Will Munich's Linux Desktops Be Running Windows?

An anonymous reader writes "Remember that story about the city of Munich choosing Linux to power 14,000 desktop computers? One aspect of this story that most people don't know about is that up to 80 percent of those Linux desktops will be equipped with VMWare, a virtual machine emulator, under which they will run Windows and Windows applications. That's right, folks: The majority of those 'Linux desktops' will be used to run ... Windows." This Gartner report from early June seems to be the one mentioned in the article, though I'm not sure exactly where Thurrott gets the 80% figure.

Comments

What we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is to buy out vmware like we did with blender. Then, we can hopefully get OEMs to start including windows UNDER Linux for increased features and stability. In addition, when Windows crashes, more options can be granted. If we can get Linux as the base for Windows, then people may start developing programs directly for Linux that bypass Windows altogether.

Double Betrayal

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe inside VMWare'd Windows they can run a Mac emulator, too.

article makes my head hurt

[bersl2]

Must... not... give in... to... M$ propaganda...

...owwww...

[gurgle]

/me is dead.

Not a bit

[flyneye]

think of it as having a terrarium.
like in your own environment you have a model of a smaller environment for amusement and to archive
lesser lifeforms for sentimental reasons.
I'll keep mine alongside my giant carboy with an actual example of a wild billgates.I may actually replace him with it tho cause he kinda smells and sits around touching himself like a gibbon.

Advantage of using VMWare

[Escalus]

I think you guys missed the obvious advantage of using VMWare to run Windows - you can reboot Windows faster in the case of the a BSOD :)

Re:Betrayal

[.com b4 .storm]

If running Windows on Linux lets them do whatever they need to do, then who are we to criticize them?

We are Slashdot. You must be new here. :)

Re:Wininformant?

[rsheridan6]

A quote from the article linked by the parent:

Furthermore, the Aberdeen Group reports that more than 50 percent of all security advisories that CERT issued in the first 10 months of 2002 were for Linux and other open-source software solutions. The report muddles the argument that proprietary software such as Windows is inherently less secure than open solutions. And here's another blow to the status quo: Proprietary UNIX solutions were responsible for just as many security advisories as Linux in the same time period. Could Windows be the most secure mainstream OS available today?

So Linux was responsible for more than half of security advisories, and propriety UNIX for just as many? That adds up to more than 100%. Therefore Windows must have less than 0% of advisories, in keeping with the Law of Conservation of Security Holes. It follows logically that Windows security features must be so great that they somehow fix Unix and Linux security problems, in keeping with that same law.

Wow, I'm going out to buy Windows XP now!!!

Re:Migration... this is the definition of Migratio

[io333]

Munich has over 100 Windows-only custom apps! They can't be expected just to switch to Linux and loose those overnight.

That's the first time I've ever seen the word lose mispelled and it still worked in the sentence. Kinda cool.

Re:Not a bad thing.

[babyrat]

and the only way to run Office is to use VMWare.

I use Microsoft Office both on my home PC and my work laptop (when necessary, which is, unfortunately, often). They both run Linux. I use CrossoverOffice, which is a commercial version of Wine.

So, there are ways other than vmWare, FYI.

I run MS Office on my laptop using Windows 2000! I've heard of people using Windows NT, XP, 95 and 98 too! There's lots of ways to run it!