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The Almighty Buck Software Linux

Linux for Non-Profits? 67

Posted by Cliff from the gentle-advocacy dept.
Glowing Fish asks: "I am volunteering for a non-profit that is currently in the process of giving away grants of systems (some using Linux and some without an OS) to various non-profit organizations. One of the problems is that many of these organizations have a somewhat skewed version of what they need, thinking they need Pentium IV systems with 100s of megs of RAM with Windows XP installed. I have been given the job of politely explaining that for most non-profit organizations, it is not necessary to have this type of computing power. What is the best (and politest) way to explain to people that they don't really need this type of computing investment? Without Microsoft-bashing, how would you explain the ever spiraling relationship between RAM and OS bloat? What type of systems would you suggest to a non-profit organization for office work, and why?"
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Linux for Non-Profits? More

Linux for Non-Profits?

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  • It's simple (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24, 2003 @05:45PM (#7304663)
    Tell em beggars can't be choosers, and this is the computer they're getting. If they can't deal with it, they can go elsewhere. This is what my parents told me, and I've turned out well.

    • Re:It's simple (Score:3, Interesting)

      by wolf- ( 54587 )
      Arg. You beat me to that line.
      And you are absolutely correct.

      We get a lot of kit in from our small business customers at the end of a hardware cycle. Instead of just dumping them, we renew them and the company gets a charitable write off.

      I remember one group that was real particular about what was donated. Today, they still only have one machine in their office. They turned down a series of PIII machines in excellent shape.

      Their loss.

      In today's world, a light office only requires a nice linux instal

  • Non profit = need for free OS (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @05:49PM (#7304699) Homepage Journal
    Non profit organizations have no business going and buying expensive software like Windows. Unless they plan on using Warez, the obviously cheapest solution for an organization that probably won't have a lot of money lying around is to use Linux. Seems like common sence to me.
    • I'm all for pushing Linux for all potential users, but non-profits can get Microshaft software at a **substantial** discount. They should still try to determine if the reduced cost is worth it, but the price you or I (don't) pay for Windoze and office applications from Micro$oft isn't what they're paying.
    • Non-profits need to get the maximum amount of their money into doing what they do : if other solutions are better (Mac/Custom Hardware/Playstation) for their work they should get those.
      Bear in mind that non-profits may rely on volunteer computer support, who are likely to be less adept at linux or other OSS than Windows. Plus if you force unsuitable things on people they will hate it.
      If I were you (parent) I would get people to bid for computer roles - EG - Office desktop machine, accounts computer, fileser
    • Non profit organizations have no business going and buying expensive software like Windows. Unless they plan on using Warez, the obviously cheapest solution for an organization that probably won't have a lot of money lying around is to use Linux. Seems like common sence to me.

      You state this as if it's a hard rule, but it's clear that you haven't done that much work with non-profit organizations. Non-profits work a little differently than for-profit companies. Although arguably they should be run like

    • Unless they plan on using Warez, the obviously cheapest solution for an organization that probably won't have a lot of money lying around is to use Linux. Seems like common sence to me.

      Mmm, yes, and thereby restrict their pool of volunteers to the Unix-savvy? Out in the real world, we have a thing called a cost-benefit analysis. This means that cheap isn't always better if cheap can't do what you want it to. You think a non-profit has the time and resources to retrain people who in all likelihood already
      • Mmm, yes, and thereby restrict their pool of volunteers to the Unix-savvy?

        Have you actually USED a modern Linux Distro? It's not any harder (or really even much different) than Windows for the sorts of things these folks normally do. That's especially true for non profits where they hardly ever even have two machines with the same flavor of Windows on them.

        Open office is all well and good, but it lacks key features of MS Office and StarOffice, such as Windows metrically-equivalent fonts.

        Someone who
  • We are going to GIVE you a leg up on technology.

    Beggars cannot be choosers.

    If you don't like what we are offering, get stuffed.

    Sometimes the truth hurts but needs to be said.

    If you want something else, go ask Bill to donate something to you.

  • Tell them the truth, simply. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's about what they want the computer to do.

    And while Intel, Microsoft hype might actually be accurate if they were buying the computer to play DooM 3, their functions are a little bit different.

    It's like a car commercial, F350 are nice if you've got an gigantic boat to tow, and need to haul a ton construction materials while having room for your diamond plate tool boxes, but if you just need to get around town, buy groceries etc, it's not the best choice, and far from the best value.

