Hi, I want my migrate my staff's computer from windows over to linux and while I can just "command" them to do so i don't want there to be a loss of productivity with them trying to figure out how to use it. While our office's actual needs don't go far beyond and office suite + email + browsing even those things can be daunting to learn if one is not particularly tech savvy.

so, i am trying to find a "way" to make linux/OpenO (on suse hopefully) look and feel like XP/2003 (or XP/2007). I have looked at "Linux XP" which is a thought but I would prefer to go with a larger distro. I suppose it is actually more important to make Open Office look/act like MSO 2003 than linux look/feel like Win but a combination of both would be really nice.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers

-Gaiko

To me-Ubuntu 8.04 is most like windows....

First, what makes it "Windows-like" would be the Desktop, not the OS. KDE defaults to a layout which is similar to Windows, but any Desktop can be configured similarly.

As for OpenOffice, I don't think you will make it look like MSOffice---especially Office 07 (Which is a travesty---but that's another story).

To me, trying to make Linux "act like Windows" is a mistake. You will simply create an unrealistic expectation.

Assuming that you are in a position to make the decision and enforce it, then first brief you staff on why you are making the change. If, for example, you intend to save money and you have your people on profit-sharing, then they will be quite motivated. Give them some demos of the good things about Linux and give them time to learn and get comfortable.

If you absolutely must have something that is like MSOffice, then you might have to run MSOffice on WINE or CrossOver.

I successfully migrated about 60% of our workstations to Linux this past year. Thats about 30 workstations. I started by migrating all mail to thunderbird on windows, then migrating office to openoffice on windows. We already used firefox on windows so that was not an issue. After everyone got comfortable with thunderbird and openoffice on windows I picked the most technically savvy person in each group to be my test pilot. I took care of any bugs or oddities that showed up and showed them things that would make them more productive than windows like the easy bookmarking in nautilus. I also altered the gnome menu to be more like the windows start button instead of being split out into Applications, Places and System as well as moving it to the bottom of the screen. I removed the multiple virtual desktops, moved the clock, date and notification area to the bottom bar and removed the top bar all together. I let those pilots run for about 2 weeks and when they were comfortable I switched the least technically savvy person in each group to a Linux workstation. This of course caused many more bugs and oddities to come to light. They went through the same 2 week trial and when complete I started the final part of the migration.

I held a meeting and gave an overview of why we were making the switch, as well as the benefits we would see. I had the pilots there to help answer questions and relay their experiences. This helped quell the fear among everyone else. Then I switched the rest of each group one at a time with a 2 week interval.

Overall it went very well. I receive many less support calls. There is the occasional instance where someone needs a bit more training. For example yesterday someone came and asked if they could have Microsoft Office back because there were things they just couldn't do in OO. Of course when I went to have them show me what they couldn't do it was deleting a row from a spreadsheet. After a 2 second tutorial the user said that was the only problem.

Any time you have a large switch you will have people who grumble. I suspect there are several people who still dislike not using windows just because its different but the benefits greatly outweigh the downsides in my opinion.

Hello and thanks for all for the responses.

I have a few reasons for wanting to migrate, security (viruses/malware etc), productivity (ust having what you need on the computer not other stuff), and reduced IT issues (at least not having them install, or try to install software [yes i know that can be blocked in win])... plus i think more than half the computers are running pirated versions of windows (I am working in Azerbaijan, piracy issues arent really considered an issue here) and piracy is something i want to discourage in general.

While to me KDE/Gnome are pretty intuitive (keep in mind i started off with fvwm on slackware) but to my barely computer literate staff they have stuggled to learn where things are and how things work in windows, switching over to linux would not be an easy thing, esepcially for some of my older staff so this i why i wanted something that looks and feels like windows... and when i say looks and feels i mean like many of the commands are the same (eg right click and you have, more or less, the same options etc) have a xp/2000 simplified start menus etc etc etc. As for OO i remember when i was switching from word perfect to MS word that word had the option to enable word perfect commands (and i think menus too). They need the menus and commands to be at worst very similar or at best a mirror image. I am not sure if all this is possible but it would be really nice.

Cheers

-Gaiko

cmdln's approach is very thorough and well thought out. I think if you follow his steps you will have a smooth migration. I feel like the Gnome desktop would be your best option for a minimally-disruptive transition. As cmdln said you can modify the desktop layout a bit to approximate the look/feel of WinXP. I did this for my mother quite successfully. The distribution you choose is up to you, but I personally recommend Ubuntu (8.04 Long Term Support version).