Can Windows, OS X and Fedora All Work Together? 375
greymond writes "In my ever growing job responsibilities, I've recently been tasked with documenting our organization's IT infrastructure, primarily focusing on cost analysis of our hardware leases and software purchases. This is something that has never been done in our organization before and while it's moving along slowly, I'm already seeing some places where we could make improvements. Once completed, I see this as an opportunity to bring up the topic of migrating the majority of our office from Windows 7 to Linux and from Exchange to Gmail. However, this would result in three departments each running a different system: Windows, OS X, and most likely Fedora. Has anyone worked in or tried to set up an environment like this? What roadblocks did you run into? Is this really feasible or should I just continue to focus on the cutbacks that don't require OS changes? (The requirement for having three different systems is that the vast majority of our administration, who rely solely on an install of Microsoft Windows, Word and Excel, are savvy enough that if they came in and saw Gnome running on Fedora with Open Office they'd pick it up fast. However, our marketing department is composed entirely of Apple systems, and the latest Adobe Creative Suite doesn't seem to all work under Wine. The biggest issue is with the Sales department though, as they rely on a proprietary sales platform that is Windows only — and generally, sales personal give the biggest push back when it comes to organizational changes.)"
Integrate Mac OS X & Linux auth. and file shar (Score:1, Informative)
See Serving Apples, http://magazine.redhat.com/2008/01/17/serving-apples-integrating-mac-os-x-clients-into-a-fedora-network/, for a description of one technique to integrate Mac OS X and Linux authorization, authentication and file sharing.
Re:hahaha (Score:2, Informative)
When was the last time Gmail was taken down by a virus? Or a power outage? Or a hardware failure?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/160153/gmail_outage_marks_sixth_downtime_in_eight_months.html
Re:hahaha (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)
Why do you want to get rid of Exchange for GMail?
Outlook's a horrid mail client. I'd actually say that Outlook 2010 is significantly worse than 2003.
Re:Short anwer: no (Score:3, Informative)
+1 to this.
OP: Can you get all those things to work together? Sure, technically it is possible. What you are naively not weighing is the office politics.
Will the people who work at the company hate and/or fire you? Bet on it. Understand that if there is any problem with (for example) GMail, and I mean any problem, up to and including any problem that would have happened the exact same way in Exchange, it will be your fault in the eyes of anyone who matters. Random VP can't play Minesweeper because you swapped his Windows 7 box for a Linux box? He will hate your guts. He will find reasons why the switch was a shitty business decision even if he has to fabricate them. He will share these reasons with people above your pay grade and you will never have a chance to defend yourself.
Will the IT people at the company attempt to kill you? Likely. This is still true if you're the IT department.
Management want simple answers (Score:2, Informative)
And whatever you du: Do NOT propose anything that require more work. You will not get more staff. You will not get more time to do it. In the end you will be the one paying for the savings.
I agree completely (Score:3, Informative)
Difference for the sake of difference is not progress. Unless you're improving something, don't force your users to waste time learning a new system. If you've already paid for software that people are getting use out of, just leave it alone. This is one thing that frustrates me with a lot of technology companies, they just innovate in circles, recreating existing features and rebranding the same old services, merely making things different and forcing their users to adapt to a new system that offers no significant benefit.
Employee productivity should be a major goal of any good corporate IT force. Not all problems have technological solutions, many have human solutions. You need to include the human factor in your problem solving, and if this means sending out an e-mail asking for feedback or walking around the office talking to folks about what problems they encounter and what features they don't understand, then do it.
This is a main difference between an IT department that people hate, and an IT department that people love.
Re:Realistic Answer: Dumbass (Score:3, Informative)
Another post that needs a "-1 Uninformed" moderation.
GMail isn't a free service for corporations. Google offers a paid, supported version for corporate customers. But even the free service is way better than Outlook; I've been using Outlook at work since 2000, and I'd pick Gmail any time. Outlook is slow and cumbersome to use, and Exchange servers always seem to have problems (sure, you can blame that on the in-house IT staff, but I've seen far fewer outages with Gmail). And "collaboration options"? In Outlook? What are you talking about?
As for him being fresh out of college, I don't know what college he went to, but in my reading, it seems like most colleges and universities these days are locked into Windows, and even teach only MS technologies in their CS departments.
