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Alternative To Windows Desktops
Eric_Z writes "Ace's Hardware has got a article called "The Mad Hatter meets the MSCE" by Paul Murphy, about the TCO benefits of using UNIX(Lintel) instead of Wintel. According to the piece: 'The subject of this article looks at alternatives to the Windows desktop, which is a hot topic these days with IBM/SuSe scoring a highly public win in Munich with desktop Linux, and Sun aiming to build on StarOffice being the leading alternative to Microsoft Office with a software stack code-named Mad Hatter which Sun also plans to use extensively in-house. But companies depending on Microsoft Certified Engineers to adapt to Linux will carry over a number of problems, significantly increasing the chance of project failure. Paul considers the alternatives, the migration problems, and in seeking a more reliable alternative takes the opportunity to look at the business desktop from an entirely different angle, and propose a more radical solution.'"
TCO benefits of using UNIX(Lintel) instead of Wintel
I read this as SCO benefits from using UNIX(Lintel) instead of Wintel... and they would like to.
MSCE???? It'S MCSE: Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
Microsoft needs more competition!
The best way to counteract a fat monopoly like those microsoft whores is to put some good ol competition out there against them. Its tough to match those budgets and large scale operations, but more and more companies are fighting them from more and more directions...it can only lead to good things --- better products being produced by everyone.
Either that or more marketing.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
If I was more objective, it would seem that Microsoft bring out a 'We hold best TCO' article, and then this side brings out an 'Oh no you dont article'
I'm creating the 'It's behind you' article right now.. don't worry
puts ("Python r0cks\n");
lets face it, how many mcse's do we know capable of administering a linux network. most mcse's can't administer a windows network! I'm a strong advocate of linux on the desktop but I shudder to think how bad an average mcse could screw up a linux network say, after an IT admin leaves prematurely or a documentation-impared consultant installed it. let alone an mcse facing the custom written automation software implemented in most *nix networks.
Gonna be a few many years before this problem gets solved.
sPh
It's called an iMac. ;-)
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Including Solitair in the MadHatter might make things easier for MS certified people. Just Kidding :)
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Here is a Solaris 10 Mad Hatter desktop screenshot.
I fail to see the necessity to produce hundreds of windows-clone distros - isn't it win that we want to draw people away from? Look at it through the eyes of the average user:
It looks and functions like windows. I already have windows. Therefore, I'm sticking with the superior(?) windows
What we need to do is be developing newer, fresher ideas which keep microsoft on their toes - if we do that then at least MS has to keep coming up with the goods. My point is that a line of copies doesn't work - the average user doesn't care about the inside workings - they want results. I'll take the handheld game market as an example - How many gameboy clones have we seen come and disappear, doomed to sit in the back pages of children's catalogs? What we need as I have said too many times in this post is something new. There is more than one way to do it and until OSs capitalises on that and jumps into that niche, there is little hope of removing MS's stranglehold on the market.
well, doh!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
linux is in BIG trouble if it relies on Mouse Clicking Solutions Experts to implement Linux solutions.
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
What is your favourite mis-interpretation of MCSE?
My company runs Windows 98 clients and NT4 server atm, and I figured it was time to upgrade. I looked into Microsoft, with Office/WinXP and server 2003, and the cost was about $40k. That seemed insane, so I decided to try Linux.
I've been running Linux at home now for a few years, and am quite competitent running it. My first step was to replace the slackware/wmaker combination that I was happy with on my laptop to Redhat/Gnome/Bluecurve, and I was immidetely impressed with how far linux has come on the desktop, I figured this wouldn't be a problem.
I showed the owners of my company Linux, and they said they were fine with it on every machine... now the tricky part, application compatability.
Under Wine I was able to get my payroll software and estimating software running, but the accounting software proved impossible. Using older style database clients and VBA, I was totally unable to get it working.
I came to the conclusion that while I can use Linux on the desktop, application support from large corporate vendors need to be there before Linux can run on the desktop. I also came up with: "in 3 years, if we want to run a different accounting/estimating/etc package, will linux work for us?".. That question is unanswered atm, and therefore using Linux in a corporate enviroment seems to be a gamble right now, a gamble that I am not willing to wager on for my company. Another issue is support from our existing vendors... they supported running their software on Windows and 2 of them *REQUIRED* PCAnywhere to be available whenever needed... this was not possible with Linux.
Linux on the home desktop seems more than ready, but enterprise/corporate enviroments seem to need better application support before it's possible... while I do belive that the application support will be there in 3 years, I don't think it's a risk work taking atm.
... as it was just yesterday that it became know that Ford Motor Company is joining the ranks. They are switching from Windows to Linux
the pun is mightier than the sword
These midrange apps are the bread-and-butter of corporate computing. They do not run on the Mac and do not run under Linux. Some are starting to move toward a web browser based model, but not all and not necessarily quickly.
Until Linux equivalents exist for these midrange apps, the Linux desktop will not be used in midsized organizations.
sPh
If you have an existing Windows infrastructure thats works then bolting Linux onto it ok however as pointed out in the articule just shoving clients on isn't going to reduce the cost.
However if Sun are talking about it you would expect that most of their infrastructure is already UNIX so it would actually make sence. Of course I can't see all the windows workstations being replaceed as the saying goes
"If it ain't broke don't fix it"
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Sun offers legal protection covering desktop components like Staroffice against third party intellectual property claims that aren't available to companies sourcing their Linux desktops from the IBM/SuSe partnership or other players.
Now I understand why McBride stresses the notion that open source projects should protect its customers against legal prosecution. Sun is one of the two companies that bought a SCO license, you know...