    Basically, you're s
  • Seup open office and have them do anything they can think of doing than show them that the CPU stays at a ~x% rate. That they have 8-12x more power than they need already.
    • That won't work so well. They'll still see it spiking occasionally, because the CPU will do things as fast as it can. The point is that they don't NEED it to go as fast as it can, but I'd be willing to bet your little experiment wouldn't quite work.

      All it would take would be one little 100% spike and the user would go "See?! I need 3.0ghz!". When possible, rig a demonstration, and when not, at least ensure that chance won't screw you.

      • Yeah, that's all well and good, but these people aren't really going to realize what the squiggly line means. Showing them the CPU utilization is a waste of time, let along rigging a demo. I can already see their eyes glazzing over as soon as there's something other than Word, "The Internet", or Solitare on the screen.

        On the other hand, I don't think it's a crime to be intentionally vauge of what you're giving these charaties, esp. if you're going to the trouble of doing the installs & LAN set-ups.

  • If I were introducing Linux to the newbie, and expected them to be productive, I would install Mandrake Linux, or Redhat Linux (depending on how much you expect them to want to install a posteriori, or in addition to what comes with the install CD's).

    I would of course use OpenOffice.org, which has come quite a long way in terms of usability and compatibility (I even use it as my defacto word processor now).

    I would splurge and buy Opera web browser for Linux, however, even though Mozilla is nice, I just

  • What will they need the software to DO? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DesScorp ( 410532 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @06:13PM (#7304893) Journal
    The first cardinal rule of informatin technology is that it's there serve us, and make things more productive (and preferably easier). If they have a requirement that mandates MS software, than that's that. If they're using Great Plains financial stuff, for instance, they have no choice.

    Now, if they don't have any esoteric requirements, then your advocacy becomes much easier. Assuming that their needs are small, tell them:

    * Older machines have plenty of computing power if they're not used for things like high end games or Photoshop.

    * Linux and other free software comes with no strings attached (we're talking end user here, not code. No need to confuse them about that).

    * That the free software is easy to use. Show them modern window managers and the Webmin app.

    * Explain that Microsoft is not "computers" or the "Internet", and that many other platforms can fill their needs. This one is important. You'd be amazed how many people think you can't use the Internet without Windows.

    * Demonstrate KDE/Gnome, OpenOffice, and Mozilla to them. Show them that they work pretty much like similar Windows up. Go through it with them from bootup to shutdown, to put them at ease and make them feel comfortable with the software.

    * Explain that this kind of software comes from volunteers, and that, should they need help, or even some coding, that volunteer spirit might come into play. People are willing to work on their own time for a good cause.

    * Point out the flexibility that this software gives them; freedom to use it however they like, with no worry of licensing issues, flexibility to expand their capabilities as they're able, without fear of the Business Software Alliance knocking on the door going "Let's see those licenses".

    * Perhaps most importantly, point out the business that use Linux and other free software as successful examples, to stress that Linux/Open Source isn't a fringe product. When people see organizations they know about using Linux, it helps put them at ease.

    * Point out the security benefits; far fewer vulnerabilities, and they won't be running virus traps.

    * NICELY point out that "beggars can't be choosers". This is a fallacy, because they can choose not to use any computers at all. If you care about the mission of the organization, and you want them to adopt used computers and OS software to help them succeed, persuade them, don't deride them. As Winston Churchill said, "A fly will be more attracted to a spoonfull of sugar than a bucketfull of bile".

  • Simple (Score:3, Interesting)

    by skinfitz ( 564041 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @06:17PM (#7304927) Journal
    Simply show them a lowish spec machine setup the way you would configure it and let them play with it for a bit. Explain the lack of cost - this normally gets people's attention.
  • Computers are cheap, people are expensive.

    Suppose a non-profit is using volunteers who are familiar with Windows. Do you force them to learn Linux? Not if you want to keep them. They're volunteering so they can feel good about themselves. One or two frustrating software problems can easily cancel this good feeling out.

    Suppose the computer users are paid employees who are familiar with Windows. Maybe person X gets $30K/year. If, over the lifetime of the computer, that person wastes a week of time learning
    • You make some good points, but you are making some assumptions:

      1) The non-profit has money to pay staffers, rather than relying on volunteers.
      2) No techie experts are volunteering for the non-profit.

      If you have a surfeit of human resources, and very little equipment, then open source makes a lot of sense.

      My impression is that these non-profits receiving the donated computers are generally short on cash. If they have 30,000 to pay a staffer, then they likely have a few hundred to spare for a computer.

      But
      • > My impression is that these non-profits receiving the donated computers are generally short on cash. If they have 30,000 to pay a staffer, then they likely have a few hundred to spare for a computer.

