[Wolves] Your Feedback Please ! :) - Linux on my work laptop.

[Sean Spencer]

Thanks all for the response to this everyone - I really do appreciate it.
(Rich - your setup sounds very much like mine!)

I have decided to wipe my hard drive, install Windows XP on the first
partition (as a fall back!) - and I'm about to install SUSE 9.3 Pro on the
remainder of the drive.

I'll keep you posted on how I get on !!

Regards

Sean

 

-----Original Message-----
From: wolves-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk
[mailto:wolves-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Richard Barker
Sent: 15 August 2005 13:03
To: Wolverhampton Linux User Group
Subject: Re: [Wolves] Your Feedback Please ! :) - Linux on my work laptop.

On 14/08/05, Sean Spencer <sean_spencer at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>  
> Hi all,
>   
> I'm currently thinking of installing Linux on my work laptop, to see 
> exactly how productive I could be as a sys admin (of a Windows 
> Environment! - brave I know).
>   
> Why on earth ??..... you may ask. Well, I spend approx 10 hours each 
> day
> (mon-fri) working mainly at my laptop. I want to futher extend my 
> knowledge of linux, and feel for me, that this may well be a good way 
> for me to accelerate my learning. Don't get me wrong; if I get really 
> stuck, I have a Windows desktop next to me too !
>   
> So, for the main I need to be able to do the following from the Linux 
> install.
>   
> 1) Log onto a domain (currently STILL an NT domain, but soon to be 
> migrated to Active Directory)
> 2) Control Servers\Workstations (I know already I can do this via 
> RDesktop)
> 3) E-Mail (No problems there)
> 4) Occasional manipulation of images
> 5) Occasional web development (mainly changing/updating pages)
> 6) Access MS SQL Server ? (i.e. is there some kind of query tool 
> available I can throw SQL queries at the server from the laptop?)
> 7) Office suite compatible with MS Office
> 8) Create PDF files occasionally
> 9) Print to network printers
>   
> That's the 'main' stuff. No doubt there is other bits, but thats the 
> majority.
>   
> Apart from thinking I'm crazy, any more thoughts ? :P
>   
> Sean. 
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> 
> 

Hi,

I work as one of the admins of a 150 PC Windows Server 2003 environment.  I
dual boot my main machine on Ubuntu and Windows XP.  I don't think you're
crazy, as I've been doing the same thing for several weeks and hardly boot
into Windows XP now.  I also installed 3ddesk to switch desktops and scored
some jealous glances from the Windows crowd. 3;-)

I've found that I can connect to windows printers and shares with no
problems in Ubuntu, the only fly in the ointment is I have to enter my
username and password for each machine when I connect to a new PC for the
first time, but it saves them in the keyring and only asks for my keyring
password on my first access to network shares.

The other main problem I have is that Openoffice can't seem to get at files
on Windows shares, but if I copy them locally, it's fine.  I mount the
shares using the "Connect to Server" option from the places menu, I could
work round it by mounting the drives in the fstab though.  Does anyone know
if Openoffice 1.9 fixes this?

As far as email goes I use Evolution, connected to Exchange Server 2003, for
some reason I don't seem to be able to edit notes.  I can get at public
folders, etc and set out of office status just fine. 
The configuration was as easily as for Outlook 2003.  If I need to make note
I just fire up Gedit and save the text file into a notes subfolder in my
home dir.

I'm coding PHP sites for our Intranet right now and use Bluefish for web
sites and the GIMP for graphics.

The major pain was proprietary Windows apps we use, Bigfix, AVG Anti Virus,
Crystal Reports and the IFS CRM system.  Luckily we have copies of them on
Terminal servers so I can Rdesktop in and still use them.

Another minor gripe is that Ubuntu has no GUI editor for routes, we have
servers on other sites that are linked via an ISDN leased line WAN, so I had
to go in and manually edit the network config.  Now that worked, but I'd
rather not mix configuration methods in case the GUI tools mess up a change
I made with nano.  Does anyone know when they'll get round to putting a
route editor GUI in Ubuntu?

I also made lots of progress with my Palm Tungsten E, so if you hit problems
with one of the newer Palms, I may be able to help with that as well.

Good luck with the laptop,

Rich.

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