They used the "mongoose thrown into a snake pit" metaphor to refer to Linux being used in an all Windows environment, and the "Indiana Jones shoots the swordsman" metaphor, to refer to the technological advantage of Linux over Windows. But combine the two and you get the "Indiana Jones thrown into a snake pit" metaphor, and you know how Indy feels about snakes... things don't look good for Linux it seems.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
I just stuck a fresh install of RH9 on a laptop. It installed amazingly well - in fact, it installed better OOTB than win2k.
But "better" lasted only until it came time to actually do stuff with it. Sure, samba seems to work well and it has no problem browsing shares on MS boxes. But try to play a video file... oops, no media codec installed in the RH9 default distro. Hmmm... well, try to play an MP3 then. Ooops, no can do - cannot play an MP3 file from a file in a samba share. Try copying the file to this machine and perhaps it can be played then...
I really want linux to live up to the promise. Really. And I'm looking forward to working with the new media structure in gonome, and hoping to do my part. But I'm honestly beginning to wonder if linux can ever catch up - much less take the lead - on a user friendly desktop.
1)Actually, with a decent UI, any software is usable. A good IT worker should be able to adapt quickly to new software - computing is a fast moving world and requires quick adaptation skills to cater for that
;)
:)
:)
2)Hey, Solaris isn't the only alternative out there and financially, it is the exception to the rule. A quick calculation of costs (on the fly in the local computer store ^^) for Redhat (w/gcc,oo.org,etc) vs Win XP (w/equivalent tools) indicated over $1000 saving.
3)Meh. I see your point. However, MS are working towards a new filesystem standard, whats to stop OSs improving on the existing linux ones?
4)Yeh, well. You might want to check that one. The speed of a computer is to a certain extent dictated by the software running on top of the OS. Not every programmer is obsessive compulsive about variable sizes and memory overhead (Not that I'm not ^^)
5)4 words. Open Office filetype filters
And those are just 5 reasons why there are two sides to the coin
Perhaps you don't need alternatives, but alternatives need to exist. I on the other hand, need alternatives; because, your platform of choice doesn't provide the features I need.
I am glad to see more code and support for GNOME, that said Sun still is a hardware company and Intel boxes are not their bread and butter. I see this product as a wedge for Solaris, not a true linux push. Even then, I don't see much here you can't get from RedHat's bluecurve additions on top of GNOME...actually I see very little on top of the stock GNOME itself (which says a lot about the high quality of the stock GNOME).
By making it more and more difficult for users to run unlicensed copies of Windows OS (XP was a great start, they'll do better next time for certain), the home user who wants to upgrade will find themselves "upgrading" to something else entirely if they want to keep the price the same. No one wants to pay for a software "dongle" to make other software they (may) have paid for work. People buy computers to surf the web, send email, play games. They don't feel they need to pay just to be able to move files around.
I am hoping that the kind folks at OpenAL and OpenGL make a compelling replacement for DirectX so that games will run natively on Linux. When you get the gamers, you will have won. MS has the gamers right now. When those gamers come to Linux, they'll learn the OS and show their friends. Windows will lose its ubiquity on the desktop because no one wants to pay to upgrade their copy of windows, or even pay for an original license when building a machine.
It is only a matter of time.
Main thing that bothers me about this article is how obviously slanted it is, without really going into what's important. I mean, I see all of these statements about how things that are true in the Microsoft environment are not true in the Linux environment (or at least, aren't best practice). So, the missing information is this - if the design is flawed, and the solutions are wrong for the problem, then what are the solutions (at least give us a hint) to these problems in oh-so-perfect, everything-else-sucks Linux? Okay, so maybe I'm feeling a little annoyed, but if I'm supposed to be developing/supporting solutions in multiple platforms, perhaps some lucid discussion of the issues and their solutions would be useful? Certainly this article pretends to be hitting these things, but it fails to execute. I'd love to see some links that try to hit these issues in a more complete manner. Anyone?
1) Most office workers barely know how to use the software they have. The transition will require training them to not know how to use a whole different set of software. Oh, wait, it won't because no one needs to be trained to not know stuff.
2) Which is?
3) Benchmarks are where?
4) Not nearly enough said. Again, benchmarks are where? And why are they "Linux" FSs in #3, but now we're talking Solaris? Which is it?
5) People had to learn to use both Word and Excel as they migrated from packages like WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. Not to mention the changes from version to version of just the MS software. I think your users will survive.
I do not have a signature
But that has nothing to do with Linux. Those companies probably already have significant problems. Oh, wait, it said "carry over" so I guess the fact that they have problems is tacitly implied...
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
If memory serves, Microsoft and Novell came under fire a few years ago for their use of the word 'Engineer'. In the non-IT world, the word actually carries meaning: one must complete a licensing process before calling oneself an Engineer. Additionally, these real [i.e. non-IT] engineers are actually held liable for defects/mistakes/incompetence, etc.
My dad is a Certified Manufacturing Engineer and a Professional Engineer (P.E.); this issue was covered extensively in his trade magazines.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
What manufacturing?
In case you've been asleep, the United States has outsourced small and midsized manufacturing to the Far East or Latin America.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
1)It's not a question of a "decent" UI, it's a question of a "familiar" UI. You have a point regarding IT workers (whose jobs are mostly being farmed out to india, btw) needing to be adaptable, however I am mostly thinking of jane secertary or joe executive who are confronted with a *nix desktop and freak out.
2)Even if you have a point, with the rising cost of Enterprise Redhat, I think you might want to re-check the prices for RH and re-evaluate. I'm sure there are affordable solutions (FreeBSD), but I don't believe that RH is one of them any longer.
