Discussion on:

L'Independence day with a bit of a twist

Several years ago, my office moved every machine to Linux. Servers and desktops were migrated to the respective versions of Ubuntu, and our embedded Linux firewall appliance replaced a big Cisco router. We all held our breath.

Today I tease our CEO, a 51 year old grandmother, that "I'm gonna switch her to Seven" if I want to rile her up. Other than the inevitable hardware failures and a couple of headscratchers early on, we have enjoyed no downtime under Linux instead of the two hours of downtime per week in the organization under Windows XP and Server 2003.

Two hours a week may not sound like much, but this is two hours where the company isn't making any return on it's payroll dollars. Worse, it's spending these by pulling a tech from the project they were working on to repair the issue. Within our organization, two hours of workstation downtime equates to eight man-hours of lost revenue. If its a server that went down, I don't want to talk about it.

For the last couple of years, we have enjoyed true independence as we are able to work without interruptions from buggy software. We can use our IT department to create new products and services instead of fixing what we have, even though we pay top dollar for something we never really own, just license.

One thing you didn't mention is independence from software mandated hardware upgrades. Linux servers generally run headless, so no resources are tied up creating a GUI no one will see. Between this and a general lack of bloat (comparatively), a modern Linux server can run happily on hardware that Windows servers will turn their nose up at. We replaced an IBM x-Server dual Xeon rack mount with an Intel Atom 330 and actually increased access and decreased response time.

We chose to not cut our tech budget just because we're more efficient now. We use this money to give back to the open source community as well as fund our own internal projects. Several of these have spun off to create revenue streams of their own. Our firewall appliance is one example, and there are soon to be others.

Bottom line... You are right Jack. The independence we enjoy in the shop is due to our decision to move to Ubuntu 10.04 instead of Vista. It was the best choice we ever made.

I made the switch from M$ to Linux 5yrs ago, and
havent looked back.
It was the WPA / WGA euphemistic BS that cured me.

I much prefer democracies to dictatorships.
Ditto re. Apple.
I get mighty antsie being pidgeon holed
into a way of doing some thing that some corp wants.
I like the freedom to choose for my self.

I made the switch 3 years ago, due to the ability of Visualization of Cisco router systems, for the same speed as 3 routers running on a MS machine on Ubuntu I could run 11 - more than enough. Then slowly I used the system more and more, now it is my primary desktop and my closest friends have made the switch as I refuse to fix their MS machines. For me its going to be Linux all the way.

Everything went well up to the most recent server package with comes without a desktop (big mistake) and willo never, seemingly, deal with dynamic IP addresses. After nearly 8 months of failures I have turned off my server and swear I'll never run it again. Simply, ubuntu server sucks. As for then Unity desktop, I am afraid that has driven me back to Windows 7 which is more user friendly and comfortable even though I hate it profoundly.

Canonical had a nice product, then they went mad "improving" and "updating" it into an incomprehensible mishmash of semi-and fully-automated confusion. The lst decent version was 9.04, at least that was the last one that worked well in a desktop and a server environment.

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Hi,

Swapped my home systems to Ultimate edition 2.8 and ubuntu 10.10 when unity came out with ubuntu 11.04, it really turned me off, i am now running Linux Mint, pinguy linux and ultimate edition 2.9, I know you can turn unity off and go back to gnome but it just doesnt seem right. Yes I do have a Windows 7 system, which actualyl does work well, but not as relieable as my Linux systems, Seems to loose connectivity to a wirless printer, yet the linux boxes do not (maybe if I has an xp box it would not either?) otherwise i need that windows 7 desktop for the work stuff. I would vote to have unity as an optional desktop for those who like it in 11.10 not a required one when it comes out.

Freedom is great.

When WinXP crashed for the very last time and would not even begin to read the hard drive I looked at the options. I could lay out $1000 for a new machine - not on a retirement check. I could try to reload Windows - one OEM shot at $200 - $300, or a re-loadable at $450 - Also not on my income. Then I did a search on the various OS's out there. I compared the user blogs and requests for help for the various systems. To me debian looked like the one to try. I used my last working Windows system to download the basic CD and installed it. I messed around and finally broke that system, and installed it again. That was very satisfying, being able to break it and not have to pay to re-install it. I was hooked on Independence from Installation key codes that only work once. Later I added xfce and now I will not ever worry about Windows again. I am still learning, and finding that GNU/linux makes sense. I am loving the Independence, freedom, and ability to try anything without worrying about irreparable harm to the machine, or my finances.