Slashdot Mirror

I never implied that systemd is not well tested. I stated that the beta release state is not the state to make major changes in the OS. The feature freeze for this release was one month ago:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Featur...

Ubuntu already appears to have a seccomp-tsync backport to 3.16.x: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archi....

It's getting slightly tiring watching morons pull out their apt-cache and grep magic in order to try and search for plain strings of 'systemd' and deny the obvious dependency chain going on here every time a systemd topic comes up:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/viv...

libudev:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/viv...

Source: systemd

Besides, for anyone who has the vaguest idea of how systemd actually works, or tries to work, then you would know that playing dependency tennis doesn't work. systemd works through the house of cards IPC system that is DBus so dependencies are now exceptionally well hidden amongst a fucking forest of namespaces.

It's getting slightly tiring watching morons pull out their apt-cache and grep magic in order to try and search for plain strings of 'systemd' and deny the obvious dependency chain going on here every time a systemd topic comes up:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/viv...

libudev:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/viv...

Source: systemd

Besides, for anyone who has the vaguest idea of how systemd actually works, or tries to work, then you would know that playing dependency tennis doesn't work. systemd works through the house of cards IPC system that is DBus so dependencies are now exceptionally well hidden amongst a fucking forest of namespaces.

Interestingly enough, 15.04 is deep into the Beta status and due for release next month. A major change, such as swapping out the init daemon, should be done in Alpha, and far before any Beta release. Certainly not in the month before a release!

Why is everything connected to systemd pushed out in such a hurry? Why isn't systemd getting proper time for review?

Here is the Ubuntu 15.04 release schedule:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/VividV...

Juju is able to orchestrate both LXC and KVM on several different cloud environments. Juju employs a slightly different paradigm than Docker, building on top of cloud images rather than an image based workflow. It surprises me that Docker gets so much attention in this space. I have used both and still prefer Juju for the flexibility. With Juju I am able to nest LXC inside Amazon instances or use LXC on my laptop to make it appear as cloud environment.

A quick google search turns up a document on this very subject (not written by me):
https://insights.ubuntu.com/wp...

Canonical works closely with OEMs to certify Ubuntu on a range of their hardware.

Please explain why I am able to play all the old Linux ports of games like the original unreal tournament (I haven't acquired new ports for a while) with no problem when Linux is a moving target?

You should explain how you had no problems.
And don't say you didn't have to figure out how to enable ctrl+alt+backspace, cause I won't buy it. Things were far from smooth sailing even when those old ports were new.

For a point of reference, when Loki was around, there wasn't even a standard way of locating the CD drive. This was before /dev/cdrom was just expected to be there.
Maybe things are different NOW, but there's still a lot of stuff that still hasn't been figured out yet, which is why SteamOS exists...

'Canonical works closely with Lenovo to certify Ubuntu on a range of their hardware.'

I honestly hope the following is helpful...
It sounds like you just need a decent window manger, rather than a whole desktop environment.

You can configure it as one would have done with startx (editing ~/.xinitrc), and instead just edit ~/.xsession. For example, have it include:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
export LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"
export LANGUAGE="en_US.UTF-8"
export LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
xterm &
exec xfwm4

You may have to tweak your desktop manager (gdm/xdm/kdm/lightdm/etc) to use an xsession. For lightdm (default in ubuntu 12.04), here's an example of how to do it:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Custom...

You can add on whatever panels, launchers, etc you'd like that way, and keep it as light or heavy as you want. Replace the xfwm4 with whatever window manger you want. NOTE: that xfwm4 won't run the whole xfce desktop... it's just the window manger. Personally, I'd suggest taking a look at sawfish, but to each their own.

Ubuntu doesn't ship with patented codecs for many reasons, including the desire to promote non-encumbered options. They do make it quite easy to install them if you really need to, as explained here.

"Show me one other alternate universe. Is that so much to ask?"

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu

  it is an alternative to the debian universe repository. hey you said one not what type.