        Not necessarily. Budgets for projects from funding agencies are sometimes very inflexible and have weird rules. The problem for a NP is, its not really their money. The dudes who gave it to them are looking over their shoulders and balk if they see purchases which look to them like luxuries or toys. For go
      • I addressed the volunteer situation first, because I am more familiar with it.

        Volunteers still need to be paid, they get paid with the belief that they have made a difference, and contributed something good. You can't afford to train them, and they are very sensitive to anything that can interfere with the good feeling they receive. If they're forced to learn new software, and they aren't unusually technically savvy, you're liable to significantly reduce the probability of them volunteering again.
    • The $200+ for the OS and another $50 plus a yearly subscription for anti-virus software are not small potatoes for a non-profit, especially if they are getting multiple-computers. If you have 10 linux-based computers there running OpenOffice, they should naturally develop some in-house expertise. If all they're doing is starting up and opening OpenOffice, there's really not that much to it.

      If they have Windows and don't constantly check their security bulletins or accidentally open the wrong Outlook att

    • "Suppose the computer users are paid employees who are familiar with Windows. Maybe person X gets $30K/year. If, over the lifetime of the computer, that person wastes a week of time learning about Linux, it was a bad decision."

      That's false, I fail to see where you come up with that math. A week would be a small price to pay. Windows system are expensive to keep up, they break constantly, and that isn't even considering the licensing cost. On average from experience working with both solutions I'd guesti
      • "On average from experience working with both solutions I'd guestimate in the course of a year the average windows system has over a week of downtime compared with about an hour for the average linux system."

        This is an absurd and unsupportable accusation. Very few of the millions upon millions of people who used Windows for business last year lost a week of productivity due to their operating system. The director of the non-profit most likely has not had such an experience. By contrast, there are dozens of
        • From your responses it's apparent we are debating, but not the same issue. I'm debate the fact of the superior solution, you are debating the non-profits perceptions which has nothing to do with reality.

          The only point I'll debate is the one point in which we are both discussing fact.

          "This is an absurd and unsupportable accusation. Very few of the millions upon millions of people who used Windows for business last year lost a week of productivity due to their operating system. The director of the non-profi

    • I can't tell you how many times you run into the very same kinds of issues EVEN WITH COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE. Want help for Microsoft Windows? Oh sure, you can call someone, but be sure you whip out that credit card first. Then there's the issue of whether or not your call will lead to the ever-popular recommendation to get rid of the problem by reinstalling Windows.

      Ever been caught in the middle of two vendors, both pointing their fingers at each other, claiming that it's the "other guy" responsible for the p
  • I've been asked this question a million times, albeit in a slightly different form - "What kind of computer should I get?" To give a good answer you need to understand what they're going to be using it for. If all they want is to do some simple web browsing and word processing, you can show them how easy that is to do on a Pentium-100. If they need to run AutoCAD or something like that, then maybe they DO need a P-IV.

    And if you're going to give them old Pentium 100's, you're going to have to find a source

    • "do some simple web browsing and word processing, you can show them how easy that is to do on a Pentium-100"

      Unless they have broadband or faster, in which case you might as well give them a high end PII or a PIII that will have a newer harddrive and gettable ram. Since that P-100 would need a new ide controller and hard drive and EDO ram (aka solid gold) just to render the pages as fast as a new computer. You could simply buy a better used machine for that $270 worth of additional hardware.

      "Where would y
      • Nonsense. A P100 is perfectly capable of rendering pages with a very decent speed. It will take quite a while on really big pages though, but most people don't load the whole mySQL documentation as a single html file.

        Add enough RAM (say, 256MB) and it should work well enough for any website. The performance problem will come from excessive use of Java, JavaScript and Flash, not HTML rendering.
  • My idea? Bring in a 300-600MHZ laptop with 128MB RAM, running Linux. Show them an office suite, some 3D and some screensavers. If you can, show them the same types of things under Windows. Let them see that it's not a big deal.

  • Two things (Score:2, Insightful)

    by TeXMaster ( 593524 )
    There are two things you should keep in mind. Ok, three actually
    1. I'd say they would/should go for OpenOffice.org; now, OpenOffice.org needs X and is not very "lean and mean". This means they do need some RAM and CPU power. As far as the RAM goes, 128 would probably suffice, but if you can go for 256 please do; more than that is most probably not needed. For the CPU, also consider the next point.
    2. The choice is somewhat limited by what you can find around. I doubt you can get anything less than a PIV thes
    • Except on point one he is right there. Point one is not technicaly correct (except in terms of point 2 and 3), you could easily run a PIV with 256mb ram as a terminal server and serve to 20 clients.
  • Why is explaining Linux to people working for a nonprofit distinct from, or harder than, explaining it to anyone else? I've worked for nonprofits, for-profits and the federal government - I never noticed a generalized difference in average computer literacy OR overall intelligence amongst them.