Go Slowly (Score:5, Informative)
The last transition I ran (had to leave due to personal reasons) was looking like it was ultimately going to fail.
Why?
OpenOffice - found several critical bugs (all fixed now) that kept people from being able to work effectively
Intel video drivers - found a fun critical bug whenever they plugged into a projector
Didn't have control over what other groups bought as software (big one, make sure management is actually willing to back you up)
* think hard about this one, is there anyone (manager) in the company that will end up buying something without consulting you and who no one wants to go against...
The 3 OSes can easily coexist. Here's how I would go forward:
Don't touch the different platforms at first, start with the applications.
* Web browsers - make sure everyone is running firefox. I found out that 1 person was using IE6 for an important project. they hadn't mentioned it, even when asked directly. Solution: Block Internet explorer access, (I forced the person to move to IE8, yay for small victories)
having people complain when you have it blocked on Windows is much better than having people complain when they are now on Linux. (They will blame Linux)
* Best in class applications - DON'T start with OpenOffice. Make open source applications a regular part of discussions for new software. Evaluate other software you use for open source applications. Make sure they are successful.
* Make sure the other people in IT actually want this change.
* Move them to Linux/OpenOffice and observe problems over at least 1 full release of Fedora, trying to get problems fixed for the next one
* Transition office to OpenOffice on all machines (have just installed first, then default, then uninstall MS Office - very important) watch for issues over at least 6 months
* Transition office to Linux
Yes, this is more like a 2 year plan. But well. Go Slowly. :)
One other point, if anyone wants to move over let them, and help them do it. If they are choosing to switch they could be very very helpful down the road.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)
Agreed. I followed the link back to your original post from June where you said it'd been a while since you worked this much with Linux, and it sounds like you've already got your hands full. Seriously, I applaud your desire to show some initiative (and I wish you worked here for that!), but be very careful you don't bite off more than you can chew.
There are several posts here already asking you why you want to do this, considering the sunk costs in Exchange/Windows 7, so I won't repeat that lot. But if you're on Windows 7, that would seem to indicate you've only recently upgraded, and now you're talking about doing another migration. Think about the reaction from management to that, and have a really good justification if you do go that way. Lesson #1 in business technology case studies is your options always should include the "do nothing" approach, and consider the pros and cons. There'll be some disadvantages, of course, but it's a useful exercise in figuring out what the advantages are that your recommended course of action needs to beat.
The one other question I had which I didn't see answered in your June story was how big the company is, and how big a help desk you have. You're now talking about a significant increase in the technologies that your help desk will have to support. That's not easy or cheap. (Or are you the help desk? In which case, see my first paragraph about it sounds like you've got your hands full.)
I really don't want to sound negative, but these stories come up on /. from time to time and the comments always fly fairly thick and fast asking "why". Given the enthusiasm prevalent on this site for Linux and Gmail and so forth, that should hold some weight.
BTDT, got the pink slip (Score:3, Informative)
I've been there, done that, and gotten the pink slip. No, not literally - but I've looked into doing things like this in the past.
Consider for a second why you want to do this before you approach it, as well as the added overhead of maintaining multiple, divergent systems.
As for Exchange -> Gmail... why? Seems like a (significant) downgrade to me, and I'm particularly un-fond of Exchange.
If you're considering multiple apps under WINE and completely abandon the existing OS, I suspect you're a bit of a fanatic (or simply inexperienced). You want to do something like this with baby steps. One application at a time!
What's the justification? Licensing costs? Avoiding malware? Reducing management overhead? What is your end goal?
The only conceivable time I can imagine moving common workstations to LInux right now is if you're running on ancient XP machines and/or the necessary applications are either minimal and do not necessarily require Windows, or you plan to move to something like XenApp for important Windows apps. Moving already-licensed W7 machines to Linux "just because" seems stupid unless there's a good time/money management reason for it.
IF you're silly enough to approach this, I suggest you look at user requirements - and then start replacing and/or migrating one thing at a time. If you want to get rid of Exchange, I suggest you look at that first, consider options, and do a migration only once you've figured out that it makes sense after considering all use-case scenarios.