3)I would suggest that Linux work on two points:
->I/O Model, so that loading a large app like mozilla isn't choked by a large copy operation
->Instead of re-inventing the wheel, adopt UFS+Softupdates and move on. I have not tried UFS2 but I suspect it suffers from much the same slowdown as does ext2/3/jfs.
4)checked
5)again, you have to factor in the cost and resistence factor to adopting OO.
A troll mentioned WINE, however with the complexity of the WINE install --not to mention the "wisdom" of using alpha software in an proffesional environment-- that is not a viable corporate solution.
Several of the comments made in the article seem to indicate that the author is living in a happy dream world, where clever users are oppressed into mere drones by MCSE's and MS software. He acknowledges that it is a best practice in the Wintel world to lock down machines as much as possible to minimize support costs, yet seems to think that Unix will "empower users" (from a sidebar) without causing any problems at all.
/. crew decide that the author is living a dream?
Is he crazy? The reasons that machines are locked down is that the endusers are stupid. They know nothing about computers, and ideally they shouldn't have to - they are just tools to do their real jobs. Any extra capabilities will just allow them to break more things. Sun can only support so many users per admin by locking systems tighter than most MSCEs could dream of - the answers to what is wrong are so easy because there are no other options. The users aren't empowered, they are chained down as much as possible. All to the good; but believing you can take the same idiot endusers from a windows shop, give them magic Lintel boxen and some responsibility and rights to manage their own systems, and get *fewer* support calls is just delusional.
And thinking that it's the OS that is driving all those fast upgrades to physical machines is also absurd. A huge portion of all business desktop and laptop upgrades is driven by vanity, not need. Good luck thinking that a rational OS decision based on security and TCO will quickly stop "mine's bigger" purchasing. You think execs sending email, looking at excel spreadsheets, and playing solitaire need those multi-thousand dollar laptops? You think that running linux they'll stop buying them?
I liked the approach of the author, to look at the practices that will be reflexive to existing support staff and the effect they will have on a Linux implementation. But his take on the reflexive approaches of the *users* is completely unrealistic, and renders his article mostly useless. Face it, most of the people here on Slashdot have dealt with those endusers - you think the majority will agree that they will miraculously become wise if just given a chance? Or will the
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
14 million active consumers use Mac instead of windows as their main alternative.
7 million use os 9.2.2 or older and about 6.8 million normally boot into osx.
True, there are forty times as many os9 apps as osx but the ratio is slowly changing, and hundreds of professional (>600 dollar) packages exist on mac osx now.
basically all the old SGI adn sun stuff emigrated to bsd-based mac osx.
osx is not as secure as os9, or as fast for small IO, or as quick booting, or as easy on powerbook batteries.... but it shines in parallel computation and most large desktop macs sold have more than one processor.
plus the worlds fastest computer for under 15,000 dollars only costs 2,999 and is from apple and is the dual g5 with pci-x slots and 8 gig of ram maximum.
The biggest diff in TCO has to be the simple fact that employees won't have to delete 1X10^34 virus emails per second coming into their inbox if they aren't using Outlook. LOL
how does the typical MCSE skill set map to what will be needed to cope with an environment in which perhaps 20% of the servers and 80% of the desktops run Linux while the remainder continue to run Microsoft suites?
Okay, I'm a developer and not an IT guy, but this does not make sense to me. Why would a company run 80% of their desktops with Linux and 80% of their servers with Windows?
Am I just missing the whole point of the article?
char *mySig;
Depends upon the state (at least in the US; I bet other countries vary even more than the US does).
Texas has very strict licensing of engineers and the usage of the word in titles, business cards, etc. In that state you must go through certification and become a Professional Engineer to use the term. Getting a PE is very much non-trivial and includes (IIRC) a bare minimum of 5 years of experience in the field plus extensive testing and professional review.
Georgia, on the other hand, has no licensing whatsoever AFAIK. I can call myself a "Software Engineer" and there's nothing that can be done about it.
I'm fairly indifferent about the whole thing... but I can understand where the defensive nature of the trade associations come in. After all, who else remembers the late-80s/early-90s jokes of garbageman being renamed to "Waste Resource Engineer"? It's a dilution of the term, and a term which has a rather large dollar figure associated with it just as "M.D." for medicine and "attourney" or "esquire" for law do.
Dude, I've been keeping a log of all the posts I make here that get modded as "troll" simply because I say shit that is critical - yet factual - about the state of the linux desktop. I have to say I have never yet made such a post that did not get immediately modded down. The one I made just a few minutes ago hit -1 within five minutes.
Seriously. Who are you gonna tell? Outside redhat and other trademarked, corporatized distros there are damn few who seem to care about making what's already there work cohesively. Knoppix gives me a great deal of hope, but it's still too early to tell there. And outside that lone distro, any other solutions that try to be even as compelling as windows (never mind "better") are no longer completely "free" in either sense of the word.
It's no secret what is missing. It doesn't take a genius to use win2k OOTB for five minutes and then try the same stuff in linux and see what's different. And while the difference between RH6 and RH9 is vast, there's still a cast range to cross. How do I set a share in RH? I right click in windows, select "properties" and configure the share tab. Where's the share tab in RH? I don't see it... all I see is a bunch of widgets that set "755" and "644" - what the hell does this stuff mean to an luser?
It means linux still can't compete with windows from an end user perspective.
As an MCSA and Active Directory / Exchange admin, I found this author's story just that- A story. He's obviously coming from a position of not knowing anything about Win32 administration, and it was obvious to me he's yet another one of the Lin32 pundits who really doesn't know anything about Win32 networks except what he's heard in the press. Keep in mind that if Lin32 ever gets as big as Microsoft as far as desktop percentages, it will also face the same issues with point and click virus creation tools and the like.On my last assignment I spent a total of 2 days disabling services and other undesirable components of the AD domain I designed. An external security company spent over a weeek trying to break in. Not only did we maintain a 99.9% uptime, but they never did break in. So you see, Win32 networks can be secure and stable, just as Lin32 networks can be insecure and unstable. It really has nothing to do with the OS per se, but rathar the person behind the keyboard. As this author is obviously ignorant to the facets of Win32 administration, I have to wonder how secure and stable his Win32 domain would be, should he ever find himself in such a position.
