OpenSUSE Linux Rants

Linux migrations are fun for me to see. It brings happiness to my soul that more companies are seeing the benefits that Linux offers them over propietary operating systems. No more vendor lock-in, more security, freedom to do it how they want, and much lower cost. Well, openSUSE Linux is now finding its way into the company for which I work.

Me: Mr. CEO, how much are we paying to lease these computers, buy the OS licenses and pay tech support to maintain them each month?

CEO: Well, about $4,000 per month.

Me: You do realize that you may as well be burning that money, right? We could be saving every dime of that.

CEO: (extremely skeptical) Oh yeah? How’s that (with a tone of, “Yep, I’ve heard all this before, but I’ll humor you.”)?

Me: Well, dump the leases, buy towers for $40 a hit, I’ll install openSUSE Linux on them, and get our proprietary Windows software running on it. What else do they need?

CEO: A calculator.

Me: Done.

Me: Oh, I can also set up and manage our connection router so that we have dynamic and static DHCP working as we need it to so the servers still work just like they do now.

CEO: You mean that we can support our entire infrastructure in-house with open-source software and save all of the lease and support money?

Me: That was my opening premise, yes.

CEO: Can we have it done by this weekend?

Me: Oh, we can also replace the entire proprietary phone system for which we are paying monthly service fees, as well. Are we leasing the phones we are using?

CEO: Wait, you’re saying we can do the same thing with our phone system?

Me: Let me check…

Me: Yes.

CEO: Well, let’s get the VP of Operations and the Operations Manager and your programmer in here, and see if this makes sense from a company-wide perspective.

A few hours later…

Everyone: So when can we start?

So yesterday, I put the very first Linux box out on the sales floor with one of the sales guys loaded with Firefox, a calculator, and our Windows software running (surprisingly stably) under wine.

The first of a company-wide movement to the marvelous world of Linux and all its benefits. With all the Linux migrations, I’m fairly excited to be doing one of my own.