Not necessarily what you expect from the top managers: Halamka judged three operating systems according to a variety of criteria including their performance, user interfaces and enterprise management capabilities, such as the ability to configure applications, easily organize file systems, and establish granular security control. CIO.org followed Halamka’s progress, and now they have his conclusions.
Practicing emergency room physician is “Exploring the future of the computing” (OS News Tm).
Apple got itself a new fanboy. =P
this was a great review, it was a comparison based on HIS needs and HIS usage habits. As such you cant really argue with his findings (which is lucky cuz i found myself agreeing :-p)
From “Linux – dislikes”:
Neither RHEL nor Fedora could recognize a USB drive when Halamka plugged one into his laptop. Each time he added one, he had to mount it manually by writing a command.
I don’t know about Red Hat, but apparently he was using a different Fedora Core 5 than I am? For any USB drive I plug into the PC (either hot or cold, needless to say), a window pops up for me to start browsing its content.
A little funny they gave the guy a crippled installation without automount:
Halamka notes that his Linux engineers, who have been using Fedora on their own computers, were eventually able to get that OS to recognize USB drives after installing the necessary updates.
So they “yum install gnome-volume-manager”ed or something I guess; they should have done that way before, at installation. I far as I thought it comes with a default install, though.
Water under the bridge.
The criticism that Fedora Core is “in permanent beta” is to the point, given all the updates. However, he did manage to find the Package Updater, which in Fedora Core 5 didn’t even bother to inform the user of any updates,if you don’t open it.
All this not making Fedora the ideal enterprise Linux is, admitted, a fact. I do wonder if it presents itself as such.
I did get confused a little reading these two things:
Each time he [Halamka] added one, he had to mount it manually by writing a command. Thus, moving 250MB of files from his MacBook to his Lenovo X41 took him two hours.
And although Halamka is an accomplished Unix administrator (he wrote a textbook on Unix at the ripe old age of 19), tinkering with the operating systems took up precious time. “I don’t want to spend my day writing command lines,” he says.
Weren’t both “man” and “mount” part of Unix when he wrote his book?
Edited 2006-11-29 22:53
My USB drives are not picked up either. I must type in rmmod ehci_hcd and then the volume manager opens up. Usb transfer is slow once this is done. An issue with Ubuntu as well but not mandriva.
Each time he [Halamka] added one, he had to mount it manually by writing a command. Thus, moving 250MB of files from his MacBook to his Lenovo X41 took him two hours.
Oh for crying out loud, would someone please get that poor bastard a while loop and a couple more shell commands?
It took him 2 hours to type mount /dev/xxxx /mnt/xxxx, then cp -R * /xxx/yyy/zzz
?
wow..
Why is everyone supprised redhat has issues doing basic tasks? Redhat has always been, to put it bluntly, a buggy piece of trash. Fedora core is no different. Everytime they fix something, they break something else.
Edited 2006-11-30 05:15
I am extremely surprised that someone actually attempted to use Fedora in any type of business environment. Keeping a single workstation at home working is a pain so I can’t possibly think anyone will try to ever make a business case for it. In addition, while I like CentOS/RHEL, I only like them for server tasks. They are quite a bit behind for workstation tasks. Version 5 will fix it temporarily, but it too will quickly become outdated. (Side Note: I don’t understand why RedHat does not create inteligent options for system administrators to upgrade client tools within a release; for example, an option to stick to openoffice 1.1 or upgrade to 2.x within the 4.x release.) Anyways, as it stands both Fedora and RHEL make terrible desktop distributions and I would have really liked to see what the CIO thought about Ubuntu.
Edited 2006-11-29 22:45
And I quote from page 10 of the article:
Meanwhile, he’s not giving up on his quest for a simple, reliable Linux desktop operating system. Because his first attempts didn’t meet his expectations, he plans to test-drive other Linux OSs, including Debian, Novell’s SUSE and Ubuntu.
So maybe we’ll get an update some day.
