The Linux challenge

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I've found a prejudice which has definitely turned out to be NOT true!

Let me tell you about the Linux challenge

I've heard a lot of people say that in Latin America, things turn out to be a bit slower than they are in our incredibly fast european Brussels stress society. Admittedly, I think I did believe it myself. Well, it turns out that although things here do seem to be more relaxed, they are not necessarily slower.

REDES has been having some trouble with a virus, crashing the system and cutting the internet connection now and then. Yesterday evening, a very relaxed decision was taken to migrate all computers in the office to Linux. This morning, I was already presented with a complete migration plan (elaborated over night), with the process expected to be completed on the 2nd of June, i.e. in 6 weeks. And they do not even have a dedicated IT-person, just the odd Linux fan.

This might not seem like the quickest of processes, but for those of you not familiar with the discussions at the FoEE office in Brussels, let me briefly explain: we took the decision to migrate to Linux in January (or maybe it was February), it took us weeks to work out a first draft of a migration plan with a whole working group (yes, I am a member, or was until I escaped to Uruguay), encountered all kind of possible, potential, maybe-problems, re-drafted the draft plan (again, weeks later), decided to start with a few guinea-pig computers.... in short: to date, we have approximately one computer in the whole FoEE office running on Linux. The Latin Americans are overtaking us very relaxedly, but definitely not slowly. By June, when Redes will have completely (almost completely - for now the computers needed for administration and for the audio and video programmes of Radio Mundo Real - the Redes radio station - will stay as they are but be connected to the internet via a proxie), I am willing to bet that we at FoEE will still be on one (or even minus one) Linux computer. Any takers?

This was not the learning experience I came for, but it's a nice one anyway. :-) More to come!

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Comments

[zilverling]

At CEO we're also slower in migrating to Linux
Hi Chrissi, Nice post. At CEO we are also quite slow in migrating to Linux. After a trial period on one computer for almost a year we now have two out of five computers running on Gentoo Linux and Olivier's computer is migrated this or next week. One of the Linux boxes functions as a printer server and is also accessible from the Apple laptops that some CEOs prefer to use. At my home office I have been running Linux since May 2005. First Ubuntu, since two years Zenwalk.

[susi]

more exchange on experiences
Hi, would be nice to hear more about the migration to linux from CEO - since we try to do it within FoEE? And have still major problems, at least our IT guy....I don't trust everything ;-) Chrissi, any progresses in Uruguay??? Cheers, SUSI