Has anyone deployed Linux to the desktop?

Sure I am testing out many of them right now.

http://www.livecdlist.com/?pick=Linux_x86&showonly=Desktop&sort=&sm=1

Pick one and have fun, the advantage of LiveCDs are that they don't touch your host Operating System at all.

I hope to write TR article about this soon, I have been asked to contribute, but I am awaiting feedback.

I primarily use Debian on a desktop and laptop. There are various tools available for large scale deployments, such as Kickstart on Redhat distros or Fully Automated Installer (FAI) on Debian. You can create a standard image and dd/cpio/tar it to a new system. If you do that, just modify the vfstab if needed, install the boot loader (GRUB or LILO), configure your network settings, and you're pretty much done.

Linux on the desktop has been stable and problem free compared with the various hassles I used to have with Win95/98.

For most internet usage, it works great. For applications, Openoffice or Abiword are very usable as an MS-Office replacement. Anything that requires java can run with Sun's java for Linux. Debian has packages to do most anything you need, unless it is a specific Windows program.

I've also setup Linux based desktops for new computer users. The nice thing about that is they are limited in the amount of damage they can do. Viruses and such are less of an issue.

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System Administration and Security information
http://SecurityBulletins.com/

Ever heard of Germany or Spain?

See http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=12611

I was the IT resource manager for a company whose network was mostly populated by Linux systems, including desktops, though I didn't have anything to do with the initial demployment -- they were already there when I arrived. I've deployed Linux server systems at several companies.

I'm also aware of some pretty dramatic examples of huge savings due to Windows-to-free-unix (including Linux and *BSD) migrations. For instance, one of my favorites is [url=http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html][b]Ernie Ball[/b][/url].

In Denmark I can site some, but a lot more exists:

Copenhagen university several institutes.
University of computer science.
Some hospitals, medical systems.
Several private schools. The city schools are lost, teachers are offered free education by Microsoft and schools pay next to nothing for programs. I won't comment on that tactic.
Copenhagen airport passenger information system.

Several cities in Germany, Norway and Finland. Some of these projects are started after all the bad press and misinformation about the Munich project.
I think I can remembert that the Scottish police, The Midland Police in England, and some schools in California employ full Lixux too.
Once I investigated the use of OpenOffice, and that was much more widespread than even I thought, and that was at least 3-4 years ago. Now when OO is at least 1-in-1 against MS Office, there's probably more.
And then there's China...
..and other places in the Far East, and don't make the mistake of brushing those off.

Some of the city projects have run into problems, but as far as I know, none of them have been stopped. There's benefit in moving from closed proprietary systems to open systems, that outweigh the initial costs. In France it is law that government of municipal systems must use open source products in new systems. Here it is not law, but "recommended" - that's the same.

We have a dual boot image of XP and Linux deployed at New Mexico Tech and I've not seen any issues.

Back in 1997 we had to have a homemade program that would image the machines via FTP. Then it migrated to kickstart with Red Hat 6.0. After that, I've no idea, but I would imagine the process kept getting more streamlined.

I wouldn't take too much notice of Birmingham, UK, City Council, there are serious doubts about the way the evaluation was conducted and unconfirmed reports of an "incentive" from a certain large software vendor. The vendor denies it, the city council is less clear. Never heard of "The Million Dollar Coffee Cup"?

As for wider use of desktop Linux, check with Linspire - they'll be more than happy to discuss their success with you, 10 minute installs and their revolutionary "Click and Run Warehouse" for application installation.

Personally, I prefer SuSE Linux Professional (not the Enterprise Server) for my desktop deployments but that's what I started with, so I'm comfortable with it.

George,

I do not administer large numbers of desktops, but I have been installing Ubuntu on a dozen machines for two charities. I also teach business applications at a university north and east of you. Let me add three items to the thread: business applications; ease of software installation, and three issues to anticipate.

APPLICATIONS--Your users are going to be in for a surprise. The open-source business tools are robust, feature rich, and almost identical in look and feel to Win-based tools. For example, Open Office has most of what a power user would need in a business suite. I have not yet evaluated Evolution, an email/calendar/PIM, but there is good support for synching to a Palm. You can get a number of other more specialised business apps from open source download and link sites; e.g. desktop publishing, vector graphics, image processing, CAD, image editing, project management, mind mapping, PDF creation, and so on. In fact, it might be a good time to introduce some of non OS-based wealth available via Web 2.0.

