DESKTOP PRODUCTIVITY WITH LINUX

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Linux is a free operating system. Free both as in "free speech" and "free beer"! Linux has been gaining great prominence lately and is possibly one of the most exciting things in the market today. Many governments and organizations are adopting Open Source / Free Software - both on the server and on the desktop.

Let us find out how Linux can provide answers to typical desktop productivity needs.

ABC Company wants to empower the employees with computers. The desktop user interface must be easy to use. The computer should help employees with word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and small drawing tasks. The employee should also be able to access the Internet and email from the computer.

A few employees are already using Windows, if the solution is not Windows based, it should provide easy migration path. ABC Company has 25 branches in the interiors of the country; it will be appreciated if employees who do not know English can also use the computers.

The solution should use the existing LAN, e-mail & proxy server setup. The entire solution must be cost effective, reliable and easy to scale. Expansions should not come at great expenditure. ABC Company plans to add a lot more IT services in future and this setup should support them.

MagNet suggests using GNU/Linux based desktops to ABC Company. Linux is a strong desktop operating system today, and will provide a reliable, easy to use, flexible, scalable, manageable and cost effective solution. Let us outline a few important areas:

Installation
Installing Linux is a "point and click" exercise now. We suggest a network install to speed up installation on multiple computers. We can train your staff for installation, or personally install the desktops at your premises.

Graphical User Interface
Contrary to the popular belief, Linux has great GUI! In fact, there are more than a few dozen GUIs to choose from. RedHat Linux 8 comes with a unified and streamlined UI which should work great for ABC Company.

Existing Windows users may be reluctant to learn a new GUI. In reality, computer users have been learning new interfaces every few years (Win95 - 1995, Win2K - 2000, WinXP - 2002). If they are ready to unlearn a few things, learning to use the Linux GUI should be a piece of cake!

Office Applications Suit
We must accept that there is nothing on Linux as feature rich as MS Office yet. On the other hand, studies show that average user really does not use or need so many features.

Linux has many office application suits to select from. OpenOffice comes bundled with many distributions, and is our recommendation! OpenOffice provides powerful applications for varied range of productivity tasks. Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheet), Impress (presentations) and Draw (drawing) are probably the tools employees would be using the most. They all work well together, and can open and save files in MS Office format without loss of information. This makes it easy to collaborate with people using MS Office.

Internet Access
Internet is a pervasive factor now. Mozilla is an open source browser supporting all nifty web features. It also includes an HTML editor. We suggest Ximian Evolution for email. Evolution allows you to manage your email, tasks, calendar and contacts. If employees are migrating from Outlook, they will feel at home since the Evolution UI and functionality are almost identical. It will also integrate seamlessly with your existing email server.

Instant Messaging is not away either. Gaim is a very popular instant messaging client and it comes with plugins for MSN, Yahoo, ICQ and many others! MagNet can help ABC Company setup an internal instant messaging service if needed.

The desktops will also have wizards and point and click interfaces to setup and manage the Internet connection - Be it dial-up, network or a VPN. We can configure the machines to use your existing proxy / gateway.

Other Applications
The computers will be fully multimedia enabled. There are thousands of other applications available for all sorts of needs. We can help ABC Company setup application and hardware (like thin clients) as per specific needs.

Indian Language Support
Only about 10% of Indians speak English! Absence of a computer UI in native language has kept 915 million Indians from reaping the benefits of the information technology.

Linux, with its inherent freedom, is the right choice to develop "Indianized" software. The IndLinux project is working actively on this front, and is making Linux versions in many Indian languages. They have already done a beta release for Hindi, and we can install and support that for you.

It's a myth that Linux is not a good desktop OS. Linux can boast of intuitive graphical user interfaces and ease of use. It comes with many applications to stay efficient in day-to-day operations. Linux can be effectively used as a desktop operating system for office productivity or development. Migrating from a proprietary OS to GNU/Linux is also not as complicated as it seems!

Linux makes IT setup extremely cost effective at the same time providing the highest quality. There are no per user licenses and almost all software you need is free of cost. In the true spirit of freedom, you are allowed rights to view and modify the source code of applications to suit your needs.

And yes, this is the right time to have Linux on your desktop. Go ahead and try Knoppix! Knoppix is a live bootable Linux which does not require any installation on your computer.

What can MagNet do?

MagNet provides Linux based solutions to various organizations. We can help you implement the entire desktop productivity solution. We will be glad to analyze your business situation, propose and implement a solution and provide ongoing training and support.

If you are considering Linux and need some help/advice, do let us know!

	Free software is a matter of freedom, not cost. It is a matter of liberty, not price. The word "free" in free software has a similar meaning as in free speech, free people and free country and should not be confused with its other meaning associated with zero-cost. Think of free software as software which is free of encumbrances, not necessarily free of cost. Think of it as swatantra software. - Free Software Foundation, India The existing user interface paradigm of files and folders evolved because computers were essentially designed for a western audience familiar with real-life files and folders. There is no reason to assume why the same paradigm should apply to a trader in Tamil Nadu or a farmer in Madhya Pradesh. - Prof. Venkatesh Hariharan, IIT Bangalore Is Linux another thing like the Internet that has come out of left field and is about to change the rules for everyone? I believe it is. - Tim O'Reily