End of Line.
I erlyla od.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
"If it ain't broken break it, then fix it."
"If it ain't broken take it apart and find out why."
"If it's broken, I didn't write it."
The stars that shine and the stars that shrink
in the face of stagnation the water runs before your eyes
Microsoft wants you to gent confused - please don't let it happen.
MCSE = Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
MSCE = Masters of Science in CIVIL Engineering
Note that one of these degrees is much more respectable than the others.
blah blah blah.
SCO bad!
blah blah blah
Blizzard is great, er no, bad.
blah blah blah.
Yes folks, this daily Dorkdot summary is brought to you by the letters F, and U.
Corporate users arguably don't need mp3 or video codecs.
They need a snappy computer with basic productivity software that doesn't have to be administered constantly. This is where Linux has a chance.
Home and power users are going to have to wait longer for a Linux that has all the goodies, out of the box, working perfectly, that can compete with Windows. Or they can just learn how to add what they need.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
hi
How is that a troll? Is the poster writing inflammatory content in the hopes of getting a response from the unwitting? Don't think so. Offtopic might have been a better choice.
Because, in larger business environments, they suck.
The argument presented in the paper is more of a thin-client vs client-server/desktop approach.
With the software properly installed and managed on a central server, not individually on each PC, there are significantly less problems.
Whole industries have been built around the Windows PC that aren't necessary from a corporate standpoint. I speak of client-side firewalls, anti-virus and disk imaging software.
No need to "push" an image when the PC gets corrupt. No need to reboot the PC. No need to run and license individual anti-virus applications. No need to scan for spyware, etc on each PC.
"PC Empowerment" is a BS phrase. The only thing most PC's empowered the coporate user to do was send worms, catch viruses and play games. Applications like a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, CAD, project management, e-mail and other business software can just as easily be run via a central server. Administration is tons easier.
And with full-duplex, fast ethernet to the clients and gigbit or bonded channels to the servers, load and run times can often be faster than off of cheap PCs with hard drives.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The company I work for has a tendency to use 'Engineering Associate' as the tail end of a title that might normally end in 'Engineer'. In most states it keeps them from having too many problems with making sure people have all of their licensing and whatever else they might have to do.
In the rare cases where they hire someone on because they have the licensing and schooling for the title, though, they certainly do use the title as long as what they want to pay them is within the pay requirements for the title.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Speaking as someone who works for a very large government institution, I think the only way to get off the Microsoft train is to go with Macs. And I'm not being a troll when I say this. #1, the computer and the OS come from the same supplier. This is where Linux fails because none of the reputable hardware companies will offer real support for the OS if you run into troubles; nor will they indemnify the institution from the frivolous claims by the likes of SCO. If you buy the HP line, what are you going to have to do, install Mandrake on your own? Won't you still be paying the Microsoft tax unless you buy the PCs from Mitec, a mom-and-pop whitebox store, or purchase a Dell line with that DOS'ish OS on a bundled disc? Or, if you want support, you have to pay extra to Red Hat, IBM, or Sun? #2 the Microsoft apps won't run natively on Linux. You have to run Wine or Codeweavers software, and I'm sure if a government agency does that, Microsoft will be on the phone with the various elected officials to start investigations on software purchases as well as EULA violations (and a BSA audit wouldn't be too far down the road too). I've been thinking about all of this because we run Win2K on Dell P3 800mhz machines, and its time to start upgrading. But each of these concerns is enough to kill any suggestion for switching to Linux, especially when everyone who has a hand in deciding IT issues has MCSE certification to justify their jobs. Whereas if an agency becomes a Mac OS X shop, you have the Microsoft Office apps, but the hardware upfront costs more. Granted, you can shave off 1/3rd of your IT staff if you go Mac, but the political party that would be most interested in saving government monies in such a manner (through layoffs and eliminating redundancies) would probably not be inclined to help Apple out since Jobs and others are left-of-center in their political affiliations, not to mention Al Gore is on their board of directors even if it is in a ceremonial position... And the taxpayer suffers, not to mention us employees that have to use this *poodoo*...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
I love it when so-called visionaries pontificate about all the logistical problems in adopting Linux infrastructures. They really try to make it complex because it fills up a bunch of pages and sells advertising.
.net holds any water until MS makes them eat the costs to test it.
The answer is clear. Linux will be phased-in in the near term in most corporations for two simple reasons:
(1) The much ballyhood TCO for Linux is at least 40% less than Windows. As soon as MS starts loosing even more revenue they will begin to lower costs. They could do that nearly forever and fund software development on the investment returns from their cash supply. On the other hand, their stock would really start to drop. This shouldn't be too big of an issue because corporate support and security departments (after SoBig) are really pushing for ThinClients. Believe it or not, this will actually speed up adoption of Linux. When your ThinClient doesn't care if its talking to a Windows Terminal Server or an X-Server and OpenMosix cluster, your platform isn't locked down to MS anymore. Its easy at that point to simply migrate to the very inexpensive Linux cluster as time and funding allow without having to deploy linux everywhere. You save support $ on both software updates, hardware and software fixes, antivirus, security etc etc. Why is this better? Because even if the whole corp converts to ThinClients with Citrix and Linux, every program written on the Citrix side incurs the Microsoft/Citrix tax. At that point it will be obvious to even the pointiest haired boss that they are loosing money in that direction. All dual boot issues go away. Need more CPU, disk, memory, bandwidth? Throw it at the cluster.
