Kiki Novak wrote:
> I'm currently trying to persuade the mayor to hire me as a (paid) part-time
> sysadmin for that thing, and my arguments go in that direction: take the
> money that you save on ten windows licences, ten office xp licences plus
> all the program licences (multiplied by ten also), _plus_ all the money you
> will save in the future (by not having to buy forced updates and so on),
> and with this money, pay a half-time sysadmin like me that will also
> migrate the town hall's PCs under Linux, _plus_ you get some courses.

i don't get it. your mayor is considering setting up 10 windows PC's
*without* hiring a sysadmin to administer them and keep them running? how
long does he think it will take for a publicly accessible standard Windows
PC linked to the internet to get infected with $VIRUS, $TROJAN or $WORM?

> Question. I'd like to evaluate the approximate costs of _maintenance_ for a
> ten-PC-network running Windows XP. I know this is an easy joke,

an easy joke, but a difficult question. ;-) many research institutes have
risked their reputations on it...

perhaps your mayor needs to realise that there ain't no such thing as a
free lunch. if he wants to set up 10 PC's with windows for public access,
it's not a matter of just buying them and having them installed. they will
need maintenance. and it's not your job to estimate how much that will
cost, it's his, because it's the town budget he's talking about. then when
he has a realistic figure on paper, see if you feel you can undercut it.

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)