Another Satisfied Customer

The last week or so I have been working on creating a custom version of LAVA for a client which would like to deploy a linux desktop to 320 users. After several technical meetings and several showcases we have finally built a live install cd image that takes into account all the hardware typically found at the various client's sites.

The administrative managers have all been generous and are genuinely excited about moving off of Windows XP. Most have had really bad experiences with XP. The network has been plagued with spyware, dropped connections, trojans, and the occasional window's update that went terribly wrong.

Walking around and speaking to the users I have found many are surprised at how mature LAVA, Ubuntu looks. Most shockingly is their expressions when I map their Window's 2003 fileserver shares and double click on an .XLS and .DOC file. You can tell in their expressions they are baffled at how easy Linux is. It is such a great feeling to see how well LAVA, Ubuntu has made moving users over to an alternative desktop.

I had some problems with some of the printers at the client side but after playing with compatible drivers, I was able to select a driver that met all the reporting and formatting requirements.

Also RDP via a scripted bash file was easy enuff to create. The client wanted redirected printers as well as drives so command line scripting was necessary. Once I mastered the settings, I built a BASH script and voila a desktop icon for the users to click on.

Internet Explorer - I cannot seem to get away from you.

Yep the client had some websites that not only need IE but also the Microsoft VM. Yuck. But with Wine installed, IE4Linux worked like a charm.

Having meet all the requirements on the field, it is time to actually hardcode those into a ISO and build a cd.

Alot of work still to go but if it wasn't Linux work, it wouldn't be fun.