Forum Moderators: bakedjake
Press power on
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errr...thats it!
I am now a fully fledged member of the Linux commuinity. :)
Very positive so far. At the stage of assessing it for business use [software costs can start to add up!] it looks to be a contender. Most of what we do is very straightforward, all processes are web based, if we can find a good solid platform then a lot of $ can be saved.
I would give it the NFFC 5 star award :)
My first idea was to set up a separate box and begin getting comfortable with it over time. However, I noticed a few of the different nix sites sais that you could install it along side Win and run them both. From a practicality standpoint, Having both OS's on the same machine would work much better.
Is anyone doing this? If there is, are there any problems that may pop up that aren't mentioned?
One of my machines is configured with dual boot, windows and Linux. I see no difference from the machines where I run pure Linux. This particular machine was a windows only box, used for windows games and apps. I repartitioned using the partition app included with the Linux distro (the entire disk was a 20 gig FAT32 partition).
All went without a hitch. The FAT32 partition was reduced to 10 gig and the other 10 gig I allocated as an EXT2 partition for Linux. Now here's the really cool part. If you set up a box in this way, Linux can access and read the files on your FAT partition, so all of your windows files can be opened by Linux's various apps, like the Office suite, text editor's, HTML editors, etc. so you don't have to re-boot just to have a look at or work on some file that is sitting on the Windows system.
I don't think you will find it a problem, they all [windows,mac,etc] work a *very* similar way on a user level. You could put a staff member in front of a mandrake box and they would be hard pressed to notice much of a difference, it is a very graphical and familiar enviroment.
> install it along side Win and run them both
With mandrake that is an option at install, it will create a seperate partition and allow the exsisting windows setup to remain. In my case I decided to just go for it and dispense with windows.
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>The FAT32 partition was reduced to 10 gig and the other 10 gig I allocated as an EXT2 partition for Linux.
Don't let Air throw you with the geek speak, you just have to click yes or no.:)
Fast, stable, easy to use, in short a cracking OS. The only problem I have had is that there is so much software availible that the mind boggles, almost anything you need is out there and for FREE.
We will be slowly migrating the office over to Linux over the next few weeks, that may present a few challenges but the rewards are high for any business. The pure cost savings on software alone are compelling but couple this with the increased productivity from a fast and stable OS and it makes it a "no brainer" choice.
I'll let you know how we get on.
How about doing so at the same time [webmasterworld.com]? ;)
We have a couple of additional staff coming on board, in our business staff equates to hardware+software=$. We are not adverse to spending money but we try and avoid fixed overheads at all costs. We view a Microsoft software solution as a fixed overhead, if we do zero business we still need to pay the costs. With each additional staff member this overhead increases and can start to get out of synch with the other fixed overheads, software and the need for better hardware to run it could become our largest overhead.
So, enter Linux. We brought a couple of new machines with the intention of moving the old ones over to Linux, duel booting linux/windows on one other and [forgive me] trying to work out how Apple are still in business [brand new G4, oh my, oh my!].
The stage was set, a bunch of new machines and Internet access, lets see what can be achieved............
