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Polling Place: How are you using Linux i

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by brian.stamour

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I am in the process of identifying customer service and support requirements for the Linux operating system. Please respond with whatever input you may have.

Thank you

Brian St. Amour

3 replies

by andrew.jewell

Each distribution has its own particular requirements, in addition to those of the components being run. You have to do this in the context of the distribution you will be supporting.

Some important things to consider are:

1) Hardware compatability and driver support
2) Security and Software Updates
3) User issues, i.e. passwords, file security etc.
4) Software configuration accross multiple hardware configurations. XFree86 is an example of where this may cause problems, as different video cards have different requirements and levels of suppot. Many other programs have these types of problems. If all an organization's PC are not the same, you have to know how to deal with this.
5) Role of the systems employed, i.e. workstation, server, firewall etc. A server is usually set up differently to a workstation.
6) Networking issues. Linux mnetworking doesn't resemble Windows networking very much.
7) Integration into the existing hardware landscape: how will the Linux machines interact with the other machines in the organization?

I could go on longer, but I'll run out of room. By your e-mail, am I to assume that you work for HP? Surely you must have Linux/Unix techies there?

by brian.stamour

andrew:

Thank you very much for you feedback. My intent is to identify user requirements from real folks like yourself. What type of service and support requirements/user needs do you think you would need. Please advise

by stuart_at_oz

What sort of support are you talking about?

Is this an out of the box PC with Linux (of what ever flavour) preinstalled and configured?

Or are you talking about general support for Linux (of one or any flavour)?

Or support for one flavour, on specific machines only?

A little more background as to why you are asking would make it easier to put the question in context.

Personally, I would loove to see more support for Winmodems, but seeing as most manufacturers that make them aren't too interested in Linux, I will probably have to experiment with packages from linmodem.org or wait.......... and wait.....

Stuart

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