Agree. I use Android, but they could really benefit from something like this:
https://www.google.com/chrome/...
or
http://windows.microsoft.com/e...
or
https://access.redhat.com/supp...
or
http://www.ubuntu.com/info/rel...

The first link is Google's, so it isn't like they don't know how to do this stuff.

But I just want the ability to drill down to find my feature.
The Windows 8 Interface, and Office 2007+ Ribbons with its tiles, kills the drill down idea, and gives you a big set of data cluttered in your face.

Ubuntu with the Unity desktop has HUD which is an interesting take on this problem. It basically makes the menu structure of most programs searchable, allowing you to hit the alt key and type the name of the feature without needing to remember this or that dropdown or skim through half the features available. See example screenshot here. To be fair, I have to admit I don't use it often, but for complex software with tons of features like an office suite it is really useful.

First URL should be Core, and also in the second line of my post there's a missing quote mark after "of course you've got a huge disk drive even though you don't have much RAM or CPU .

Core is a lightweight version of Ubuntu, intended so you can build it on small systems like cloud VMs or ARM boards or embedded devices. (That's an Ubuntu-ish use of "lightweight", which seems to be "of course you've got a huge disk drive even though you don't have much RAM or CPU, but I haven't yet loaded all the pieces to find what it takes to get a minimally useful system. It ain't Puppy Linux, but it's at least a JeOS replacement.)

Snappy is a package manager. It's designed for doing transactional updates to apps and frameworks, so you can load things that you really want to either succeed completely or else fail completely and clean up after themselves, without getting into trouble like dependencies or having to wait until the next semi-yearly Ubuntu release to have all their pieces. It's a replacement for apt/yum/ports/etc.

Snappy Ubuntu Core is an implementation of Core with a Snappy package manager on top of it. You'd typically load a framework like Docker on top of that, but you don't have to if your apps don't need it (or if you just don't have room.) Almost all the "Snappy Ubuntu Core" articles, including at Ubuntu.com, are mostly about Snappy package management, not actually about Core. Sigh.

• Some URLs:
• A minimal rootfs
• Installation Example
• Good intro to Snappy Core as JeOS replacement
• Description of Snappy as an App-building environment
• Cloud-init example
• UVtool for creating VMs.
• Snappy Guides
• Installing on different kinds of clouds

Core is a lightweight version of Ubuntu, intended so you can build it on small systems like cloud VMs or ARM boards or embedded devices. (That's an Ubuntu-ish use of "lightweight", which seems to be "of course you've got a huge disk drive even though you don't have much RAM or CPU, but I haven't yet loaded all the pieces to find what it takes to get a minimally useful system. It ain't Puppy Linux, but it's at least a JeOS replacement.)

Snappy is a package manager. It's designed for doing transactional updates to apps and frameworks, so you can load things that you really want to either succeed completely or else fail completely and clean up after themselves, without getting into trouble like dependencies or having to wait until the next semi-yearly Ubuntu release to have all their pieces. It's a replacement for apt/yum/ports/etc.

Snappy Ubuntu Core is an implementation of Core with a Snappy package manager on top of it. You'd typically load a framework like Docker on top of that, but you don't have to if your apps don't need it (or if you just don't have room.) Almost all the "Snappy Ubuntu Core" articles, including at Ubuntu.com, are mostly about Snappy package management, not actually about Core. Sigh.

• Some URLs:
• A minimal rootfs
• Installation Example
• Good intro to Snappy Core as JeOS replacement
• Description of Snappy as an App-building environment
• Cloud-init example
• UVtool for creating VMs.
• Snappy Guides
• Installing on different kinds of clouds

Core is a lightweight version of Ubuntu, intended so you can build it on small systems like cloud VMs or ARM boards or embedded devices. (That's an Ubuntu-ish use of "lightweight", which seems to be "of course you've got a huge disk drive even though you don't have much RAM or CPU, but I haven't yet loaded all the pieces to find what it takes to get a minimally useful system. It ain't Puppy Linux, but it's at least a JeOS replacement.)