(2) I almost forgot this reason. Believe it or not, the heads of most corporate IT departments really do want to chart their own course. With the Linux solution they can. With MS they cannot. They don't even know if MS's latest FUD campaign for
Bottom line is that corporations will either adapt to the lower TCO of ownership of clustered/thinclient Linux or they will whither away and die. You can bet their competitor will try it the next time someone is wondering about bottom line. For example, Ford just decided to convert over after BMW and a number of other car manufacturers did. They are trying to stay competitive and you don't do that by throwing away huge revenues on MS taxes.
All the rest of the issues like whether Sun has some version of IT miracle-grow that will take over the desktop and whether a bunch of MSCE 'tards can covert to Linux are just sound and fury. As for Sun, who cares. They were something in the day. When the opensource train left the station they were working on their Java propaganda. As for MSCEs, my guess is that once the MosixCluster/ThinClient model rolls out completely many of them won't be asking whether Linux will be a good fit, they will be asking more pertinent questions like "Would you like fries with that?"
Being a "Software Engineer" in Texas, I can inform you that our policies have just recently been relaxed a bit. For instance, I can now use the term "Engineer" on my business cards, if that is my official title at my company.
In other words, as long as my employers says I am an "Engineer," then I'm allowed to declare myself as such to others (in the context of my job.) That is, I can't quit my job, go freelance, and continue to call my self an "Engineer." I'm only one as long as I'm employed by a company that says I am.
It's odd, but I guess I can see their point. It just sucked before to have a masters degree along with several years of experience and have an official title of "Software Practitioner." Bleh!
I honestly don't see why MS Office carries so much weight. Is that really all anyone uses a computer for besides checking mail and surfing?
What I want to know is, where are all the engineering applications? The OSS tools available for common engineering tasks leave much to be desired. Try finding a Linux-friendly replacement for SolidWorks or OrCAD, for example. Sure, you can find some high-end stuff like Pro-E and Cadence but I'm talking about the affordable apps that have found their way into small and medium sized-businesses.
I'm sorry, but the OSS apps in the CAD department have a long way to go. And, it's not just cad either. Consider buying an FPGA development kit, a DSP development board, or any number of hardware development kits - they all come with Windows software to develop the code on or come with only Windows device drivers.
I use OSS as much as possible but when it comes to this kind of stuff, the choices are poor.
To many corporate people, it would be just as hard to migrate the Office software as it would the OS. MSOffice is so ingrained in the corporate culture it is pathetic. I have to send my status report to my manager in a Word doc. Everything is stored in freaking Word docs around here. Want to show some people some pictures? Put them all in a Word doc, that way you can email one huge .doc file. I once complained to a guy because he was attaching screenshots to a bug report like this. I explained "do you realize that for someone to see these, they would have to use MSWord. They are just images". His response? "Everyone here has Word installed, that isn't a problem."
As for the others, you won't see IE go away as long as MS is the OS. Hell, our internal website won't work with Opera, the browser I use. I am actually surprised that my boss lets me run it. Gotta conform and everything.
Our department gets its MSWord licenses from Corporate, so it doesn't cost our department anything. That is what the managers are most concerned with, their budgets. As long as it doesn't cost them anything out of their budget, who cares? If we all have to upgrade to OfficeXP (which we are doing) from Office2K, then Corporate will take care of it.
It doesn't matter how compatable it is, if it looks like Office, acts like Office, is better than Office, or is 100% free. If it ain't MSOffice, a lot of places won't use it. Companies sign deals for their OS/Office licenses, so many times you can't split up the OS/Office software. Oh, and you have to upgrade every 3 or 4 years.
So while I appreciate your idea, in companies where MS has them by the short hairs, it doesn't fly. It is also one of those things that makes me yearn for a better economy, so I can quit this cubicle wasteland and go work for a small company again. The "corporate atmosphere" is slowly killing me. It is killing everyone else too, they just don't realize it.
Kee-rist, sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I wished that ugly Penguinistas monicker would have stayed at Ars.
Go back to the AV Club you fool !
:wq
I always thought it stood for McDonald's Certified Sandwich Expert. That's pretty much what most of 'em are doing about now ain't it?
Microsoft has a habit of just redefining standards to be whatever they want them to be. Why shouldn't standard usage be one of them? Microsoft will just use their normal tactic and re-define the word "Engineer" to mean what they want.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
It's old news. RedHat does not ship MP3 codec or the CSS library for legal reasons. Yes, it suck.
:wq
An oft heard sentiment is that choice is one of the key tenets of Linux: there are many window managers to choose from, many text editors, desktop environments are optional, etc. What's disappointing is how, after all this time, it has come down to UNIXalikes vs. Windows. That's choice, I guess, but it's more like having to pick from Republicans and Democrats (many Americans think it's a choice, but everyone else laughs at how ridiculous it has become). Yeah, there's BSD and OS X, but again, they're just variants of UNIX. If Linux proponents have their way--and I admit that they are well-meaning--they we'll all be using UNIX. This does not strike me as a good thing.
Remember, the GNU project and the original Linux kernel were both originally attempts to clone UNIX, an operating system that was 20 years old when Linus started hacking. What if Stallman and Torvalds had been enamored of VMS or OS/360 instead? Would it have been a good thing to have those on our desktops? I respect the historical importance of UNIX, and many of its fundamental principles, but after putting the "Let's take down Microsoft!" battle aside, I'm not sure it's what we really want. Perhaps the real problem is that we shouldn't be so concerned with the archaic concept of "operating systems," and instead have computing systems designed the other way around, from a usability point of view (and, no, that doesn't mean we should abolish the command line and have Clippy-like interfaces).
