[Fsfe-uk] Replacing/Displacing Microsoft

[Mark Preston]

J.R. Seago wrote:
> I sat for 16 years on the Council of a National Voluntary membership 
> organisation. They, I have discovered use Microsoft, this is so bad that it 
> is a dismissable offense, due to collective paranoia to merely insert a CD 
> into ones work station, due to the risk of virus's/viri, (?).
>  
> I tried giving one of the national directors, a CD of Knoppix to try out, he 
> was so worried by the Draconian rules on introducing spyware/CD's into the 
> system that he tried it out at home on his own computer, but the status quo 
> is such that he will get no where suggesting a trial. So I will write a 
> paper and send it to the Council/Directors. But I need some information, 
> I've been a convinced user since 1999, or was it Slackware 7, whichever. 
> but I am not as skilled as the rest of you and still can't get MySql to 
> install properly in order to learn to use it, or Slackware 11 to play my 
> music CD's. So the information I need is what does it cost, roughly, to use 
> XP to run a members database for 150,000 members, plus usual organisation 
> accounting, administration, correspondence, preparation of reports, 
> research department needs, etc., etc. per seat licenses for a staff of 
> around 200? Input from the UK would help here as that's where its used. I 
> also assume that such an organisation would only need the one DVD, (to be 
> on the safe side, per office, thats around 10), of Slackware, total cost of 
> around £300, (or whatever other distribution, its just that I'm used to 
> Slackware), the limitation on numbers of users of work stations being the 
> hardware, not any limitation of Slackware/GNU-Linux? I can then make a 
> start on a paper on the benefits of changing over, and comeback 
> occasionally when I need help on particular matters
>
> I believe there may be a new Free Linux virtual machine to run XP in while 
> they try it out/change over would that be correct? 
> http://www.virtualbox.org/
Hi all,
Regarding speed. A lot of Linux live CDs can run very fast using the 
toram option.
The Slax server edition might solve your MySQL installation problems 
John, and give you a familiar Slackware like environment.
http://www.slax.org/download.php

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Regards,
Mark Preston