Snappy is a package manager. It's designed for doing transactional updates to apps and frameworks, so you can load things that you really want to either succeed completely or else fail completely and clean up after themselves, without getting into trouble like dependencies or having to wait until the next semi-yearly Ubuntu release to have all their pieces. It's a replacement for apt/yum/ports/etc.

Snappy Ubuntu Core is an implementation of Core with a Snappy package manager on top of it. You'd typically load a framework like Docker on top of that, but you don't have to if your apps don't need it (or if you just don't have room.) Almost all the "Snappy Ubuntu Core" articles, including at Ubuntu.com, are mostly about Snappy package management, not actually about Core. Sigh.

• Some URLs:
• A minimal rootfs
• Installation Example
• Good intro to Snappy Core as JeOS replacement
• Description of Snappy as an App-building environment
• Cloud-init example
• UVtool for creating VMs.
• Snappy Guides
• Installing on different kinds of clouds

Core is a lightweight version of Ubuntu, intended so you can build it on small systems like cloud VMs or ARM boards or embedded devices. (That's an Ubuntu-ish use of "lightweight", which seems to be "of course you've got a huge disk drive even though you don't have much RAM or CPU, but I haven't yet loaded all the pieces to find what it takes to get a minimally useful system. It ain't Puppy Linux, but it's at least a JeOS replacement.)

Snappy is a package manager. It's designed for doing transactional updates to apps and frameworks, so you can load things that you really want to either succeed completely or else fail completely and clean up after themselves, without getting into trouble like dependencies or having to wait until the next semi-yearly Ubuntu release to have all their pieces. It's a replacement for apt/yum/ports/etc.

Snappy Ubuntu Core is an implementation of Core with a Snappy package manager on top of it. You'd typically load a framework like Docker on top of that, but you don't have to if your apps don't need it (or if you just don't have room.) Almost all the "Snappy Ubuntu Core" articles, including at Ubuntu.com, are mostly about Snappy package management, not actually about Core. Sigh.

• Some URLs:
• A minimal rootfs
• Installation Example
• Good intro to Snappy Core as JeOS replacement
• Description of Snappy as an App-building environment
• Cloud-init example
• UVtool for creating VMs.
• Snappy Guides
• Installing on different kinds of clouds

Core is a lightweight version of Ubuntu, intended so you can build it on small systems like cloud VMs or ARM boards or embedded devices. (That's an Ubuntu-ish use of "lightweight", which seems to be "of course you've got a huge disk drive even though you don't have much RAM or CPU, but I haven't yet loaded all the pieces to find what it takes to get a minimally useful system. It ain't Puppy Linux, but it's at least a JeOS replacement.)

Snappy is a package manager. It's designed for doing transactional updates to apps and frameworks, so you can load things that you really want to either succeed completely or else fail completely and clean up after themselves, without getting into trouble like dependencies or having to wait until the next semi-yearly Ubuntu release to have all their pieces. It's a replacement for apt/yum/ports/etc.

Snappy Ubuntu Core is an implementation of Core with a Snappy package manager on top of it. You'd typically load a framework like Docker on top of that, but you don't have to if your apps don't need it (or if you just don't have room.) Almost all the "Snappy Ubuntu Core" articles, including at Ubuntu.com, are mostly about Snappy package management, not actually about Core. Sigh.

• Some URLs:
• A minimal rootfs
• Installation Example
• Good intro to Snappy Core as JeOS replacement
• Description of Snappy as an App-building environment
• Cloud-init example
• UVtool for creating VMs.
• Snappy Guides
• Installing on different kinds of clouds

I am assuming you feel that we should teach our admins to test all their SSH passwords against standard attack dictionaries and disable/notify any that fail. This is a good idea. I will try to add it tomorrow. Are there other conditions that are detectable by SSH admins that require disabling passwords?

Nah, that's not what I meant, but it's a good idea too. You can disable password login in your sshd_config by adding the line PasswordAuthentication no. From there, anyone who logs in will need to use a public/private key, which is much more secure, because it essentially blocks all brute-force password guessing attacks.