    I think most people can grasp:
    - Commercial software costs a lot of money, partly because of the advertising they do. It's inefficient and requires some heavy-duty hardware to run.
    - free software does not cost money

  • What a Np needs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tigersha ( 151319 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @06:47PM (#7305140) Homepage
    Unlike most of the other posters here, I work for a non-profit as sysadmin and have for several years.

    Here are some comments.

    First, the cost of scrounging for parts and fixing up and mucking about and getting your time wasted with older machines is quite often more than the cost of just bloody buying a new one. A new Pentium wazoo with all the bells and whistles costs maybe, what, 500 Dollars? If you go for a slightly older machine such as a 1Ghz Duron or Celeron you can get a powerhouse for half that which is pretty OK, but which does not have wear and tear on the harddisks, which has enough space and which will not self-destruct from heat fatigue next week. And is under warranty, which comes in handy when it does blow up.

    Yes, Staroffice or whatever runs OK on a 500Mhz Pentium III. But that same second-hand Pentium III is going to have an old harddisk which is going to croak sometimes. Older machines are finicky about the RAM they take. Try to make it work with a USB scanner is going to cause more fuss than its worth.

    Most non-profits have a LOT of interaction with funding agencies and such things. These people ALL use Word. In such a case your staff will balk (legitimately) if your office program is "pretty OK" with interoperating with Word. After OpenOffice f^Hmucked up a document for for the third time (even only slightly) when it got passed around to someone in some agency with Word it really gets pretty damn annoying for both you and the guy who decides if you get the money or not.

    Non-profits do publications and presentations and such. Someone mentioned Gimp. Gimp is a toy. If you want to real publications you need a vector drawing program and page layout program anyways. Despite Scribus, the only choices here are Quark (mucho expensive) and Indesign (pretty expensive, but cheper than Quark, but not used outside very much. See interaction with others above). Photoshop blows Gimp out of the water over and again and Photoshop Elements is a damn fine program and not expensive at all.

    Another problem is that, unlike a corporation, a non-profit's gifts tend to be a rather, em, interesting mix of several different kinds of machines with different parts and makes which makes maintenance a problem.

    Linux does have a good role to play for servers though. All our servers run it and its really better than Windoze at working on older computers.

    A super fast machine at a non-profit does have a use for machines that gets shared by several users, such as a fileserver.

    So, basically, giving older machines to non-profits is a nice gesture but the extra maintenance and effort to keep a bunch of old somewhat cranky machines with hard-to get parts that do not always play nice with modern equipment is something to keep in mind. The cost of keeping admin staff to maintain is probably not worth it.

    .
    • I replaced a friends P100 32MB win95 with a P400 64MB Redhat 9

      The redhat 9 desktop was deathly slow and always swapping. It was about 10 times slower than the old machine.

      I add another 128MB of RAM and now its just 2-3 times slower than win95.

      I'm going to install a cheap copy of win98 on that box and get rid of linux.

      2 years ago I set my PC up to dual boot linux ready to make the switch.
      I have My Documents on a FAT32 disk that is also mounted from linux so I can use openoffice on them from either linux
      • Ok, my comment was mostly directed against old hardware, but we use Linux extensively for our servers. For something that only a techie is suposed to touch this is probably better (no idiot PHB fiddling around with Windows server because he is scared is a good thing :).

        One thing to keep in mind with Redhat is that it installs a lot of servers in the background such as sendmail and such which is not win windows which tends to be a killer. My Linux machie is vastly faster than Windoze XP, but its also a fast
      • I'm going to install a cheap copy of win98 on that box and get rid of linux.

        If you don't have any requirement to use Win98 (eg: freaky old DOS software) then I'd strongly advise using NT4. It'll be pretty much as fast and a thousand times more stable. Heck, even Win2k or XP (sans the new eyecandy) is tolerable on a machine of that spec - my mother's computer is fast enough to use for all the things she does.

  • A another poster mentioned, there is not much need to get the hottest equipment. Nonprofits should do what they can to spend as little as possible. That said...

    Many nonprofits (i.e. a 501(c)(3)) get a deal from Microsoft. Office costs ~$75/ea. Windows server is $150. CALs for server is $10. You get the idea.