I’m rather surprised that RHEL can’t automount USB drives; I thought that was common behavior these days. I can’t say much about synching mail, though, but I’m not going to dispute it (same with wireless internet, which I don’t have)… As for monitor setups, well… Let’s just say I haven’t even tried getting Linux to interface with a projector; mostly because OpenOffice.Org Impress isn’t capable enough to replace Powerpoint for me, yet.
Anyways, as it stands both Fedora and RHEL make terrible desktop distributions and I would have really liked to see what the CIO thought about Ubuntu.
OK, so you don’t like Fedora Core and Red Hat.
And you do like Ubuntu.
Without any argumentation, however, I think you shouldn’t be using the word “terrible”.
Ubuntu didn’t work for me on the desktop, Fedora did.
Why?
Because Fedora did not screw up monitor resolution, SCIM, and printing with my 100% Linux-compatible printer, and does offer Beagle and SELinux, all of which I need/like to use. So what. But I’m not calling Ubuntu “terrible”.
I would look like a fool, right, since it’s got so many happy users. Well, so does Fedora Core.
If all of us could just refrain from trying to initiate the flame wars that occasionally shed a bad light on this website’s comment pages, a lot more people would decide not to walk away.
Thank you.
Ditto. +1 mod up. Not to mention that these “Ubuntu rulez!” are really getting old.
“I am extremely surprised that someone actually attempted to use Fedora in any type of business environment. Keeping a single workstation at home working is a pain so I can’t possibly think anyone will try to ever make a business case for it”
Man, I have to be on the floor twisted with pain :-). After my hdd crashed few months ago and I didn’t have my windows cd with me, I downloaded and installed fedora core 5 on my main work computer and I have never looked back. The only issue I have encountered in those months were to propertly configure my dual display setup, which is hardly the common issue business users would encounter. Few weeks ago I reinstalled the box with core 6 and I am really happy with my setup.
Ok, going by your experience… a few months ago you installed Fedora Core 5, and now you reinstalled the box with Core 6. If that was all that was required, I would say it is already a pain. However, how many times in a week have you had a 100 megabyte update waiting for you since installing Fedora? And how many times did your binary nvidia drivers break because you updated your kernel? How did your mp3 support, mpeg support survive the upgrade from 5 to 6? Where you able to get Java working alongside gcj?
Regarding updates: You have the choice to update or not. It is up to you to decide. This is the same as with other operating systems. If everything works, there is no need to upgrade. If you decide to upgrade, you have made the decision.
Regarding binary driver (e.g. nvidia). I am using Matrox 🙂 but that is besides the point. We are talking about business functionality and for that is the driver shipped with the distribution just fine. I use my box for development and management of software projects and the binary driver doesn’t provide me any advantages I couldn’t live without.
The same goes for mp3 and mpeg support. Business user does not need them. If it does it could always opt out for the supported Red Hat distro.
To get the Java working is actually quite trivial
Since I opted to use operating system which I do get for free I understand that there will be some amount of limitations of manual work that needs to be done. Everything I needed to resolve I could easily find on the web, e.g.
http://www.stanton-finley.net/fedora_core_5_installation_notes.html
The point is business controls its evironment and can make smart choices what to use and how to use it. We are very large organization (>50k people). Every type of the computers purchased is first certified by the IT department. Every type of computer has standard disc image that was tested and certified. I believe this is common practice in smaller and larger organizations. It is upto IT or the technology provider to setup everything to work for the business users out of the box. If the business user decide to tweak it, it better know what he is doing or he can mess up the box regardless of what operating system is using.
When people complain about one distro, people always point to another distro that might get it right. If somebody reports problems with fedora, people say “should have used suse”. If they have problems with suse, they say “should have used ubuntu”.
Ubuntu is not perfect as a client OS either. I ran a current ubuntu live CD on one of my office PC (an average dell). It did not recognize the correct resolution of the screen and did not offer me an option to adjust it to the correct 1280×1024 resolution. It only offered 640×480 to 1024×768.
On my home PC, it recognized the graphics card and set the correct resolution for the first monitor, but it would not let me use the second monitor at all. And even worse, it did not recognize my PCI wireless LAN card, so it was pretty much useless.
So my total is 0 out of 2. Close but no cigar.