Sounds somewhat worrying. That's a very popular chip.

There's always a few things you can do:

- Talk to LKML.
- Post a bug report in bugzilla.kernel.org.
- Find the specific patch which caused the regression with git bisect. Canonical has a good guide on the topic (use "man git-bisect" for more info).

The real WTF is that he's not kidding. Ubuntu says that systemd needs nm-online to function, and if it's not ready to go, they will replace it [NetworkManager] with something that will.

https://help.ubuntu.com/commun...

Network Manager VPN support is based on a plug-in system. If you need VPN support via network manager you have to install one of the following packages:

network-manager-openvpn
network-manager-vpnc
network-manager-openconnect

The network-manager-pptp plugin is installed by default.

On GNOME, you also need to install the -gnome packages for the VPN plugin you choose:

network-manager-openvpn-gnome
network-manager-vpnc-gnome
network-manager-openconnect-gnome

Your OpenVPN configuration interests me, and I hope you'll document it further for me to better understand.

Update: Playing with it, It looks like there isn't a build step. Following the steps here: http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud/to... - it seems that docker is installed under /apps/docker (~20 files total) - they're basically just distributing tarballs which contain all necessary dependencies.

From there, it puts a quick wrapper script at ~/snappy-bin/docker, containing:

#!/bin/sh
##TARGET=/apps/docker/1.3.2.007/bin/docker
#TMPDIR=/run/apps/docker
cd /apps/docker/1.3.2.007
aa-exec -p docker_docker_1.3.2.007 -- /apps/docker/1.3.2.007/bin/docker $@

To build your own "snappy package" looks as simple as "cd mydir; snappy build ."

Actually we can't be completely sure. How this thing works in Ubuntu, is that they chose the 3.13 kernel for 14.04, but they still selectively apply newer patches from upstream on top of that. See the most recent changelog. Of course they include only conservative bugfixes and no cutting edge stuff, which makes it unlikely that the lockup bug has slipped in there.

You're implying you've read the Ubuntu vuln announcements for November. Why don't you explain to the class which of these are remote code execution vulns?

http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/

Maybe you can pick the worst one and explain why it's worse than Microsoft's schannel vuln.

@AC: "I finally gave up on Chrome on Windows 7 64 bit. Flash ran terrible and stuttered all the time"

Chrome works fine here on Ubuntu 64 bit.

have you ever used Linux with Compiz (and any decorator) along with all its various plugins, plus a dock you like? You might try avant-window-navigator, if indeed it's still called that. AWN provides a maclike dock which is dramatically more configurable. In short, Compiz+AWN gives you all the same functionality and (if you like) behavior as the mac, including Expo[se] and the like. But it's just more configurable in every way. You can change every key and mouse binding, you can change behavior and appearance of most elements, you can move widgets around to new locations. It's everything the mac is, and then some — at least in the UI department.

The only place Linux falls down is applications, there's still more of them for the Mac given that the popular ones on Linux are there too.

As for what it runs like on a macbook, I don't really know, but why would it require a hack? A macbook is a PC. Linux runs fine on PCs.

Oh, sure. Jumped on compiz way back in the day - 2006 ish? Spent hours futzing with kewl eye-candy, making all my friends go 'ooh!' with the cube. But, depending on your brand of macbook, getting Ubuntu on it is not as simple as you think. And considering that all you are gaining is some ability to tweak your desktop UI? Not really worth it. Those kids in Cupertino spent some time making sure that once you did pay the Apple tax, that at least you wouldn't have a shitty OS experience.

Plus, in terms of my linux UI choices these days? Hard to beat dwm - just recompile with your altered source code and voila! Beat THAT for customization.

If I'm feeling really froggy, I'll throw Openbox on - maybe even add Tint2.

Back on topic, the Surface Pro 3 is a great little machine.

Yeah, but Windows. I don't trust Windows as far as I can throw it, not even on a desktop, and certainly not a tablet.

