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Is this a good scenario for Linux deployment?

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by banderson

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I've been experimenting with SUSE Linux 10 lately and really like what it has to offer. I'm a newbie when it comes to linux, experimented with 9.1 for a while until I got too frustrated with wireless network card drivers and couldn't get even the simplest of TCP/IP configurations set to use on a static IP network. Either I'm smarter now, or v.10 makes it easier but I've got a 300 MHz test box running in my office now as well as an old PC at home running smoothly.

I'm the IT department for a SMB, about 60 PC's spread out over three locations, with our two remote locations utilizing about 25% of the machines and running RDP sessions to a win2k terminal server. One location is 30 minutes away, the other about an hour and a half. All our desktops with only a few exceptions (XP pro mostly) are running win2k. For some reason we purchased 15 licenses for terminal server access, when win2k includes them for free, so I have an extra 15 licenses to play with.

I'm thinking of deploying a few linux desktops in our remote locations and maybe one or two here in our main office, say, 10-12 total. Since these people don't perform anything on their local desktop, it shouldn't matter what OS they use, as rdesktop seems to work great, and I can still access their desktop via VNC if there's a problem. Printers are network printers, and with only a few exceptions none have an attached local parallel printer. A complete switch to linux is out of the question, as we have an old ERP system which must run on windows and is not the most stable program on the planet, so an emulator is out of the question. It runs ok in terminal services though so for those who rarely use it, linux could work.

My thinking is the cost savings of licensing a windows OS as well as antivirus licenses, and the fact that linux appears to run faster on an older box better than win2k will give me some more leverage with the older machines. We don't have a budget so we buy machines as needed and the remote locations get them last since they don't need to run anything other than remote desktop.

Any problems with this strategy? Is this even enough of a deployment to bother with? Other things I should consider?

Thanks-
Brian

6 replies

by jaqui

recommed testing the connectivity with your servers for this.
you may find that the ms protocols don't allow the use of linux in this environment.

general workstation yup it can be done.

through terminal services system with older proprietary software, maybe not.

by banderson

in the same manner as I would deploy in a remote office through terminal services and it appears to operate just fine, no worries. Even our ERP system works fine in remote over linux.

I'm going to continue testing to make sure I'm not forgetting anything before I deploy, then perhaps only one or two at our closest office first. Then, if all is well, start moving more out.

Thanks Jaqui!
Brian

by apotheon

Check out rdesktop. It's an open source unix client for Windows Terminal Services and Remote Desktop. It's a worthwhile way to wean people off Windows: use a single Windows server as an application server for the occasional necessity of something that only runs natively on Windows.

by banderson

I've been using rdesktop both here at work and at home for the last couple of weeks to test how well it works with our Windows 2000 Terminal Server and I find that so far it works great. There are a couple of differences I notice on the administrative side of things, but the average user isn't going to be logging on to other remote sessions (for support reasons) from within rdesktop. The absence of the tab at the top of the screen which is present in microsoft's remote desktop takes a bit of getting used to, but perhaps that might make this more of a seamless transition, as the end users will just think they are using Windows.

Thanks-
Brian

by bdragomir

Brian,
I admire your courage of switching to a better environment, I do not see any problem on using a windows VM on a Linux platform for your ERP server, talking about cost savings Linux is free( deoends what you are using-i.e Debian, vs. RedHat) depends how linux savy are you, VM can run most of your M$ servers on a single box (save hardvare price, hosting expenses). Just think that you are also another security layer on top of what you have)...

by noller1

The best way to experiment is to get them out there.Just remember Linux has many services and fetures to explore, I would recomend setting one up with every thing installed and turned on, then back it down to where you want it.It is a good idea to use the "10 things" as a guiedline.

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