Did you try vmware? I havn't used it in a few years but when i did it was wonderful. It's probably not the thing for all the users (since OpenOffice would do). But for the ones that NEED the old windows apps. It might be just the thing.
As another poster stated you could also just phase in the linux boxes. 90% of the people on linux and the few that really need the windows machines get them.
However one good argument for VMware instead of a plain windows box is that with VMware you can restore the virtuial windows machine at anytime since it's just a "disk image" file. A lot more reliable than ghosting (no hardware issues) and faster too.
How many gameboy clones have we seen come and disappear, doomed to sit in the back pages of children's catalogs?
Excuse me, but what handhelds are you pointing to as "GameBoy clones"? Surely not the Atari Lynx, the TurboExpress, or the Sega GameGear...all of them were superior to the GameBoy in one way or another. Can you reverse the GameBoy to better accommodate left-handed players like the Atari Lynx did back in 1989? How about backlighting? That didn't become standard in the GameBoy Advanced until, what, 2002? Try 1989 for the Atari Lynx. Yes, cloning indeed...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Or you could get a Macintosh.
I try a distro every few months or so, and each time I get stuck on one thing or another. (printer or scanner or whatever)
I do a lot of RTFMing, compiling and configuring to try to get everything to go. But I think, for now, people have to accept that the most painless way to switch to linux from windows is to do it in conjunction with a purchase of recommended hardware.
I'm pretty close now. I've got video editing and a bunch of other going in KDE 3.1, but I've also got a fair bit of cruft around the hard disk now. If I buy the next computer carefully for linux, though, I reckon it would be up and going in a day or two with everything working.
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
Sun Rays are nice, but you can go even cheaper if you get a low-cost PC ( A iDOT Lindows Webstation box, perhaps?), and Knoppix with the Encrypted Persistent Home Directory which you can save on a USB pen drive...
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
One of the major benefits of *nix mentioned in the article was the centralization of processing, and how that can decrease hardware churn.
It's true, but by itself, it leaves a lot of wasted resources by having P3s and P4s acting like dumb terminals. If I'd just shelled out for new machines, I wouldn't like having to shell out for grunty servers to supplant the grunty desktops I'd just bought.
But the ability to have the whole network act as a Mosix cluster takes this and flips it on its head, allowing maximum leverage of all the hardware resources that the organization already has. Aside from the real-world benefits, pitching that would make a purchaser feel clever, not stupid. It ought to have had a mention.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I think its the beginning of the end for microsoft. I think sun may be right about the future. Perhaps we'll see the majority of corporate desktops as Linux thin clients managed centrally on a "big Iron" server from Sun or IBM or whoever. People in the art department can run on Macs or full fledged Lintel desktops, because they will need the power. Developers will also need real linux desktops. But everyone will be able to run X-windows unix client apps for the corporate stuff (ximian evolution, star office/openOffice.org). Client-server inhouse apps like PeopleSoft for HR or whatever will all be web based apps that are client agnostic. Open standards will allow the hardware to match the job and greatly simplify administration. I'm sure microsoft will still be around, especially in the home. Home users will still need, or at least want, full featured desktops for media and cd burning, gaming, etc. Sure this all sounds idealistic...but wouldn't IBM's open future be great?
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
As an MCSE with a future father in law who works as an aerospace engineer, I debated this with him once. I conceded (in that case you have to) that I am not an engineer and am not worthy lacking all his skills etc... A couple months later his home network went down and I helped him get it back up. Later, at a family reunion he was heard explaining that I am a network "engineer"
What's the point to an alternative? What need does this fill or what problem does this fix? The desktop OS is by and large a non-issue. It works and it works well. Trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist is a sure fire way to fail a business. Just like E-books. What was the fucking point? There's nothing wrong with traditional books, and E-books added little if any value. I just don't see the fucking point any more. Quit beating a dead horse.
If anyone thinks that articles like this are going to prompt enterprises to adopt Linux, I think they are sorely mistaken. If anything, they will cause corporations to fear heterogenius computing environments to the detriment of Linux.
When an article says without actually using the words that all those companies, and the people who maintain them are idiots, you dont win converts to your side of the fence. People are more likely to retrench in an effort to back up their previous decisions.
Look, as a former Career Microsoftie, I can verify that the MCSE community is about 50% losers who I would not trust to tie their own shoe, and about 50% who know what they are doing on SOME if not MOST computing environments. Those are the ones who DONT just do Windows, but are versed in UNIX, Mac and other systems, and are prepared to deal with differences. I would suggest that any company that hires an MCSE who knows no other platform, is a very dumb company.
The fact is that a great many companies are up and running sucessfully on Microsoft software both on the client and the server, and will be for years to come. Articles promoting Linux need to take that fact into account, and become a lot less arrogant and condesending, and more effective at extolling the platform's benefits.
Frankly, a lot of the Linux marketing seems to be much like the democratic presidential candidates. A lot of criticism of their opponent, but short on solutions of their own. That is not how you win. Linux needs to shed the image of zealotry and do more to make the platform attractive on it's own, and not just as an alternative to the current flavor of the month.
I know Linux growth has taken off, but so did a lot of great products that got caught up in rhetorical arguments, instead of improvements, and ended up on the scrap heap of former Microsoft competition.
More honey, less vinegar.
I ask because I'm wondering what alternatives are out there. Will I have to recompile some of the apps if I switch?
testing out my trending skills
Just what exactly is that word supposed to mean? Wintel I can understand, because it refers to the monopoly-cartel-alliance that has dominated computing, but the word Lintel doesn't add anything. It is basically being used to mean Linux. Throw that word away.
