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Leap Not Needed: Move to Linux in Smaller Steps

By James Nickson

April 10, 2003 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Your article "The Leap to Linux" considers the transition to Linux to be a single, massive change in paradigm: Either one does Linux or one does not. The situation may be more complex than that and easier for environments wishing to change or experiment with change.
For example, in the desktop world, one can unhook from Microsoft gradually by switching applications -- IE to Opera or Mozilla, Outlook to Eudora, and Office to OpenOffice.org. An evaluation of each is:

Many people prefer Opera to IE.

Mozilla is better than IE 5 was.

Eudora has arguably always been better than Outlook -- at least more efficient, more reliable, far less insecure and preferred by many.

OpenOffice.org is roughly as good as Office 97, which wasn't too shabby.

If one migrates to any of these, one picks up immediate advantages:

Lower cost

More security

Greater efficiency

More transparency of coding

Superior support (I definitely get better support from open-source cadres than I ever had from Microsoft. Open-source cadres answer questions honestly, promptly and usually accurately.)

All run identically on Linux as well as Windows variants. Identically, well for most purposes.
This means that once an environment has been switched, one can replace the operating system with about as much trauma as going from MS-DOS to Windows 3.1, and perhaps double the effort of going from Windows 98 to Win 2000. But the results are permanent improvement in many attributes of ROI, efficiency and supportability, as well as massive savings in license fees and hardware expenses. One also acquires a smug moral superiority over those still slogging along with Windows.
In the server world, there is a more interesting phenomenon: Many purposes are already far better served by Linux than Windows. The normal triad for sites is Apache, PHP and MySQL. IIS (Microsoft's Internet Information Server) is definitely in the running, but as an also-ran.
Most Windows sysadmins seem not to know that all three run fine on Windows.
Again, a stepwise approach can result in the desired changes. First, run MySQL on Windows. It runs immediately and is reliable, efficient and flexible. It even serves data quite easily to Office, Access, etc. (See the Ronin Software Group site for more on running MySQL on Windows).
Once one has the SQL Server replaced, one can look at changing Web presentations. This requires PHP. PHP unfortunately requires Apache to serve Web pages. Surprise! Both run on Windows.
There also is the classic solution for LAN storage and desktop backups: Take a retired desktop, slap in some large disks, and run Linux/SAMBA on it.

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