How Ubuntu Helps Maintain Your Business Rogue practice

How Ubuntu Helps Maintain Your Business Introducer practice.

Hello!
We all know how to build our own business and even successfully conduct it, but often few people understand where it is possible and necessary to save on IT office equipment using the most effective tools.

This article is intended for everyone who wants to go into the open world of IT, as well as implementers of free software on workstations.


I do not urge you to completely abandon proprietary software, but still recommend trying a dose of STR.

I am currently a member of the Ubuntu Russian LoCo Team community, and I am his representative in Moscow. UBUNTU got its first implementation experience when he worked as a system administrator in the Administration of the Pskov Region (APO) 2008. In those years, they actively procrastinated the topic with Ponosov and other about copyright. For the purposes of the software and OS legalization program for employees' workstations, it was decided to take appropriate measures. Funds were accordingly absent in the budget organization, and therefore they decided at the management level to switch to STR. Thus began ubuntization.


Photo from the event venue UBUNTU (8.04). Assembly of deputies. Unfortunately, there are no other photos.

Let's move on to the main topic of the article. We will divide the entire process of implementing UBUNTU into 4 stages.

The first stage in the implementationOpen source software on the workstation, this is the choice of what the user will have on the table / knees.
It could be:

• thin client;
• laptop / netbook;
• stationary desktop PC of any form factor;

UBUNTU is well placed on all these solutions, but on thin clients in most (90%) cases it will be used as a terminal. The terminal connection server can also be on UBUNTU.


The result of the first stage is that UBUNTU can be installed on all types of workstations, as well as on a terminal connection server.

Important for implementation specialist. By installing UBUNTU for a user, you get a completely controlled environment. I recommend that you think in advance about the means of protecting the OS from being erased by the user at the hardware level and your remote access with any available Internet, as well as service scripts. I also recommend mastering the creation of your own distribution kits, with your boring wallpapers.
Instructions for creating your distribution: remastersys

At the second stage of implementation, we need to get acquainted with the user's desktop.
Let's divide into categories of typical office software:

• To work with the network and the Internet
• For graphics processing
• For working with text documents and spreadsheet documents
• Multimedia / Games
• Remote Desktop Control

All these applications are duplicated by analogues on free software. For a complete list of compliance of paid to freely distributed software, see here: link The


result of this stage should be a fully trained user for using open source software.

Important for implementation specialist. Be more attentive to the documents the user is working with, as library office only partially replaces the functionality of MS Office, and if important documents lose their formatting, it will be very bad. There is a tricky option here, if you can’t live without MS, then you can make a terminal application server based on MS Windows by entering a minimum number of RDS licenses there. Be sure to conduct user training at this stage and take a receipt that all of his necessary files are in place.

In the third stage, you need to consider the collective work of users. Here you can give the following list of work fronts:

• Printers / scanners and other peripheral equipment
• shared folders
• data backup
• user management and software updates

When connecting equipment, you should make a list of the available equipment and read this document on the compatibility of equipment with UBUNTU link , so as not to waste time. If you, for example, have a network printer, then it will definitely work on Ubuntu.
Network file storage is easily organized on UBUNTU, and full control over user directories and automation of work with them, such as backups, are also easily organized.
Data backup is necessary for shared network directories, as well as important documents of the user. It is important to explain to the user that only a certain directory guarantees the safety of his information.
You can control a remote PC, either by hand (ssh / vnc), or automated in various ways. It is important to determine for yourself the methods / tools for managing a remote PC.



The result of this stage is a completely transparent scheme of user presence in the IT infrastructure and minimal control over it.

Important for implementation specialist. Choose the management tools that you know how to use. If you write scripts very well, but do not use LDAP, then write scripts further until you are confident in your knowledge and gain sufficient experience for migrating users to LDAP.

At the fourth stage , we need to build a list of all possible dangers (threats) and have the means to solve them.
Let's give a list of dangers, which partially overlaps with the previous steps:

• danger that users will remove the UBUNTU OS
• danger that the user will mess up with the desktop, for example, hide the program panel
• danger of accidentally deleting files from a shared directory
• computer viruses
• corporate data theft
• unauthorized software update
• Information leakage, loss of user control
• And so on

Having built a list of threats, you can begin to look for measures to address them.
The danger in the form of removing the OS, we decided at the hardware level in the first step.
Any desktop settings can be restored with a script and rebooting the system.
File deletion is regulated at the level of data backup frequency.
There are no viruses on UBUNTU, except for malicious software that a conscious user can install only manually.
Theft of laptops with data is solved by the basic UBUNTU functionality for encrypting the user directory and storing all data on a remote server.
Software update is a big problem when the system is fully operational for years, when used in normal conditions. Any software update may affect its functionality and may lead to the appearance of new undocumented bugs.
Information leakage is quite difficult to deal with. Here the best way is to trim user rights in the system and fully log all events, including the buffer.


The result of this stage is complete control over all threats.

Important for implementation specialist. You can describe for yourself another model of threats and determine the level of their importance and means of control.

Thank you for reading to the end.

Here we come to the most important result, that it is not at all necessary to introduce paid software and OS, when if the user’s work is in the nature of typical office work, then these tasks can be perfectly solved with the help of open source software and UBUNTU in particular.
The UBUNTU distribution is free and will never be paid, like all updates it has.

Last tip from the author: Use only the LTS version of the UBUNTU distribution.
If you have any difficulties working with the system, then please visit our forum: forum.ubuntu.ru. We will be glad to see you.