmes to make fundamental changes to system and operational files.

A Mac is a nice toy, but if you want to do some serious computer work. i.e. if you want an actual computer, you need something more powerful with more freedoms!

Also OSX has that annoying bar that pops out with all your programmes.

I wouldn't really agree that you can't do proper work on a mac - clearly lots of people do. Its not a toy.

Personally I just find the interface confusing - I don't like the way an application's menu takes over the top of the screen for example. Its personal choice - I prefer the windows/ubuntu way of doing that.

I do find that macs are overpriced however - with a windows or linux machine you have massive choice and that means lower prices. You can buy a very high spec machine, or a very low spec one (i bought a new netbook last year in dubai for equivalent of 150quid).

The best thing apple could have done is to license the OS to other manufacturers during the 80s - they'd now be running on 90%+ of desktops. Now they seem to be repeating history with the iphone - locking it down as a closed platform when everyone else is opening up theirs.

Which is a shame, because I really like the iphone.

I don't think OSX will ever break out of its market position as a minority OS, certainly not while Apple won't cross-license it, and with Windows 7 microsoft seems to be keeping people happy.

edmondscommerce

22nd June 2010, 10:11

Apple are market skimming

they don't want the whole market, they only want the people who are prepared to pay serious cash for what is undoubtedly nice hardware and software.

For some people that's great..

For other's its not.

ecenica

22nd June 2010, 10:35

edmondscommerce & MartCactus. Agree with your comments. You're right when you say they're just targeting the users they want. It's clearly worked for them now they're the World's Largest Tech Company - overtaking Microsoft.

I actually think that Apple have done all Windows users a favour by forcing Microsoft to raise their game. Anyone for Windows Vista? :)