With so many vectors for your privacy to escape through, I never worry about Microsoft anymore. So its a closed garden. Who cares, really? By the time you would need to throw linux on it in a few years I'm sure there will be a wiki and about twenty distro flavors to choose from.

Is there no middle road between init/inittab and systemd?

Upstart. It was actually in a number of distributions for some time, including:

• Fedora 9 - 14
• RHEL 6
• openSUSE 11.3 Milestone 4 - 12.0

Ironically, for all the claims that SystemD is for a better desktop experience, Ubuntu was the last one to enable SystemD.

Nothing ironic about it. It's all about NIH. Ubuntu was the last to enable systemd because they were working on their own replacement init system

" But virtually nobody does. "

But *actually* somebody does, since there is a plaintiff for the case.

Niche products for niche markets, however there is in fact quite a lot of choice in desktops and laptops, search here for HP, Dell and Lenovo and you'll find several from each vendor that come not just certified for Ubuntu but Pre-Installed with Ubuntu. The products are there, the demand is not.

The universe repository is not supported by Ubuntu. There are four sections:

Main - Officially supported software.
Restricted - Supported software that is not available under a completely free license.
Universe - Community maintained software, i.e. not officially supported software.
Multiverse - Software that is not free.

So someone in the "community" once made an ownCloud package, got it in universe and isn't maintaining it. Ubuntu is saying "that's not ours, you fix it" while the developers are saying "that's not ours, you fix it" and they're both making valid arguments. Ubuntu is saying the quality of the universe packages is what the community makes of it, if it's broken or vulnerable it stays that way until the community provides a fixed version. Otherwise they'd get overrun by lazy packagers who get it into the release repository then orphan it and ditch the maintenance responsibility on Ubuntu. If the developers won't jump through the hoops to fix it then it can't be that important to them.

The developers of course see it differently, they never asked for their software to be put in this repository. They never broke it, why should they fix it? Clearly they're a victim here. Still, just because you're a victim there might still be a process. If you send an angry mail to YouTube saying "Hey you bastards, stop sharing my video kthxbye" they might redirect you to say here's the report copyright violation form, fill this out and we'll process it and you go "Nuh uh, too much work and I already told you stop so stop already." you won't get far. And Ubuntu is legally in the clear here, if they want to keep shipping that package they can. It's a request, not a demand.

This would require to follow processes such as SRU. - While it may sounds like an easy solution this is a heavy burden which we do not want to take on us.
Especially, if we want to do security releases at the same time we could - even if we would maintain the Ubuntu packages ourself - not guarantee that this would happen at the same time. We're therefore providing our own repositories at owncloud.org/install
But if you want to do this "trivially easy" job for us over the whole lifetime of the distribution (5 years) we'd really appreciate it.

Excellent point! I never knew they provided these repos...

Either way, the version jump is too large to demand an automatic update, so the next natural step would be a security update, which is supposed to be supported by 12.04[1] and 14.04.

These usually enter the stream as patches, so it is likely that nobody has submitted a patch to fix these holes.

[1]: https://help.ubuntu.com/commun...

Funny enough, that's exactly what happens! As I outlined earlier, they take Debian Unstable, add their own stuff like Unity and Mir which no other distro will ever use, and that's Ubuntu Feisty Fanboi. Not a drop of fear, uncertainty, or doubt here. It's on the Ubuntu wiki:
"Most source packages in all Ubuntu components are copied unmodified from Debian."
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Ubuntu...

Actually reading the thread (I know, this is /. and that doesn't happen), the issue is that OwnCloud wanted the package removed from an *already released* repository, which Ubuntu refused, so as not to affect users actually using it, while providing three possible interim solutions. The end result was removal of the package from the repo of the next release. Problem solved.

Is this anything like Ubuntu Long Term Support as compared to the standard release schedule?

Is this anything like Ubuntu Long Term Support as compared to the standard release schedule?

So Windows 10 has the same hardware requirements as Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8/8.1 - so what?

