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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>More information on the city of Largo, Florida, and
their 400 thin client setup running Red Hat Linux 7.1 and KDE. This is a
very similar system that I aim to deploy in Hawaii private and public
schools. For more information regarding this system, please contact me at
<A href="mailto:warren@togami.com">warren@togami.com</A></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><A href="http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/08/10/1441239"><FONT
face=Arial>http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/08/10/1441239</FONT></A></DIV>
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<TD bgColor=#ffffff width="100%"><FONT color=#000000 face=Arial
size=-1><B>Secretaries use Linux, taxpayers save
millions</B></FONT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- end titlebar block --><!-- begin story block -->
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<TD><FONT size=-2><FONT face=Arial>Monday August 13, 10:03 AM
EDT [ </FONT><A
href="http://www.newsforge.com/search.pl?topic=gnulinux"><FONT
face=Arial><B>GNU/Linux</B></FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> ]
</FONT></FONT><BR><FONT size=-1><I><FONT face=Arial>- by </FONT><A
href="http://roblimo.com/"><FONT face=Arial>Robin "Roblimo"
Miller</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> - </FONT></I><BR><FONT face=Arial>Walk
into the </FONT><A href="http://www.largo.com/"><FONT
face=Arial>Largo</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>, Florida, city hall and look
at the two computer screens behind the reception desk. Instead of the
typical Windows "Start" button in the lower left-hand corner, they have a
KDE "Gear" logo, as do almost all of the 400-plus monitors on Largo
employees' desks. Receptionists, administrative assistants, and division
fire chiefs here all use Linux instead of Windows, and most of them don't
really notice one way or the other. But the elected officials who are
responsible for Largo's IT budget certainly know about and notice Linux,
because using Linux instead of Windows is saving the city a lot of money.
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<TD><FONT size=-1><FONT face=Arial>One of the great anti-Linux screeds we
hear is, "The secretaries will never be able to figure it out." If that is
so, then Largo employee Judy Judt must be one of the world's smartest
office workers. She is sitting at her desk, happily accessing an online
city directory that lists all employees, vendors, and other important
contacts, using a simple Rolodex-like program that is running on top of an
attractively-themed KDE 2.1.1 desktop. Then Judy moves to WordPerfect to
check a document she's been working on -- by unshading an already-opened
program window. "I like to keep them shaded like this," she says. "I know
it's just habit, that it's really the same as keeping them in, what do you
call it, the little bar at the bottom of the screen, but I like to do it
this way on my computer." </FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial>Sysadmin Dave Richards, who is standing next to me as
I watch Judy work, is quick to correct the nomenclature: Judy does not
technically have a computer of her own, he says. She is using an </FONT><A
href="http://www.ncd.com/"><FONT face=Arial>NCD</FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial> thin client that accesses a hefty server running Red Hat 7.1.
Judy can move to any other desk, use her logon name and password on that
desk's terminal, and Voila! That desktop suddenly becomes "her computer,"
right down to her favorite KDE theme and beach-photo wallpaper. </FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial>But to Judy, what happens behind the screen doesn't
matter. All she knows is that she clicks a program open and uses it for
her work, keeping dozens of programs open at a time. She uses Windows at
home, but says, "I spend more time on the computer at work than at home,
so I guess I'm really more comfortable with this system than with Windows
now." </FONT></P></FONT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>(...continued in <A
href="http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/08/10/1441239">article</A>)</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/13/1248233&mode=thread">http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/13/1248233&mode=thread</A></FONT></DIV><FONT
size=2>
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<TD bgColor=#006666 vAlign=top><FONT face=Arial><IMG align=top alt=""
height=16 src="mhtml:mid://00000531/!http://images.slashdot.org/slc.gif"
width=13><FONT color=#ffffff size=4><B>Office-Worker Linux: It's Here and
It Works</B></FONT></FONT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<DIV><A href="http://slashdot.org/search.pl?topic=linux"><FONT face=Arial><IMG
align=right alt=Linux border=0 height=70 hspace=20
src="mhtml:mid://00000531/!http://images.slashdot.org/topics/topiclinux.gif"
vspace=10 width=60> </FONT></A><B><FONT face=Arial>Posted by </FONT><A
href="http://www.monkey.org/~timothy"><FONT face=Arial>timothy</FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial> on 09:28 AM August 13th, 2001</FONT></B><BR><FONT face=Arial><FONT
size=2><B>from the fud-for-thought dept.</B></FONT><BR>A few weeks ago,
</FONT><A href="http://dot.kde.org/"><FONT
face=Arial>dot.kde.org</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> featured a great
why-should-this-be-amazing story about Linux being used as the </FONT><A
href="http://dot.kde.org/995949998/"><FONT face=Arial>day-to-day desktop
operating system</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> for city employees in Largo,
Florida. Roblimo got a chance to see </FONT><A
href="http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/08/10/1441239"><FONT
face=Arial>the system in action</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> to find out how
ordinary office workers are proving that the old "Linux is tough to use"
shibboleth is nothing but FUD, and how a medium-sized city is saving buckets of
money by minimizing the tax dollars spent on licenses and hardware. Oh, and
they've also pre-empted the kind of costs (in </FONT><A
href="http://slashdot.org/articles/00/11/04/1437226.shtml"><FONT
face=Arial>hassle</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> and </FONT><A
href="http://slashdot.org/articles/00/12/01/0532206.shtml"><FONT
face=Arial>money</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>) that can face any organization
that </FONT><A
href="http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/07/03/1811211&mode=nested"><FONT
face=Arial>Microsoft suspects</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> may have some licenses
out of order. This is the kind of thing every elected official should have
politely waved in his or her face by concerned taxpayers. The Largo system uses
KDE on Red Hat, but since both KDE and Gnome are paying much </FONT><A
href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/20/1752205"><FONT
face=Arial>attention to user interface</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>, similar
systems could easily be running on various combinations of hardware /
distribution / desktop system. </FONT></DIV></FONT></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>