How can moving to Linux save my corporation money?
 

My company's network has a mostly Windows infrastructure and our parent company will require us to keep running a windows domain.

So far, I've set up an email gateway to filter spam, but I'd like to do more.

We use a NT Server with Checkpoint FW-1 VPN Gateway as our firewall. Could that be replaced with a linux box? If so, I could use some input.

Also, has anyone actually moved their workstations over to linux in a corporate environment?

Thanks for the discussion...

Running some form of *nix is definitely doing to save you lots of money, given the horrendous cost of Windows licences and the tech support cost of supporting their shoddy products. However, it is a good idea to have a really good *nix geek there doing support and especially the setup, to get things sorted properly from the word go. If you want to use Redhat, then they have good enterprise support (if the bosses want someone to give money to). However, there are better distros to choose if you have a good *nix expert on hand or can outsource one.

*nix on the desktop works great with a little bit of staff retraining. Basic users and advanced users will adapt quickly (especially to a windows-like desktop environment) and you have the advantages of much greater stability and security, and it is also much easier to limit the damage users can do to the system (eg opening attachments with viruses) and to stop them slacking off and playing solitaire all day. The only users who will moan are the ones who consider themselves "power users," but who really don't know that much. Your main sticking point will be hardware support (if you have strange hardware configs) and support for some applications - you will need to check on a case by case basis to see if there is a suitable linux equivalent for software, and if it's feasible to port it to linux.

For networking, linux or the BSDs are far superior to windows once they are configured properly IMHO.

I have one large problem as far as workstations go, and that is that we use SolomonIV as an accounting platform and the SolomonIV client isn't available for Linux.

There are about 40-50 of our users that only use their PCs for hitting a web app hosted by one of our customers, and editing some spreadsheets. These would be prime targets for migration to linux. Because they are a bunch of younger employees that work in our callcenter, they have a lot of free surfing time, and end up filling those PCs with Spyware and sometimes even viruses and worms. As a matter of fact, we are getting ready to have to upgrade these 'older' boxes because McAfee anti-virus is eating up all their resources.

Do you know which webbrowser would most likely be most comparable to MSIE? and what kind of problems might I run into?

Could anyone give me some insight on how I might replace a Windows NT box running Checkpoint firewall? Is there an app or something that has to be loaded in linux to do it?

Thanks

iptables and shorewall seem to be Mandrake's favorites. As for SolomonIV, if it can't be run through WINE, you could always use a W2K terminal server from a Linux desktop... see my Mandrake screenshot (last one) below.

try mozilla, its available for windows to..

actually any gecko based browser will be close to IE

firefox is also a web browser you Can get at www.mozilla.org its basically mozilla but only a web browser and not a bundle of stuff like regular mozilla is


yes, iptables is defidently a good firewall (its actualy just a program that tells the kernel a set of rules by wich it will filter out packets incoming, or outgoing (can also filter packets that are being forwarded thru your machine)... defidently one of the most popular firewalls

I've never read about WINE. I'll look into that and maybe run some tests. I'll also check out Mozilla. I plan to setup a test linux workstation sometime this coming week.

Oh, and I'll definately have to do some reading on Iptables and Shorewall. That would be a HUGE savings if I could get that implemented. We pay $5-6000 each year for licensing and a support contract for our existing Windows based firewall.

Thanks again.

And everyone please keep the suggestions coming. I think these methods would probably be interesting for a lot of members. I know it has helped me so far.

As far as your firewall, you should check out this site's presentation on setting up a fully featured firewall/gateway complete with VPN support and all.
Ultimate Linux Firewall
Also, if youre interested in some real security for the firewall/gateway, check out this from Gentoo:
Gentoo Security Guide
near the end of the page its all about securing iptables.
Mozilla Firefox is, IMO, way better than IE and I dont see how anyone would have a problem switching over. But you definetly are gonna need a Linux geek there to do all this.

I really like that presentation. I think it will definately get me headed in the right direction. I've also got a DMZ in the mix, so I'll be needing 3 nics in the machine, but I think I might just give it a shot.

no problem about the dmz.... and about IE... you may have some trouble with some IE-only websites, but having Konqueror (KDE's file and web browser) you'll get that over whatever I cannot run on mozilla for incompatibility I got running on Konqueror. For firewall it's no problem with iptables. I have some friends who have a company working on this branch - linux networking - here in Brazil, and I discuss a lot about the possibilities on firewall designing with iptables with them. They already worked with similar stuff like yours and it's running up and good. :)

Crito how did you get linux to TS over into win2k? id love to know how to do that from my RH box. i use TS all the time to controll my domain controller at my school from my winXP box and to do standard night time maintnance like clean disk, and defrag in addition to virus scans.

id love to be able to do that though my linux box, then i could turn my XP system into nothing more then a gaming platform.

Lleb,

I'm new to this too, but I would say that any RDP client that will run on Linux would allow you to do that. I googled RDP clients for linux and I remember seeing a few, I specifically remember "rconnect" and I think "WinConnect for Gnome".

But it would be nice to hear from someone that is already doing it. Just thought I'd give you my thoughts.

Terminal Services has to be configured for application server mode. The client app I'm using is Rfbdrake, which comes bundled with Mandrake.

workstation migration
 

I've converted the workstations in the call center at my work over to linux workstations fairly easily. All the call center really needs is web browsing, email, and some basic document and spread sheet editing. The setup we use is a slackware 9.0 w/ the 2.4.x kernel. XFree86 4.3.0 with GDM/Gnome window manger. For the web browser, mozilla 1.5; for email we try to keep it all web based but a few workstations use Evolution (though it is a memory hog). Then we use open office 1.1 for documents and spreadsheets. The call center employees seem to have adjusted quite easily to the new environment and have had increased productivity. The best part of this is that I'm located 3,000 miles away from the call center and the only tech there knows next to nothing about linux. I've just walked him through the basic slackware install, then I take it from there. I've had very few issues come up other than there was some minor problems with people complaining about font sizes/texture in mozilla, but upgrading to mozilla 1.5 seems to have fixed the issue. One of the great things about having linux on the workstations is the ease of displaying their desktops and programs remotely with very limited overhead on resources (compared to what i've seen from the remote desktop programs in windows.)

oh, also for printing I've set up each machine to run lpd to print to a network print device. I would have liked to set up one central lpd server for the call center but my bosses are deffinitly cheap.

Crito so you can not do this if using the administrative form of TS on 2k server? that is what i use, as it is just me and my wife that connect to my server for access to quicken.

The 1.3.1 version of rdesktop should work in remote admin mode with both W2K and Windows Server 2003. Rfbdrake, Mandrake's customized version, is based on older code. From what I can gather, application server mode allows RDP 4 connections (what NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition used) and remote admin mode requires RDP 5.
http://www.rdesktop.org/