Most people arguing for increased minimum specs are arguing for a system that would perform reasonably with an unspecified workload in addition to the load the OS puts on the system (for example, running MS Office 2013 applications)... Would dropping, for example, support for 32-bit x86 only hardware add or diminish the market share Windows 10 enjoys?

BTW why isn't anyone complaining about Ubuntu Linux which has similar minimum requirements and has for years?

ROFLMAO. IME, the only thing more painful than maintaining a Windows system over the long term is maintaining a *nix system over the long term.

Let's consider Linux. First, you probably get to choose between a stable or a not stable version of your distro. Choose stable and you're OK as long as you don't need to run any software released in the last 3 years and you're OK with being forced to upgrade the whole OS after maybe 2 years anyway (which will quite possibly trash your entire machine to the point of not being able to boot, or at least breaking minor features like RAID arrays, assuming you actually managed to configure one of those properly in the first place after your distro's "user friendly" installer messed it up completely).

Or not.

Alternatively, choose unstable if you want to run more recent software but don't mind stuff breaking all the time instead of every couple of years on a schedule.

Either way, if you want anything that hasn't got into your distribution's package management system yet, you're almost invariably forced into compiling your own software and manually installing it with makefiles. Those might, if you're really lucky, also offer a make uninstall option that actually does cleanly uninstall. That might, if you're even luckier, still work six months later, as long as no-one inadvertently installed a new version of the manually compiled code over the top to "upgrade" it, or just ran make distclean without thinking leaving you with no idea what make uninstall should have done.

Or not

In any case, Linux is going to enforce absolutely no system hygiene at any point in this process.

Or.....whatt? -sniffs system- Seems ok.....

OS X is of course doing much better with a similar foundation, as anyone who has spoken the words "Apple" and "shellshock" in the same sentence over the past few days can testify. Or at least, they'll be able to testify, just as soon as they've finished wiping and reinstalling their botnetted systems, because the patch everyone else had within hours only arrived for Apple gear several days later and long after exploits were widely found in the wild.

You're absolutely right that we should be able to install many programs and uninstall them with no lingering effects. But the idea that the registry is the only thing preventing that on Windows

Is crazy, yes. The registry is not the only thing Windows does wrong/messily, agreed.

or that *nix systems do better

Is a lot more sane. You don't *have* to package source install trees into deb/rpm/whatever packages before dropping them into your root filesystem, but you do have the option (and are kinda nuts if you don't, especially on a serious system). Maybe there's an equivalent '.msi HOWTO' somewhere out there, I've never looked for it - but isn't this entire thread of conversation about how the MSI system leaves crap lying around after uninstallations that it shouldn't, so even if you do follow best practises for installing (originally) non-packaged software then later uninstall it you're left with junk?

is crazy. The only reason *nix systems don't break more often is that the only people running them are geeks and professionals, and those kinds of people are less likely to install random junk and more willing to dive in and fix internals when stuff goes wrong.

And the reason that people who are less likely to do dumbass shit and fuck about with systems best left unfucked gravitate away from 'maintaining a Windows system over the long term' is....?

Considering that you can install ubuntu touch in several of the existing android phones, it is already battling with Android on the installed base.

It runs in different fronts. With WP8 is battling against an unified desktop/mobile OS (something that iOS and Android aren't doing). With Sailfish/Tizen is battling for developers of QT/linux environments (and getting enough developers will be good for all 3 platforms),

And as any race, your immediate objective is to catch the ones that are right infront of you, not the ones that are on top, To be the 3rd mobile platform is a good near term objective.

Please reference the output of "echo $SHELL" in your terminal. Unless you've changed it, Bash (via /bin/bash) is still your default interactive shell. You can change your shell if you like.

link

Ubuntu already divides the server from the Desktop. It is split in two, and he didn't need to open his mouth, just do a Google search and he would have found it.

Of course, the distro doesn't have the exact minimal install he needs, but no distro will because everyone has a different set of needed packages. Unless he builds it himself. If only there were a way to do that......I'm pretty sure Gentoo "emerge nginx" will do exactly what he's asking, too.

