Ubuntu in a large office. . .

[Bright_View]

I just had a conversation with a friend who works at a large office, and to my surprise she informed me that the entire office uses Ubuntu. I was impressed and excited, since I'd never heard of a large office using Ubuntu before, but when I asked her how it was working out she said that her entire office hates the software due to daily crashes and all sorts of other problems. She said her IT department has said that they have to live with this since they have free software, and unless they decide to "upgrade" to Microsoft then they're out of luck.

I was shocked.

I work in a scientific environment, and linux in general is highly regarded for its stability, security, etc. among people I work with. There are other complaints of course, but never about stability.

I was just wondering if any of you have experience with Ubuntu in large office environments (as opposed to home use) and if the IT department's claim in this case is correct, or more due to their (possible) lack of knowledge of Ubuntu. Would I be correct in assuming that the majority of IT personnel are not familiar with linux, and would not be overly useful in an environment where linux was used?

I defended Ubuntu to the best of my ability, but for all I know it's not stable in large networks (although this seems unlikely to me). I've only ever used it at home on my PC.

I'd love to hear what you all have to say, especially those of you using it at work in large networks. Cheers.

[ssj6akshat]

shouldn't this belong to T&E?

[Bright_View]

shouldn't this belong to T&E?

Yeah, probably. Didn't see the "Other Community Discussions" options in the forum (had only posted here before when I needed help). Sorry for the confusion. . .

[FirstByté]

Well, while I don't use Ubuntu in a corporate domain yet, I wouldn't want to say all OSs are free of bugs. But carrying out my thesis on Open Source Software tells me that OSS is much reliable than Closed source counter-part (in many accounts).
This eBook can surely be of better help

That said, an understanding of what apps they are having issues with will also do them some good. Not all [commercial] apps in Window/OSX for example are flawless either. If they think they require support, they could opt for Canonical Corporate support.

And in my opinion, Ubuntu and Linux gets better with each release.

Can you please be specific, which sort of "issues" are they having? Security? Compatibility? Connectivity? Reliability?



an excerpt from "Getting Started with Ubuntu 10.04" says

"Is Ubuntu right for you?

New users to Ubuntu may find that it takes some time to feel comfortable with the operating system. You will no doubt notice many similarities to both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, as well as some things that work very
differently. Users coming from Mac OS X are more likely to notice similarities due to the fact that both Mac OS X and Ubuntu originated from Unix.
Before you decide whether or not Ubuntu is right for you, we suggest giving yourself some time to grow accustomed to the way things are done —and expect to find that some things are different to what you are used to."

[Bright_View]

Well, while I don't use Ubuntu in a corporate domain yet, I wouldn't want to say all OSs are free of bugs. But carrying out my thesis on Open Source Software tells me that OSS is much reliable than Closed source counter-part (in many accounts).
This eBook can surely be of better help

That said, an understanding of what apps they are having issues with will also do them some good. Not all [commercial] apps in Window/OSX for example are flawless either. If they think they require support, they could opt for Canonical Corporate support.

And in my opinion, Ubuntu and Linux gets better with each release.

Can you please be specific, which sort of "issues" are they having? Security? Compatibility? Connectivity? Reliability?



an excerpt from "Getting Started with Ubuntu 10.04" says

From what I heard, they are having to reboot their systems daily (which doesn't make sense to me as when an app crashes at home only the app needs to be restarted). What I'm wondering about is the support they're getting. I'm aware of canonical support, and mentioned it, but am wondering what solutions others have used in a corporate environment.

I also wrote my thesis in OpenOffice and found it to be fantastic (especially the built in bibliography tools). It sounds to me like the IT department may not be overly familiar with Ubuntu and are unfairly blaming Ubuntu for their problems, but I'm no expert and have not seen any of their problems myself to report specifics to more knowledgeable people here. I just want to know if anybody works in large office environment with Ubuntu and have had a positive experience.

[Old *ix Geek]

her entire office hates the software due to daily crashes and all sorts of other problems.

She said her IT department has said that they have to live with this since they have free software, and unless they decide to "upgrade" to Microsoft then they're out of luck.

This actually made me laugh. It sounds like it came straight from a Microsoft shill.

Her so-called IT department sounds like a bunch of morons. If they have a Ubuntu network so screwed up that its individual users are experiencing daily crashes and other problems, they need to figure out what THEY'RE doing wrong.

[ranch hand]

It sounds to me that their so called IT department is where the problem is. They could probably get this straight quite easily by firing the whole bunch and hiring some folks that know how to run large systems, most of which run on Linux servers, even if using MS on the desk.

These, many times, use MS from the servers in virtual box as added security.

What you have here is a bunch of MS ill trained techs at work.

[Bright_View]

Yeah, it was like talking to somebody from Bizarro world.

"Linux is cool and all, great apps and everything, but it's so unstable"

She's going to look into it and fill me in with more details. I'll post more info when I get it.

[FootySr]

I'll post more info when I get it.

I'm on the hook... I can't wait to hear this.

[v1ad]

yea looks like their it dept is a bunch of idiots.