Re: [school-discuss] M$ Windows 7

[Tim Dressel <tjdressel@xxxxxxxxx>]

First a quick disclosure, my entire desktop environment is Microsoft,
I run an AD infrastructure end to end with the exception of messaging
(we use FirstClass) and perimeter security. My open source environment
is limited to key task specific devices (spam filter, bsd based
firewalls and packet filters, web server and mysql server). District
wide I have less than 20 open source servers, and less than a handful
of desktop clients. MS desktops are around 1000, servers are all
virtual in VMware and total about 20 - 2003/2008 on a two node cluster
(the linux servers share in the cluster)

Normally I read this low traffic list and I take away some neat stuff.
Every once in a while though I whince at the jabs that come in defense
of open source platforms. It's too bad that Mr. Wildstrom is published
and read by many when he is so clearly ignorant of the fantastic free
tools that Microsoft gives away along with its licensing packages. We
test migrated XP to Windows 7 Machines, completely automated, in under
1 hour (this was a lab of 30). Using the existing hardware. I won't
bother to go into the details, but for any reasonably sized school
(more than 60 computers) this stuff is pretty straight forward. We
used USMT to a network store, then did clean installs of Win 7 via the
new 2008 R2 tools (license for EDU was $140), then on first complete
boot we brought back in USMT. The only issue we had was boot order on
the NIC's being set inconsistently in the bios,,, a quick F12 to
select the boot device and off to the races we went. The machines are
running just as quick as with XP, and some applications appear to run
faster. The machines were named the same before and after (as per
their serial numbers), so all their assigned software just pushed out
via GPO's. We found the biggest bottleneck to be the server hosting
the GPO shares when getting hit almost simultaneously by 30 requests
to install Office 2007, and then our WSUS machine got hit hard. But
what do you expect!!! :)

To put things in perspective, we pay $14,000 per year in MS licensing.
For this we get a site license of Office, Windows, Forefront, and
every CAL under the sun. For us it works out to about $14/year per
workstation. For this I have two full time techs that can completely
hands off manage the entire network in 12 physical locations. Doing
something similar in Linux land would take more bodies, but yes would
be less expensive. I can extend WAHR to my teachers for Office 2007
Enterprise for $16.25 delivered. OpenOffice just can't compete, and
there is no combination of FLOSS tools that give me the same amount of
control over my desktops with not much more than a few clicks of the
mouse. I didn't have to write complex batch files, or perl myself
silly.

Open source in the school has so many good arguements,,, why loose the
arguement on a technicality for ignorance of the great satan of
software (Directed at BW, not Joel)? Take the high road and win
cleanly. Put MS to task on poor web standards, or paying their Indian
programmers a pittance of what the guys in Redmond make. Putting them
down for a migration strategy you are not aware of just makes us look
the fool.

Respectfully,

Tim


On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 10:41 AM, Joel Kahn <jj2kk4@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Here's a recent article on the latest
> fun & games from you-know-who:
>
> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_37/b4146000989683.htm
>
> Looks like the Redmond rascals are
> once again shooting themselves in the
> foot and supplying more ammo for the
> FLOSS evangelists. The article doesn't
> even mention Linux (we're used to
> that, of course), but one of the
> reader comments does.
>
> Joel
>
>
>
>
>