Also, who on earth is Paul Venezia? He calls himself someone "who builds and maintain large-scale Linux infrastructures." Can that possibly be true?

Go price a management solution for your 8,300 'free' desktops - a Ubuntu wants $105/desktop per year for a system that hopes to someday be as stabil and robust as MS Active Directory and Group Policy solutions that are (essentially) free with Windows Server...

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/... [ubuntu.com]

At 8,300 desktops and $105/yr, after six years you've invested neatly $5M to manage the desktops like you used to under Windows XP... Where did the savings go?

Then again, they could just cobble together a bunch of free tools and 'roll their own' management solution, I'm sure they welcome taking on that burden in the IT department - with no additional resources... To ensure maximal savings!

OpenLDAP works very well as a replacement for Microsoft Active Directory. And if the Government of Turin's IT Department configures NFS to work with OpenLDAP all files can be centrally-managed. I don't pay any year fees to Ubuntu to manage my Ubuntu desktops.

Go price a management solution for your 8,300 'free' desktops - a Ubuntu wants $105/desktop per year for a system that hopes to someday be as stabil and robust as MS Active Directory and Group Policy solutions that are (essentially) free with Windows Server...

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/...

At 8,300 desktops and $105/yr, after six years you've invested neatly $5M to manage the desktops like you used to under Windows XP... Where did the savings go?

Then again, they could just cobble together a bunch of free tools and 'roll their own' management solution, I'm sure they welcome taking on that burden in the IT department - with no additional resources... To ensure maximal savings!

Say, many android apps have arm binaries

Android apps are interpreted byte-code, not native binaries, same as java class files are interpreted byte code. The only binary you need is the dalvek apk interpreter, same as the only binary you need to run java on a windows machine is a windows java interpreter, and the only binary you need to run the same java class files on a linux box is a linux java interpreter.

So, if they've come up with a dalvek interpreter that runs on chromebooks, this is a good thing. It shouldn't look like the crappy android development emulator that simulates a whole smartphone - just running the app itself. Android already has the calls for laying out app widgets differently / intelligently based on different-sized screens, right up to big-screen TVs.

Compare this to Canonical, which had announced their Android Execution Environment in 2009 and, like Ubuntu TV, Ubuntu Smartphone, Ubuntu One, Ubuntu for Android, the failure to crowd-source the Ubuntu Superphone, and who knows how much other vapour-ware, an android interpreter that runs on a lappy is what people wanted to play with ... 5 years ago.

What next - run android apps on iPhones via a side-loaded dalvek interpreter? Android for Windows? (Could help make up for the dearth of app developers for Windows Phone, or whatever they're going to call it next week).

Say, many android apps have arm binaries

Android apps are interpreted byte-code, not native binaries, same as java class files are interpreted byte code. The only binary you need is the dalvek apk interpreter, same as the only binary you need to run java on a windows machine is a windows java interpreter, and the only binary you need to run the same java class files on a linux box is a linux java interpreter.

So, if they've come up with a dalvek interpreter that runs on chromebooks, this is a good thing. It shouldn't look like the crappy android development emulator that simulates a whole smartphone - just running the app itself. Android already has the calls for laying out app widgets differently / intelligently based on different-sized screens, right up to big-screen TVs.

Compare this to Canonical, which had announced their Android Execution Environment in 2009 and, like Ubuntu TV, Ubuntu Smartphone, Ubuntu One, Ubuntu for Android, the failure to crowd-source the Ubuntu Superphone, and who knows how much other vapour-ware, an android interpreter that runs on a lappy is what people wanted to play with ... 5 years ago.

What next - run android apps on iPhones via a side-loaded dalvek interpreter? Android for Windows? (Could help make up for the dearth of app developers for Windows Phone, or whatever they're going to call it next week).

So why didn't you buy Linux-certified Thinkpad model?

Seriously, I have not had hardware problems with Linux for over 10 years, and that's solely because if hardware is not supported, I won't buy it.

Even if Ubuntu is not your choice of distribution, this is a good list to pick a laptop model: http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/