Leave the sales force alone (Score:4, Informative)
Your job as the IT resource for the organization is to give the staff the tools that they need to do their job. Do the sales people want new tools, or are you trying to force new tools upon them? The sales staff pays your salary. As much as it sucks to hear it, that is the bottom line. They have a workflow and a way of doing things that is centered on the tools they have. Why are you trying to upset the apple cart?
Linux has matured to the point where if you are starting from scratch, it is a viable path to take. You can get the functionality you need at a fraction of the cost. Linux is not enough better than Windows (or OSX) to migrate onto it (for most organizations). If you like Linux, bring it in where you can. If you need to develop a new application, consider a LAMP stack instead of SQL and IIS. If your boss randomly starts whining about licensing costs for Office, suggest OpenOffice.
Do not take it upon yourself to "make things better" if you are the only person who seems to care. Let the users tell you what they need, and help guide them to the best solution. I have seen careers ruined by people who truly wanted to make things better, but were too caught up in their own heads to realize that nobody else seemed to care. They end up "solving" problems that do not need to be solved, and in the process create a lot of upset and headaches. Migrations are never simple. Often times going from one version of an application to another is a big enough headache, nevermind one OS to another.
Re:Short anwer: no (Score:3, Informative)
+1 This
95% of the industry is using Windows and Exchange/Outlook. All of the peers that your management will run into use them. All of the vendors that provide possible software or tools for your industry expect you to have them. Also, if you can't properly and easily manage Windows 7, with all of the great management tools and Group Policies that are available and information online and from Microsoft Press, it is a failing on your part as it is a great OS and I've had a great experience with it in a very large company (~2500 desktops).
If you do this, I can guarantee they will be sold on or want to do something and then you'll have to tell them that it can't work in your environment. They may want to hire somebody and have a hard time finding a person with the requisite Linux experience and/or will have to pay a fortune compared to the army of people with MS experience. A customer or vendor will expect to interact with them via Office 2010 documents and it won't work right. Every new employee will stare at the PC with a strange look and say "this is different from what I know." They will ask why. You'll say it was because of your decision to switch to Linux to save a pittance on licensing. They'll reply that none of their peers at other companies have done the same thing so why did we do that again? It will be your fault. Over and over again. Forever.
At the very least, you need to quantify in your business case all of the flexibility that you are taking away of any future IT decision by dumping the Microsoft OS ecosystem so everybody understands that from the beginning and can't pretend like they didn't later.
People really don't get fired for choosing Microsoft - especially on the desktop. At the end of the day it is the industry standard and "best practice" and since everybody else does it they can't point at you in the event anything goes wrong and make out like you did something crazy/stupid choosing it which makes you grossly negligent in your job.
Re:Why? (Score:1, Informative)
PHB mode here:
What ROI would you get by this?
If you had a new division that was starting fresh, or a new branch office somewhere, then this makes sense. Have an Active Directory presence, some Exchange servers for E-mail, some terminal servers running Citrix, and the rest of the desktops can be on the OS of choice. If it is an already entrenched division, there will be not just swapping out the OS and applications, but getting users trained.
Don't forget application incompatibilities. Yes, OOo may be 99% compatible with Microsoft Office, but that 1% will bite you quite hard, especially when files move between office suites numerous suites that have complicated rules. There are also features one suite has that another doesn't.
Finally, what about enterprise level auditing? Do you have the tools to audit your Linux boxes? Better make sure of this.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
> Life is easy with Gmail.
That is, until your company is using Gmail and you are the one in charge of IT. Even when you pay Google instead of using the free service, frequent outages of a few minutes are excluded from Gmail SLA (and they happen often!) and as the IT guy you end up being overwhelmed by angry people asking you what is going on... while having no control at all, except refreshing a blog page on some Google server to see if there is more info regarding the duration of the outage.
Gmail is ok for a small business that does not rely on email, but the support model is not ready for bigger environments.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Use a long-term distro (Score:3, Informative)
A friend of mine tried this with her rather savvy users, but the churn in Fedora created too much work to keep up with. It worked fine, but they ended up switching to Ubuntu LTS for the longer support lifetime, since CentOS 5 was getting a little old. If you prefer the Fedora ecosystem, RHEL 6 was just released, and CentOS 6 will be out soon.