hi all,

A few of us have got together and run a management consultancy firm. last year i had attended Stallman's talk in IIT and based on that and other stuff we read, we were all gung-ho and went for linux installation in our office network around june this year. Our Networking requirements were simple: 5 computers in a client server config. Since a peer to peer with windows 98 was already in place. estimate of time was one week.

then on its been a nightmare, involving firing one vendor, etc. the current vendor has worked hard, getting all his friends, colleagues, associates etc. to get help - to no avail. the network is still not up and running fully (currently for instance, internal mails are going via the internet and we are dreading an attempt by anyone to set this right becoz it is bound to upset something else thats working fine just now)

at least 10-12 vendors have had a go at trying to set the network right. sometimes the problem is samba, sometimes squid, sometimes something else. no single vendor has been able to fix all. each has fixed a small portion, in the process undoing some of what has been done right earlier.
Red Hat not only charges a bomb for everything but has also played truant. they are not even available for promised help sessions (have tried with their mumbai and pune offices)
On the Harware front too our story was pretty bad. Sun started off by saying their servers are meant only for large corporations and not small offices. however, we found some more helpful people there - who have offered us the cobalt qube server (costing 45k) as a Stand-alone non usable server - hardly a great option. given it poor config its a bad option.
For Broadband connectivity, dishnet dsl is constantly telling me that linux will mean that i will have to install a router for broadband instead of a modem, again increasing costs, reducing help if required at any time, etc.

Just wanted you people to know some of the ground realities. I started off as a very enthusiastic supporter of Linux, already selling it orally to a lot of people i know. Even did visioning with the vendor initially, to get him to specialise in linux, and offered to help him get clients.

However, I now need convincing myself that Linux is all that simple as is made out (talk of seminars where the most uneducated person in computers could install linux, etc. is now sounding incredible to me).

Would be happy to meet anyone who is interested in helping us in the above. Since this forum comprises die-hard linux fans, i thought if no help is available here, probably linux is a bad idea.

ok then, lets see if we can