Is Linux free for business use???

[fogleroller]

If I open up a cyber cafe can I put Linux on all the machines for free?

 

[goldboyd]

yes, its free. but wouldnt you want something a little more user friendly than linux?

 

[Supergax]

props to that goldboyd.

 

[Soybomb]

Sure you could. I havent found netscape in linux to be any less friendly than in windows either hehe

 

[fogleroller]

You have a point GoldBoyd,

but at first I want to spend the money somewhere else, rather than on operating systems.

But then again....I don't know

Maybe as a server

 

[jhu]

if all the computers are going to be used as internet terminals, then linux should fit the job perfectly.

 

[fogleroller]

that's what I was thinking. It will be near UCSD (hopefully) so, I can have a few terminals with windows&Office.

Now, how can I Ghost individual terminals???

 

[goldboyd]

if you serious about putting linux on some of the boxes, you might want to consider doing diskless workstations. so instead of storing the os locally and risking customers messing it up, each time you turn the computer on, it would download the os off the server and boot that. that way anytime any of the boxes gets messed up, a simple reboot is all you need to fix it. i'm not a linux guy, but i would assume linux supports it, if not, i know freebsd does

 

[fogleroller]

That is an excellent idea!!! That would save money on hard drives.

 

[Damaged]

You don't even need to go that far. You could just run X terminals. One of the beauties of X IMHO.

[edit]Err, same diff as what goldboyd is saying.[/edit]

 

[fogleroller]

How would I go about doing that?

thanks in advance

 

[UnixFreak]

You could always run QNX, the OS on a floppy
QNX
And download the ethernet version...

 

[Damaged]

Lot's of links here:

Diskless Workstations in Linux

 

[bubba]

If all the machines are the same (i.e. same disk size), you can actually just use Ghost to "ghost" them. That is how I duplicated a linux lab. I just made a prototype workstation and then pulled the drive, plugged it in as a slave on the other workstations, booted off a DOS floppy w/ ghost on it and ghosted it to the other computers.

 

[MGMorden]

Qnx on a floppy is a demo disk and I don't think it can legally be used in a commercial environment (not to mention that the disks would probably be stolen quite frequently). I'd say to go with Linux (or FreeBSD, also very nice) and do the diskless workstation setup. If you keep the interface to being solely web browsing and not "using" linux itself then no one should have a problem with the interface.