I am sure that I would have gotten it working correctly by editing the xf86config file and manually installing a network driver. But you can not expect average desktop users to do that.
The article is spot on. Linux for the desktop is not yet ready for primetime.
Noone said Ubuntu is a perfect client OS nor that it will work on all hardware. However, if Ubuntu does work on your hardware, it is a lot easier using your computer to do actual work.
Yup, using unsupported hardware or hardware with limited support is the fault of GNU/Linux.
*** This didn’t work, that did not work quite right. GNU/Linux simply isn’t ready. ***
It is funny that I keep encountering this old argument again and again. People, GNU/Linux is not a 1:1 drop in replacement for Windows. For that see http://www.reactos.com.
If you bought a Windows machine, my condolences. The chance that everything works out of the box with GNU/Linux on such a machine is small.
If you want to run a GNU/Linux machine flawlessly, get a GNU/Linux machine. If you have to make do with a Wintel box, you either have to live with the fact that the hardware composition was done with Windows as the main focus and GNU/Linux will run sub-optimally or you have to make modifications to your hardware to make the box fit GNU/Linux.
Before anybody brings out the old corpse: “I need to spend money to run a free OS?” Yes, you will have to do just that, as that free means freedom, not a free ride.
If getting supported hardware for an OS you want to run full time is too much to ask for, maybe you don’t want to enjoy GNU/Linux and you are better off with using the stuff your computer came with.
Once again the same things come up. I know its hard to hear but I think we (the linux community) needs to face them rather than discrediting the reviewer and/or saying “use another distro”
Fedora’s major problem, according to Halamka, is that the operating system is in “permanent beta.”….
This is a mindset issue. How can we make updates less intimidating to the users? Does it require that they embrace the FOSS model of incremental updates or should that part be hidden?
Fedora’s sleep feature worked half the time. When it didn’t function properly, he had to reboot. + Other hardware problems
Grrr. If i had a dollar…… Is pre-loaded/pre-supported linux the solution here? How can it be communicated to CIOs that Linux cant be used on all PCs due to unworkable hardware (i.e. adopting the Mac mindset). Or is this our problem to solve?
Evoluiton….crap….Exchange….crash
Please please please let the only good thing to come out of the novell deal be a 1st class exchange client.
manually activate both the wireless and wired connections by selecting “Network” from the “System Settings” menu
Yay that network manager is fixing this!
On the positives Openoffice seemed to fit the bill, as did Acrobat and Firefox. Good work
Its also great to see that the reviewer will investigate other distros and has shown some understanding.
How can it be communicated to CIOs that Linux cant be used on all PCs due to unworkable hardware (i.e. adopting the Mac mindset)
Unfortunately, we can’t.
The “Mac mindset”, as you call it, only works because people were “tricked” into thinking that a Mac is not a PC (which of course it is, previously with incompatible processor architecutre, but still a personal computer)
Since Linux is known to run on a wide range of computing devices, there is no way to pull off this “trick” again.
One could, however, try to make Linux work extremely well on Apple’s product line with its limited combinations of hardware options.
One could, however, try to make Linux work extremely well on Apple’s product line with its limited combinations of hardware options.
Now that’s an interesting idea. A Linux or BSD distro that is guaranteed to work with a known set of hardware. And a copy of MOL too.
That’s a pretty nifty way to piggyback on Apple’s advantage (“we work on this hardware, our universe of drivers is small”).
Now that’s an interesting idea. A Linux or BSD distro that is guaranteed to work with a known set of hardware. (…)
The idea is good, but it’s not really Linux’ “business model” at the moment.
This will happen simply when the first OEM starts preloading Linux and (yawn) where and how many times have I heard/said this before.
However, the Apple/Mac OS X situation is interesting, because the fact that a lot of hardware just doesn’t work with OS X hardly seems to be a problem to Apple’s reputation. Mac exclusivity seems to mean that one should not complain for having to search for a supported printer, scanner, etc., in stead of just driving by the local all-in-one device retailer and coming out a few minutes later with the latest full colour photo printing ink monster.
