December 1st, 2008

Posted by Christopher Dawson

At well over 300 talkbacks and counting, plenty of folks took my challenge (and my reader’s challenge) to sort out just what it would take to switch from Windows to desktop Linux. Obviously, there was plenty of the standard Windows vs. Linux bickering, but there were also a lot of well-thought out responses. Given that our hypothetical office to be converted (the superintendent’s office) largely runs vanilla productivity applications with our mission-critical (and proprietary Windows only) applications running via Terminal Services on a Windows 2003 server, it seemed as though the conversion would be pretty straight-forward.

Here are the highlights from the talkbacks, though, with some important considerations. None of these seem to be deal breakers, but they certainly need to be part of a well-planned and successful conversion if we decide to head down that road:

• Printing: Do all of the printers we access have Linux drivers? As much as we might want to be paperless, the super’s office, perhaps more than any other district administrative unit, must produce printed documents.
• Backup: With our Windows machines, we can redirect desktops and user folders to a regularly backed-up server; Vista does a particularly nice (if slow) job of dealing with offline file synchronization. There are plenty of ways to handle this in Linux, but as far as I know, there isn’t anything quite as slick as either group policies in Windows for the redirects or the similar functionality enabled in OS X server (feel free to post a link or instructions for making this happen easily in Linux).
• Replacing group policy and domain/enterprise levels of control in general: as noted above, while AD may have its share of issues, it makes pushing updates, enforcing policies, etc., really easy. Anyone have a good “Linux administration for dummies” link that covers good ways to handle policy for workstations across a network?
• Remote access: A relative was visiting for Thanksgiving and couldn’t access his web-based VPN client on our Ubuntu laptop. Again, there are plenty of remote access solutions that will work quite well with Linux, but any existing infrastructure needs to be tested for compatibility.
• Complex Excel files: Compatibility between OpenOffice 3 and Microsoft Office is generally quite good. However, since the super’s office also handles budget administration, there are most likely some fairly complicated spreadsheets floating around. A period of testing should certainly go on with OO.org, but a more important consideration may actually be the impact on productivity for budget admins who are extremely proficient in Excel.
• “Extracurricular crap”: I really like this one, actually. Reader JoeMama_z makes a very good point: “Check out any extra curricular crap they may have, iTunes, Skype, etc. Yes these are silly but if users are pissed off you took away music they’ll be more likely to resist and sabotage.” Reader Ye offered this advice: “In my experience it’s not the mainstream applications that prevent a switch but rather the myriad of smaller programs which have no OSS replacements. Be sure to identify and factor these programs into any migration strategy.”
• ADA compliance: This hadn’t even hit my radar screen, but it’s a very good point made by ZDNet contributor, Marc Wagner. As he asks, “What about a superintendent (or staffer) with special needs? Are their sufficient ADA-compliant tools in the open-source community?” Any feedback on experience with ADA compliance and open source applications that can meet a variety of needs would be much appreciated.

So there you have it. Some new questions, some new considerations, and several good points. For us, I don’t think that any of these are cialis prescriptions insurmountable, particularly because so much of what we do is either web-based or strictly productivity-oriented.

We’re a small district who (since we now have a tech director instead of the occasional teacher or parent who jumps in and does some tech stuff) is finally starting to build infrastructure and think “enterprise”, so enterprise tools like Exchange haven’t even entered the picture yet. In some ways, now is the time to decide whether we fully embrace a Windows ecosystem or move to a much more open system with all the advantages and disadvantages that might carry.

November 30th, 2008

Posted by Christopher Dawson

Last week, when I asked “Are you sure you don’t just want to use Ubuntu?” I received a record number of talkbacks, good, bad, and in between. One of the more interesting, though, came from reader ksheppard, who responded with a challenge:

…Here’s a challenge to you: Make a list of everything – absolutely everything – a hypothetical school superintendent would be required to do to switch his personal laptop (which he uses at work and at home) from XP to Ubuntu, while maintaining, as much as possible, his usual behavior. Allow your blog followers to critique and refine the list until you think it is reasonably complete. Then have the research staff at ZDNet assign time and money expense to each item on the list. Allow your blog followers to help you critique and refine those figures.

Whaddaya think?

I think I wish we had research staff here at ZDNet, but I also think that it’s a really useful exercise to undertake. I think our district represents a good starting point for the exercise since we don’t actually use any applications in the superintendent’s office on the desktop that don’t have an open source alternative. As ksheppard pointed out, some districts may have bus routing applications, for example, that are Windows only.

Server-side, as well, we’re a Windows shop due to payroll and budgeting applications that are Windows only (these are accessed via RDP, so the desktop platform is irrelevant). However, on the desktop, where we, spend most of our resources and my users in the superintendent’s office spend most of their time, we have very few barriers to adoption. This is also where I spend most of my support resources; as readers have pointed out, while Linux is not necessarily more secure than Windows, it is far more immune to attack right now than Windows cialis prescription online (or even Mac) platforms, simply by virtue of market share.

I’d like to turn this into a series of posts, ultimately asking what it takes to switch to desktop Linux in education. Starting small, though, I’d like to answer ksheppard’s question. What is required to switch my superintendent to Linux on his desktop?

Here’s my initial list. Keeping the caveats above in mind, take ksheppard’s challenge with me and critique the list in the talkbacks.

• Know how to access Windows shares on the network
• Have a rudimentary understanding of the file system to ensure that he could copy, paste, and otherwise move around his files, including how to make backups
• Understand how to save documents in PDF, ODF, and Office formats
• Understand the differences in interface between OpenOffice and Office 2003 (the current system used in the superintendent’s office)

These are all free. Because our desktop deployments (keep in mind that I’m not talking about server deployments yet) are quite simple in this office, I’m seeing very little downside and very little cost. This will obviously become far more complicated as I start to look enterprise-wide, where do have some Mac/Windows only software. In this office, though, the only concerns my users have are,

1. Where are my files?
2. How do I access the budgeting software?
3. How do I access the student information system (web-based)?
4. How do I communicate (email and chat systems are currently web-based)?

What am I missing (just for this microcosm – we’ll get into the other environments later this week)?

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