Powerpets, Inc. Head Office Switch to Ubuntu

[Powerpets Webmaster]

In 2002, a small Canadian company was started based on a small idea and 
big dreams - to create an entertaining virtual world with many 
educational aspects and a company goal to support and spread awareness 
of abused and abandoned animals.

Less than half a year into the project, powerpets.com was experiencing 
explosive growth and an explosive amount of problems, mainly e-mail 
based viruses. We would be affected by the next big threat, weeks before 
large AV companies such as McAfee would have a fix for it. More time was 
spent fixing our Windows based office computers than what was spent 
working on our business.

A switch to Linux was made, with quite a few hurdles, but it was nice to 
know once a system was set up, you wouldn't have to worry about it. You 
wouldn't even need to restart it.
Unfortunately last year, our *flavor* of Linux that was chosen for the 
office sold out to another company who pretty much abandoned the OS. 

Much research went into selecting a new Linux OS that will carry us 
through the next decade without headaches or an overload of IT expenses. 
Ubuntu quickly caught our attention. We actually waited for about a 
month because we could not find an option to purchase one copy of the 
Ubuntu OS and felt uncomfortable requesting a free CD. Due to our 
satellite Internet, we were unable to download the OS.
A few weeks later, our CD arrived in the mail. At the time we were 
involved in several large projects and were unable to perform any 
installations.

It wasn't until June, when an old test laptop was loaded with Ubuntu.  
The installation went quick and without a hitch, despite hardware being 
well outdated. The past few days, the remainder of our office went 
through the overhaul and in a matter of hours we were using Ubuntu. Some 
changes were hard to get used to, such as the SAMBA shares, but overall 
everything was a success.

We're very happy with our Ubuntu solution, and we hope to see the number 
of Ubuntu system builders grow - after all, one Ubuntu system builder to 
serve over 300 million people in North America may not be sufficient.

Many thanks for the CD and the great experience
Elizabeth Routliffe
President
Powerpets, Inc.