virus/worms killing a network...

[Brian Fahrlander]

On Sun, 2004-08-01 at 01:47, alan wrote:
> On Sat, 31 Jul 2004, Jeff Vian wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, 2004-07-31 at 16:14, Mike Klinke wrote:
> > > On Saturday 31 July 2004 15:56, Jeff Vian wrote:
> > 

    Man, this just goes on and on.

    Notice how so many things can have such a large impact on your daily
level of pre-occupation. Uneducated users, types of virus, firewalling,
and the never-ending deluge of spam.

    Considering all the _money_ invested in the man hours spent doing
this kind of work instead of installing intranet web servers to make
information available to people on the inside, or just anything
_including_ time with your feet up on the desk...

    Isn't it time to drop Microsoft?  Is there really any reason to run
it, that can't be supplanted by running VMWare for those special
machines that have remaining legacy applications?  Sure, it's $300 per
such machine, but look at all the _WORK_ you're going through, just in
hopes it won't flood the users on the inside with problems?

    I'm about to move to another duty station in a rare 'flash cube in
the sky'.  I've run some estimations for their site, even though I'm
there in only a security capacity.  For 160 workstations, the workload
alone requires 4 MCSE's.  One Linux guy could cover it, and several
other buildings all by himself.  MCSE's can handle 40 workstations (some
say less, but this is a industry standard) and Linux people can handle
from 100-1000 depending on configuration.

    So for this one bank's building, without discussions of virus
software, support contracts so that Microsoft will at least answer your
phone call, and all that stuff, would save $50,000 just by changing
their OS.

    Sometimes it's just best to flush the parts that remain and start
over.  I just don't understand why people don't see that.  I can't see
the value of restricting Windows boxes so tightly they're useless, just
so they won't have to be re-installed.

    You can do it; I've been Microsoft free at home since 1992, at work
since 2001.  It reminds me of the early days of computing around
1978-85: simply no bullshit. Computing is like a toolkit, not a curse.

    Start small; set up a communal server to hold user directories, font
servers, and other nice things, then put Fedora on the
least-computer-saavy person's desk.  Then add five more, then rollout
10-20 at a time until you're set. You _will_ see an end to all of this
non-work-related garbage and will be able to get some real work done,
finally.

    Enjoy!
-- 
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Brian Fahrländer                  Christian, Conservative, and Technomad
Evansville, IN                                 http://www.fahrlander.net
ICQ 5119262
AIM: WheelDweller
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