| wIndependence Day Essay: How I got rid of Windows |
by Dmitry Voloshin (August 8, 2002)
Not everything that I write below has yet happened, but the process is still ongoing, and the day when Win becomes history dawns ever closer . . .
Meanwhile . . .
Imagine a normal office, which has about 15 to 20 computers. Surely, they must be tied into a LAN. This network is used to share printing and Internet access. All the workstations are equipped with Windows. For the users, internet = IE, e-mail = Outlook Express and working with data = MS Office. If one needs to process some data, Delphi forms are assembled on the spot. The administrator, who is a fan of Linux, can't stand all those new Excel programmers and super Windows98 admins.
A dialogue with the boss . . .
-- "Admin, have you heard, that Big Brother has started looking at computer clubs and their licenses to run software?"
-- "Not only heard, but I actually warned you about this a while ago . . . "
-- "But, we're not a computer club. Still, who knows, we might be next in the queue for an inspection. What do we do?"
-- "Linux is the answer. But it's going to be painful for all you staff."
-- "Why painful?"
-- "Because, they all live in a nice, comfortable little world, created by Microsoft."
-- "Then, your task is to gradually transform this world!"
So then, the revolution had begun . . .
All the staff were a bit hesitant about the possible changes to their little computer world. Most people were expecting the administrator to do their job for them, and just tell them what buttons to press. Others were saying that they've heard somewhere (read, know) that the software they use for work doesn't exist for Linux. This kind of users, having just mastered the right mouse button, think of themselves as advanced computer professionals and constantly bombard the administrators with beta and test versions of new add-ons, which are, of course, prone to all sorts of glitches and bugs. So, the quest is clear - to lead these people on to the promised land of Linux.
Stage 1
First of all, we had to create Linux partitions on their computers. Partition Magic did this job well, inconspicuously changing the set up of the user's workstation. In order to placate the more advanced users, we told them, that a process of system optimisation was under way (pure truth here). What is interesting - no one noticed the loss of disk space. People just looked at the nice diagram of the disk, rather than focusing on the actual numbers.
Stage 2
Switched all Delphi (C++ Builder etc.) applications to the Arial font, rather than MS Sans Serif. This gets the user acquainted with the traditional Unix letters.
Stage 3
The April KLEZ epidemic made it even easier. Outlook Express was no more, and in its place the users saw a trial version of TheBat. All the users' questions were answered in this manner: 'the virus knows perfectly well, where the Outlook address book is, while TheBat is much more secure'. Later, we replaced it with Mozilla. All the possible questions on viruses were answered in a very simple way - just telling the users that viruses grow and spread in the rich and favourable to this Windows environment. In the end, these users saw the light, in that e-mail and Outlook wasn't the same thing after all.
Stage 4
The most dramatic stage of all. StarOffice was installed on all the workstations, under the pretext of another optimisation and battling viruses. After that, the users were told, that MS Office was living its last week on their workstations, after which it was going to be uninstalled. After a period of fighting all sorts of users and their protests, they saw the light once more: MS Office wasn't everything in this life.
Stage 5
Shared disks on user workstations were locked, and Public and Personal directories were set up on the server. The explanation was simple: all the users were personally responsible for the backup of their own disks, while the Public&Personal ones were under the responsibility of the administrator, who made backups every night. Also, all users were taught to share files through these directories only.
Stage 6
Change all the development in Delphi to Kylix. It's a shame, that there aren't RxLib, EhLib for Linux, so it'll be a struggle initially. Also, Kylix has certain requirements for the glib version, and people from Borland point directly to RedHat 7.2 and Mandrake 8.*. If you have weak hardware, you could use the Free Pascal Compiler in combination with Lazarus.
Stage 7
Users are happy working with StarOffice and Mozilla. The only thing that reminds them of Windows is the picture on login. This would be the ideal time to change the LILO settings for the start-up.
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Please note: The opinions expressed in this essay are those of the writer, not of the management or staff of DesktopLinux.com.
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