So why not put Linux on your business desktops?

• Tags:
• Exchange,
• KDE,
• GNOME,
• Linux

Peter Judge ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 28 Nov 2005 15:45 GMT

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...are faintly esoteric functions like sending a copy of a response to a meeting invitation — which many users never have call for anyway.

Gaim for instant messaging
All the major IM services can be accessed through the Gaim client, and all the distributions we tested did include Gaim. Some of us at ZDNet UK already use Gaim on Windows, in order to bring together the IM software required by different colleagues and clients, and filter out the advertising on the Yahoo! and AOL IM services, again making the transition that much easier.

Printer support
Most distributions allow networked printers to be added (it seemed most complicated in Mandriva) and documents printed directly.

Administration and Support
Administration and support may be a sticking point for some. Linux such as Red Hat and Novell Linux Desktop are sold on a yearly maintenance contract. This is designed to provide the sort of predictable costs you expect, and the comfort of having a support centre at the end of a phone.

"Support arrangements are important, but it needn't be done centrally through a company like Novell or Red Hat," says Timms. "The Open Source Consortium has a long list of people supporting Ubuntu and other distributions. There is a community of people out there, offering different types of consultancy around open source. We've had excellent work done by a number of smaller companies — they are companies we would not have known about otherwise. The great thing is that nobody has the monopoly of it."

Birmingham bypassed the yearly licence option, going for a SuSE 9.3 desktop rather than Novell's Linux Desktop with its support contract — although this was partly a timing issue, since the Novell-branded product appeared during the course of his trial.

Just as important is the support for your own in-house administration. The update features in the operating system should be accessible and customisable, so that updates can be rolled out across the desktops in the organisation.

Novell's Red Carpet, which integrates with the Zenworks desktop management product, is notable in this respect, though other Linux versions also have hooks for automated management.

Non-Windows applications
Despite the promise of Linux, I am not quite ready to throw out Windows completely. There is one main reason for that; the Windows programs and utilities that I rely on. Some of them are things that I could get for Linux with a bit of effort, but these things are like the tangled roots around a stubborn weed.

Here are the issues that keep me on Windows. Some almost certainly have...

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