[KLUG Members] Deploying Linux on the corporate desktop.

[Adam Williams]

>My employer has recently approved Linux on our user's desktops.
>We will be evaluating Linux on the desktop for a small number of users
>before wider deployment.  We have been using Linux servers for years,
>but this is our first user desktop installation (not counting myself and
>another MIS person).
>I would like to ask for advice for those who have done this before, in
>the interest of doing it right the first time and making it succeed.
>Specific area I'd like to discuss are:
>1)  Individual PC installs vs. LTSP.
>All our desktop PC's have the power to run stand-alone Linux installs.
>The slowest machine being a P2-450, the lowest memory is 128MB.  Most
>PC's have higher resources.  We are NOT buying new hardware, simply
>adding/replacing Linux on existing Windows PC's.
>LTSP would seem to have the advantage of ease of administration,
>installs and upgrades.  It would also seem to be slower than individual
>installs, a waste of power in our existing PC's.

I depends in part on the applications.  With that type of desktop
horsepower, if the users use mostly/exclusively generic application,
then it is so easy to just install there isn't much to gain from LTSP. 
LTSP is good if (a) the local workstations are antiquated or don't exist
or (b) the users use specialized applications that require lots of
tweaking.  I'd just to an install from red-carpet, so easy.

>Discussion appreciated.
>2)  Choice of desktop.
>I've narrowed down the desktop choices to Gnome or XFCE. 

GNOME.  I like XFCE but GNOME provides so much more a user from Windows
expects.

>I need to modify the default menu choices of whatever desktop I use.

GNOME 1.4 provides "gmenu", in GNOME 2.0 you still have to do this by
hand.

>I need to add certain local programs (our ERP system), and remove
>programs that are not installed or not needed.  I need to make this 

Maybe this is a job for kickstart?

>Right now I'm leaning toward XFCE because I know how to modify it's
>default menus and focus behavior.  It's also faster and seems like it
>would run faster if I end up with LTSP clients.  "X :1 -query remotepc"
>runs rather slow with Gnome (default Redhat 7.3 install), but no delay
>is noticeable when running XFCE.  Would the speed be the same for LTSP?

Probably about the same.  Depends alot on the server and how busy the
network is.

>How do I go about modifying the choices on Gnome's default menu/panel?

The menus yes, the panels remain user mod-able.