Now if Linus and the boys at Intel start making backroom deals to take over the world, then come talk to me.
That's why Disney called their non-"Engineer" engineers, "Imagineers."
Microsoft Servers crashing more when Linux is used on the desktop sounds pretty shady to me.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
My dad is a Sanitation Engineer, he was issued a mop as certification
You just admitted to being an MCSE in slashdot. That's got to be worth a wedgie with a jackhammer and an immediate lose of all your karma while we all appreciate the brazeness of your post.
It take more faith to believe in evolution than it takes to believe in God
Minesweeper Consultant, Solitaire Expert
This is quicky becoming the "All your base" of 2003.
I manage a charity program where we donate/sell dirt cheap older computers to needy families. We've been using win98+oofice for a while, but this weekend we'll donate the first batch of pc's running rh9 + XPde (www.xpde.com). They run Rh9 for stability, have the windows-like XPde interface to help the user becomes used to the new environment. We even got winmodems to work on the thing, so they can have dial-up internet! Linux proved to be a great money-saving alternative in a area where every dime counts.
Now.. on xmmx, consider. You have a business. You are therefore very vulnerable to lawsuits and legal actions that might cripple your business. Are you going to run unlicensed and patented products on every desktop in your company?
There's no good reason xmms should be unable to play video and audio directly from a samba share. And there's no good reason redhat cannot install xmms to handle videos by default, but equip it only with MPEG1 and OGG codecs. Then the user at least gets an app launch that makes it look like it's trying to do something useful with these files that play perfectly fine on windows.
it's the little stuff that matters most, and on linux there's damn few willing to pay attention to what matters most.
UNIX != Linux; someone change that in the article! It burns my eyes to see the quote "UNIX(Lintel)"!
And I wish I didn't have to run a windows desktop just to get the fucntionality I need for the stuff I work on. I promise to work on my problem if you will work on yours... mkay?
Go back to the AV Club you fool !
And leave... all this?
I know this will attract flames etc but what the hell it will be interesting.
Really - from the user's point of view, what is the big deal what OS is used on the desktop so long as it works for what they need to do?
The cost of changing a moderately large organisation's desktop standard including all the support training and user training along with changes to procedures would be *phenomenal*.
Why will people do this just so someone else can start taking money from them?
I'm an MCSE and an RHCE and I can't really see a lot of difference between the two. The new Win2k and above MCSE is much more real world than the NT4 tests were. They can't compete with the lab work for the RHCE but I think most people who recieved one of the newer MCSE's should be able to study up and get the RHCE without a problem.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Because, in larger business environments, they suck.
Ah, now that clears things up. Very "insightful". That's about as convincing as those stupid election posters by the side of the road that just have the person's name on it.
Not quite a solution for a corporate office, but great info. Thanks for helping.
Please forgive me for commiting the two cardinal sins of slashdot. First I read the article and second I am going to comment directly about that article.
Paul Murphy seems to be well versed in online white papers on the subject of enterprise costs and who's pushing which enterprise scheme and how they plan to market it. Paul however seems to be lacking any practical experience in any enterprise of size or enacting change in a large enterprise. I found his article when it was not a verbatim regurgitation to be a boring derivative. Nothing new here if you are up on thin clients or converting desktops from MS to *nix. If I am wrong and Mr. Murphy does have extensive enterprise experience then my apologies but the article is still dangerously approaching crap. Won't waste my time on any future garbage from him.
The truth suffers more from convictions than from lies.
MSCE is a proper degree!
./'er? Correcting Microsoft's stolen acronymn (slightly mangling it) and wondering what the original was? It's because of people like you that I can't say "MSCE" on my degree without someone considering hiring a trained baboon instead of me, because they think I'm a Microsoft 6-weeks of study test-passer instead of a 6-year degree earner.
It's Masters (MS) in Computer Engineering!
And you call yourself a
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
...to call yourself an Engineer then the local homeless crazy bum has of calling himself 'The Emperor of All Known Space'.
You are a glorified Technician. You took a test that people that go through a 6-day Boot Camp can pass. You are really a Microsoft Certified Systems TECHNICIAN. Nothing more, nothing less.
Of course, if you spent 4 to 6 years at an institution of higher learning going over nothing but Microsoft Products and the Engineering principles of those products, as well as how to implement, change and build those products and then spent 5 years in the field prior to taking a professional organization's Engineering test... Then you could call yourself an Engineer.
Real Engineers work themselves to the bone and sweat blood to be called Engineers. At best, you are a qualified and skilled Network Technician. Nothing more and nothing less.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
I think the slashcoders should prevent ppl replying in the 1st tier directly under their posts. This can work for logged in users (whether posting as AC or not) but not for true ACs.
Still, it forces the hard-core trolls to log out.
One technology department I'm familiar with had its budget slashed incredibly. Basically, by some pointy haired boss using a CDW catalog and his HP 12c to project the figures.
The IT staff were in a panic. Supplying WinTel machines as budgeted wouldn't allow funding for many server side technologies and pet projects. Moreover this didn't go over well with the IT staff who would have to be responsible for maintaining and securing these machines. They weren't Linux savvy yet and if they were being honest, most had come to depend on GUI-driven, point-and-click tools to help them in their maintenance chores.
As they were assembling their rationalizations to take back to management, some extremely clever in-house developers on the IT staff, came up with an open-source solution to deploy:
* Come up with standard Linux install images
* Develop tools on Macs to maintain these images
When the IT staff realized that with this method they weren't in danger of losing their own ease of use, they started coming up with their own justifications for this plan.
