Move company network to Linux?

[Jireland]

Hi all,

I am admin of small network of 20 pc's. We have Win SBS2003 and all desktops are W2k/xp. I have been loading up and trying Linux for a while now but still very much the Newbie. I am very much impressed with Linux and would like to use it on our company network to considerably cut costs.

We do however use some programs that are Windows only like Symantec ACT and a bespoke DOS based program (which should be updating soon). My question is "How well do the windows emulators run"? If I switched over, would we be able to run all of these programs on Linux OS? I have seen a few products such as WinLinux but have any of you tried them with success?

Any help or advice on switching over would be greatly appreciated

James :)

[Piko]

Try the DOS, and Windows based application with the emulators, before you go switching everything around.

For DOS there is Dosbox, dosemu, and many others that run dos apps almost perfectly

For Windows there are apps like Wine, and Cedega. Wine is a Free Open Source Application, from WineHQ.org, where cedega is owned by transgaming.com, and you have to pay $15, or something close, to get version from them for a month. Cedega is ment for Video Games, and Wine is more towards buisness applications.

I would say, go get Wine installed, and all the Dos Emulators you can find, and try them out. Wine though is hit, or miss. It'll either work well to perfect, or not at all.

Good luck!

[mrBen]

where cedega is owned by transgaming.com, and you have to pay $15, or something close, to get version from them for a month.

Cedega is a subscriptions-based service; you pay $15 for the first 3 months, and then $5 per month after. The subscriptions entitles you to all the updates, and to vote on which games get their attention.

Another WINE variant worth looking at is CrossOver Office, which looks more to getting business applications working - things like IE, MS Office, Paintshop Pro, Dreamweaver, etc.

[Icarus]

For a business environment I would not even think of relying on the use of emulators. If you can't find a replacement application in Linux don't be afraid to continue using Windows. The backend in a business is a lot easier to switch then re-educating the user with an alien system.
Users don't want to struggle learning how to do things they already know...yes, people are lazy :D

[Hayl]

none of the Wine variants are emulators. they are compatibility layers. in fact the Wine acronym stands for Wine Is Not An Emulator.

[XiaoKJ]

ok, I think its easier to try moving only the servers first, then the desktop. At least in my opinion.

then you must isolate 1 desktop and move it to linux. see how things are going from there on and you will get the actual conditions.

[Icarus]

none of the Wine variants are emulators. they are compatibility layers. in fact the Wine acronym stands for Wine Is Not An Emulator.
Can this flamewar just end please? :p

I agree, let's not ever call wine an emulator again. Let's all start using "developmental application compatibillity tool" :D
Still, Wine is still way too buggy to trust in a full blown production environment

[dboyer]

I am admin of small network of 20 pc's. We have Win SBS2003 and all desktops are W2k/xp. I have been loading up and trying Linux for a while now but still very much the Newbie. I am very much impressed with Linux and would like to use it on our company network to considerably cut costs.

Test, test, test, test. Taking away something that is familiar with users (windows) and giving them something unfamiliar (linux) is a good way to make enemies. It has to work, and work well, the first time.

That said, dosbox is a pretty good piece of software. Wine is pretty hit and miss, but when it works, its alright. I'm not sure if I'd be as worried as Icarus is: if it works great once, just don't mess up the settings, and it will keep working nice. However, you have to watch ou tthat you don't get some little triffle error that keeps the whole ordeal from working out. For me, wine often will make 99% of an application work, and that 1% is always a dealbreaker.

With that said, I wonder if there are any linux equivalents to your software.

Another option is that if you only have a few simultanious users using these windows applications occasionally, it may not be too far out of reach to keep one windows box and use rdesktop or something similiar to connect to it and run things remotely.