That’s fine. What is funny, after buying my iBook, I met a friendly guy that was totally crazy with Apple’s stuff, and he had lots of advice for me now that I too belonged to the Mac-crowd (apparently). Sort of everything about Apple and Mac OS X was absolutely fantastic; you know the drill (often I could reasonably agree).
But then he started saying, ‘There’s even one more thing that’s so great about Macs: if it meets hardware, say a printer, that’s total crap, it simply refuses to work with it! Only good stuff is allowed to work with Apple.’
Now isn’t that fascinating. I didn’t want to spoil his mood, but I had always thought that such a device is simply unsupported (CUPS comes to mind, Linux is quite the same, really), whether it is a piece of engineering art, or a $35 “we hope you’ll buy our ink cartridge too someday” budget model.
No matter what, I have this feeling it is unthinkable that people would ever buy a “Linux only supports non-crappy hardware” argument, if the disappointed Linux novice discovers there’s no way his/her printer, wireless card, USB-modem, or scanner is going to work. Whereas for the Mac…
But hey that’s life; after all, Porsches don’t have tow bars either, do they.
So it’s more likely that for Linux/free software, only the “drivers for everything, and my toaster” model is going to work.
that’s the flaw in the test right there for me. why the heck would you be testing linux on an _unsupported_ tablet device, at which it will, unsurprisingly, not measure up, yet for the windows setup, you use a relatively vanilla dell d420?
methinks if he would’ve reversed the hardware choices above his experience might have been rather different…
I enjoyed the article very much, and I echo the sentiment that the method for reviewing each operating system was quite good. It is always best to live with an operating system for a while before arriving at a final conclusion. Doing so will have a couple of results. An approach that might at first be perceived as a problem might actually be quite useful once you learn how it was intended to be used, and some actions (such as using a USB key, connecting to various wireless networks, or putting a laptop to sleep) that might lead to a problem aren’t always taken with a casual review of a few minutes/hours.
Some of the comments in response to the article are quite disappointing to me because there seem to be a few flamers out. The worst offenders are those who didn’t seem to like the results of the Linux trial. For my part, I have found that the results from the article are fairly typical. A CIO must be concerned with a lot of criteria that aren’t met by most distributions. I agree with the response from the article in the fact that you need to match Linux to hardware. Once you are able to do that, Linux can be quite as satisfying as Apple machines IMO. The problem with this course is that it isn’t always easy to do in a large organization, and in the case of Linux it often can require the use of more than one distribution. One might work wonderfully with a certain set of hardware while it fails miserably with another. Fedora, RHEL, SUSE, SLED, Debian, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Linspire, Xandros, etc. can all be fine distributions, but who wants to support more than one or two because the hardware requires it?
Personally, I’ve ended up in a similar situation as Halamka. I have Windows for business use most of the time because the Microsoft monopoly does offer more guarantees. I have Linux for personal use simply because I enjoy using it more.
It already has been said, the Lenovo Thinkpad X41 wasn’t the smartest choice to test a GNU/Linux distribution and i wholeheartedly share the sentiment that people wanting to run GNU/Linux should take the effort to get supported hardware. Unfortunatly this is especially hard with regards to Laptops.
This also means that Halamka’s opinion of “GNU/Linux is not quite ready for primetime” is unfortunatly valid. Since the Linux kernel supports far more hardware than MS Windows XP but has no real chance of supporting all hardware or gather the same level of support vendors are giving MS Windows, we should think about actually reversing our approach and create an image of GNU/Linux-ready hardware. This is somewhat counterintuitive to the “Linux runs on your toaster” meme but will deal with the “unsupported hardware” problem, which, sad but true, holds on any given GNU/Linux distribution.
… that most of the discussion in here is based on “he should have tried this or that distro”. I find it way more interesting that he says that he would like a certain lappy working with a certain OS, but that combination doesn’t exist. So the main message is that all OS’s were basically unable to live up to his expectations and that everyone has yet to do his/her homework.
Sidenote: Although I use FC myself, I wouldn’t use it for corporate, mission critical stuff.
Oh, before I forget to say it: It was an enjoyable story that was well balanced imho. I hope there will me more of such “objective” tests in the future.