INSTALLATION--For my charities, I have been doing clean installs of WinXP and uBuntu. The differences could not be more dramatic. WinXP takes five to six hours to install, secure with patches and anti-malware, and finally load up with a full suite of applications. The Ubuntu install takes less than 30 minutes, and that time includes creating two extra partitions for a dual-boot OS system as well as patching and toping off with applications. The most jaw-dropping part is the support for old hardware. WinXP seems to have trouble with all kinds of older peripherals: keyboards, printers, MS's own mice, and so on. However, uBuntu recognizes and automatically installs everything. The best part is its ability to run like a demon in much less RAM. Other less-graphical distros do even better.

CAVEAT--I am long in the tooth, so UNIX file systems do not cause terror. However, they could be little rich for the average user. Moreover, my distro does not play well with NTFS, and looking for a Win volume in "Media" is not going to be a natural. Hence you should probably come up with solutions to two file-system problems. Create some version of "my docs" on the desktop, and map any local or remote volumes to it. Second, provide a network-centric solution as well, such as WebDAV or Samba-based system for storage.

Let me close, with one final caveat about change management. Busy people do not like change, even if it saves the firm boat loads of money. Their issues are pragmatic. Do the new tools save me time and effort? Will they make me more effective or efficient? Learning something new does neither immediately. Hence shoot for quick wins or value adds. Teach them how the business applications do what they need. Show them where they can tweak defaults to get what they had or want. Do a little consulting in advance to see if either new tools or a new approach can deliver business-process efficiencies or greater task effectiveness. Maybe teach users how to have fun with some of the new tools. For example, everyone is going to need to tweak X-mas photos. The GIMP could let them do a lot more. Hence sponsor a Flickr contest. Above all, cultivate the support of executive officers and team leaders.

Buena suerte.

That uses Linux exclusively in their main production area. They have about 50 Graphic Artists running off a 2K IBM Blade with SUSE on it. Been that way since they setup the place about 8 years ago now with only hardware replacements due to the Tax Cycle.

As they are all doing CG stuff they don't have a choice and they run with what works best as there currently isn't a Windows product that can come close to what these people do.

The only down side is that they use Windows on the Accounting side of the business and the Accountants seem to think that a Computer is a Computer so their IT Staff can fix the SUSE machines when there is a problem. They so far have failed dismally to achieve this and what should have been a 20 minute job to fix generally turns into several days of work because some M$ Junkie who doesn't know what they are doing messes everything up. Last time I was there I found SUSE had been removed from the Blade and it had been replaced with 2003 ES. I'm not sure just how much in licensing fees where paid to M$ for that Fiasco but it certainly didn't work and better still their Tech didn't know about the Spare Boot Drive that I have locked away there for emergency repairs. Now that he knows he's not allowed to even ask for the safe to be opened as they just don't trust him not to mess it up again.

Col

I have had an equal amount of lock-ups on OpenSuSE as well as Windows. Some Days Windows is worse, but some days Linux is a nightmare.

Granted, I probably could update some hardware and try things again, but I doubt Linux is going to take over my life. I remember I spent a good week trying to get Novell Desktop to load on a Dell CPx and couldn't because it kept mis-detecting the Video Card Drivers.

I took a year to answer this to see how things turned out.
In March of 2006 I had a customer "tired of spending so much on computers". After working with him a little we decided to take some used machines, install Red Hat Linux and use those for their network.
Now he has two networks, an in-house with no internet to meet his DOS needs and then a network that connects to the internet.
Well, he has removed the Linux boxes, connected busted junk Windows 98 machines to the Internet network because his people "couldn't use" the Linux boxes.
BTW, I offered the boxes for $100 with 1 hour of training per user and he never took me up on them. He has started using an employees kid for IT work ... you get the picture.
I figure I will see him again in a year and he will have to buy an entire new network and 15 to 20 computers and upgrade his DOS accounting / RMS system. But then again, you never know.