    Some stores such as Tigerdirect have recent-model PCs with XP Pro preinstalled for $600 with a three year warranty. Add an LCD and you have a $1000.00 low-energy computer that's easy on the eyes
    • except for a few things. Windows requires significantly more work to keep running. It's a security risk. You have to deal with viruses. And you only have to train an employee once. Whereas you have to replace computers and spend the $100 per machine again over and over and over again.

      • $100 per machine again over and over and over again.

        True. Which means that I will be spending $500 extra during budget year 2004 to keep up with the new staff. In an organization with 70 employees that's not much... and when the boss doesn't consider $500 a barrier then there's little to push us to go all OSS.

        Windows requires significantly more work to keep running.

        Cold, hard facts, please. I don't visit my workstations unless the user has a question or the hardware fails. Hardware failure is not a

        • "True. Which means that I will be spending $500 extra during budget year 2004 to keep up with the new staff. In an organization with 70 employees that's not much... and when the boss doesn't consider $500 a barrier then there's little to push us to go all OSS."

          That's one way to look at it, another is that's $7500 that should be finding better use in the budget.

          "Did I mention I used linux in front of the network to filter mail, etc? Besides, it is just as easy to admin a Linux network poorly as it is to ad

          • but whichever clear winner you come up with it's surely not windows

            I agree, Windows is not a clear winner for most situations. It's not perfect. I don't apologize or defend it. But my network doesn't exibit the plethora of problems I read about here on /. or other places.

            Did I mention Wintel makes my boss feel warm and fuzzy? It's hard to put a price on that. ;-)

            I didn't mention that our major application -- the one that the entire organization runs on -- requires SQL Server. There truely are no rep

    • Outside the country, MS gives no discounts. And it's there where discounts are likely needed the most.

  • Non-profits, old HW, etc. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by baka_boy ( 171146 ) <<lennon> <at> <day-reynolds.com>> on Friday October 24, 2003 @07:22PM (#7305369) Homepage
    Get one high-quality, reasonably-fast server box. Maybe two, if you've got the cash. Install a good UPS, RAID array, and backup drive (tape, CD-R, whatever). That box will run server daemons for POP/IMAP, NFS/SMB (for home directories), and whatever web-based business apps (timecard system, issue tracker, whatever) they need.

    Then, accept whatever client systems you can get that will boot from CD with at least SVGA graphics support, and run everything as a "thick" client. Rip out the hard drives, or use them for little more than swap, browser cache, and tempfiles. When a client machine dies, don't troubleshoot it, just replace it with another one from the pile in the closet. Depending on the size of the office and resource requirements of the apps they use,

    Yes, the whole system takes some setup. Once it gets running, though, the whole system should require about as much maintenance as your average web server. And the client systems are completely disposable.
  • No they don't need the horsepower (or aren't likely to at any rate), but they DO need the newer hardware.

    I'm forced everyday to explain to companies that bought used computers because they "don't need anything that fast" why they have to upgrade sooner than someone who bought new. You don't have to buy high end, but you do have to buy new. Why? Because I don't have a ready supply of EDO ram these days, no I don't stock your AT power supplies sorry, nope no ISA slots here buddy and no ISA cards either. PC
    • No, but by then you could ghost the harddrives to the old P4s you're going to have lying around. :) I would love to experiment with the AlphaServer we have sitting in the storage room (preacher), or fix the Sun Enterprise E250 whose processor fan broke (curtis). But why do that when we could just buy a $1000 Sun Fire V100?

      Instead I replaced my SPARCstation 20 (hamlin) with a PII-400 Dell server running Solaris 9 x86 (gobi). I'd love to run Linux but I still need more time to absorb the ins and outs of it.

    • I can understand your point of view, since it sounds almost as if you make most of your money on markups of new parts.

      However, I can get buy Pentium Pro and Pentium II systems by the skid at auction and pay $1-5 per box. I think your pessimism is valid in cases where the customer comes running to your cash register waving a credit card, and less so when it's a non profit that has volunteer labor and might even have a few computer geeks hanging around.
  • Maybe this info can help you: http://k12ltsp.org/phpwiki/index.php/Hardware Ace (www.suares.com)

  • Give them a solution, not specs (Score:3, Informative)

    by toast0 ( 63707 ) <slashdotinducedspam@enslaves.us> on Sunday October 26, 2003 @05:20AM (#7312804)
    Find out what they want to do with the computer, not the specs they (think they) want.

    Then provide a computer that will do everything they want to do; or tell them you don't have the raw material to do it.

    If they still insist they need a P4000, with 50 Gig of ram, explain to them how you figured the p2 over there w/ 128 meg of ram will do everything they need, and ask them to explain why they need a p4000.

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