Not using desktop Linux? You’re wasting your money

Let me be blunt: If you’re not using Linux on the desktop in call center and other fixed-purpose computing environments, you’re doing your company a disservice.

It never fails to amaze me when I see environments with hundreds of Windows XP systems running TN3270 sessions to an AS/400, with a headset-equipped person staring at the green screen and talking to a customer. Even if there were a need for Web browsing and email for those users, why would you pay for Windows on that system in this day and age?

[ InfoWorld’s Galen Gruman makes the case for Linux to replace white-collar users’ Windows XP desktops. | Neil McAllister explains why desktop Linux vendors may be sabotaging their cause. ]

And that’s not the only place where desktop Linux makes sense. If you get right down to it, there are many instances where the only requirements of the desktop are to act as a portal to a Web-based application and possibly run an email client. With the push toward Web-based internal apps, there’s little reason to require Windows at all. Heck, there’s almost no requirement for a desktop or the ability to run anything other than a compatible browser.

That’s where Linux on the corporate desktop comes in. No, I don’t think the CEO will be booting up Ubuntu anytime soon, nor do I think that the scores of administrative assistants and marketing folks will be logging into Fedora. However, in companies that have high numbers of desktops that run only one or two applications, it’s almost a no-brainer.

In fact, you can even consolidate all of those desktops. Armed with a few 12-core servers and a bunch of RAM, you can easily build a Linux terminal server infrastructure that would be surprisingly fast and agile, one that would run more sessions per server than you can shake a stick at — all without licensing, if you so choose. Naturally, you could buy Red Hat or Suse (does anyone run Suse anymore?) and cover your support bases, but you could also do this with Ubuntu Server, CentOS, or just about any other distribution.

You wouldn’t have to run Gnome or KDE; you could just run XFCE or another minimalist window manager. In fact, you could run Linux thin clients at the desktop, either commercially produced or homegrown. With a little elbow grease and some basic know-how, it’s likely that you could trim thousands of dollars off the IT budget this way — without reducing any capabilities or functions.

So why don’t we see this kind of Linux usage more often? Scared IT managers and a lack of skills, primarily. Even though setting up something like this is very simple, it’s not a nicely packaged solution that comes with a guy in a suit handing you flashy binders with pictures of smiling users and tchotchkes emblazoned with the company’s name. It doesn’t have a monthly or yearly software subscription cost. It doesn’t have a phone number.

Here’s the thing: Those don’t matter. You want support? Hire yourself one or two admins who can handle this infrastructure, and you’re paying your support costs. Weigh their salaries against the cost savings and come up with the ROI. It pains me to think that there are so many instances where the right idea and the right technology are passed over because they’re unfamiliar and therefore threatening.

The case can certainly be made that nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, but then again, it’s obvious that not everyone was buying IBM, either.

In IT, it’s important to be able to own your infrastructure, to have access to the skills necessary to bail you out in a pinch, and to properly improve the infrastructure. But it’s also important to cast off old ideas and thought processes when presented with a better — albeit unfamiliar — concept.

This article, “Not using desktop Linux? You’re wasting your money,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Paul Venezia’s The Deep End blog and follow the latest developments in open source at InfoWorld.com.