* Good to have IT staff on higher-security platform
* Unauthorized users easier to id due to distinctive design
* Wider compatability than Windows or Linux alone
The voiceless masses have been fairly receptive to the new plan (or at least not coordinated enough to voice a strong opposition). Key executives were allowed to be exempt from the Linux standards, but they were encouraged to use Macs with MS products rather than full Wintel machines (to be as "standard" as possible).
The use of friendly maintenance tools on Macs (which used tech friendly technologies under the hood for the geeks) was the key to overcoming the general IT fear of Linux. It's not certain if IT will keep using Macs down the road once this irrational fear is gone, but it was very important to get the ball rolling at all.
The problem with large scale adoption of Linux on the desktop is the applications that don't run or don't run easily on Linux.
Anyone who went through Y2k upgrades of desktops realizes that 20% of the appications (all of the odd balls) were 80% of the work. Upgrading Office, email, etc was the easy part.
There is a large cost involved in this migration. Even if you can replace 80% of the applications that everyone uses with a Linux alternative, you still aren't even close to being finished.
Running these applications under Wine or an emulator isn't going to work. The cost of supporting that alone would wipe out any saving from going to Linux.
I would like to see it happen as much as anyone else but I think that many people underestimate what it would really take to do it. There is still a very long way to go.
If I want to find a quote in an ebook I can find it in seconds with a search. And all I have to do is cut and paste the quote. And, thanks to wireless networking, I can do this from anywhere just as easily as with pen and paper. No, scratch that - easier.
ebooks allow me to collect and catalog far more material than would be practical otherwise. With a forty dollar ebook reader I can carry a collection of books with me - like, for example, the whole shelf of linux references that were posted just the other day in warez.linux. And I can look up information from multiple volumes in just a second.
Saying "what's the point of ebooks" is like saying "what's the point of google! I can just surf the sites myself!"
This is comparing apples to oranges: Windows certainly supports thin clients; it's called "terminal services". Non-obsolete Microsoft products are quite compatible with it too.
95% of the work I do is Win32 administration. That's how I know it is the most stupidly designed environment I deal with. My desktops (9X) and servers are stable and secure, but if they were running platforms that account for the others 5% of the work I do, I would have 90% less to do. That would give me 80% more time to... well, play golf, if nothing else. Two days disabling services and undesirable components? You must work at a near comatose pace even if it is Windows you have to deal with. You simply don't get the point that you shouldn't have to do most of that in the first place. Give me an IP address of a Windows box you have directly attached to the internet and an indemnification contract and I'll be at the command line of your machine in less than three hours as Administrator, and it will appear to be from a machine located in Lower Sebobia.
"A Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer is to computing what a McDonalds Certified Food Expert is to fine cuisine"
My 2 cents...
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
As powerful/configurable/secure? Nope. That's why you use linux.
I don't know about the win2k MCSE. They fill your head with a lot of stuff about AD and group policy, which, if you use windows in an internet environment (eg. webhosting / ISP - and you really shouldn't) isn't that relevant.
I did the win2k MCSE a while back, but I worked for a company recently who sent a bunch of techs to the win2k MCSE. They promptly came back from their course and converted the existing standalone webservers to use AD. Combined with an account lockout policy, and hard to type passwords like "&^BoobL3$$J00suckAA!!@" this resulted in ALL webservers failing to see the web content on their disks when somebody typed the password incorrectly three times. (And not just typed, if the old credentials were stored in a scheduled task somewhere, all the webservers would just start spitting out "unauthorised" at a particular hour of the day, until the job was tracked down and fixed)
We fought back, but these guys were seriously brainwashed man. I mean, they learned all this AD stuff that was seriously only relevent to intranet sites, and then came back and tried to implement it in an innapropriate environment.
Oh well, I told them to sove their job shortly after that.
Mentally Challenged Slave of the Empire
It is not how the desktop looks, nor is it about user familiarity to the layout of the desktop. It is about what the company is attempting to accomplish with their IT. By using something such as the Mad Hatter and thin-clients, the productivity of the environment is impacted in a non-negative fashion. If, on the other hand, the evironment consists of full Windows installations, then, while you may not use it in ways other than intended, what of the receptionist who installs WebShots, Comet Cursor, and uses Messenger for personal use? Or the guy down the hall running KaZaa?
Sure, there are ways to get around this, port monitoring, policies about what can and cannot be installed, nightly imaging of workstations, but that is not nearly as cost effective as running all apps from a locked down server, with the client system completely unable to do anything locally. That right there would eliminate at least 40% of support issues (ridding the system of KaZaa, Messenger, Comet Cursor, and Webshots specifically.)
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
My boss, a wise old business man, once commented to me about how ironic it was that we went from mainframes to PC's and now we're headed back to mainframes again, maybe not in the strictest sense but the concept is the same. Personally, as a system administrator, I like the thin client environment. PC's make it difficult to do the things you actually want to do while making it quite easy to things you really don't.
Wrong. Actually, users know only as much as they need to, and no more. That means when you lock down IE via a proxy, someone will figure out a way around it so they can surf at work. And as soon as that person figures it out, everyone else will know. Pretty soon you have a whole building full of windows boxes leaking shit from the web onto your "secure" LAN.
Lock down explorer, and they'll figure out that IE allows them to browse the hard drive. Hide the shit on the hard drive and they'll still find a way in because everyone knows "C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe" will get them in from just about anywhere they can find a place to type it.
Every time a solution is found, those "know nothing users" will find a way to break it. It is not ignorance on their part that allows this, it is ingenuity. The best solution is to provide something else that they are relatively unfamiliar with, and that has better built-in security. But underestimating the ingenuity of your users is the quick path to administrative leave for the network administrator...
I'm sorry, but for the most part I don't think you can expect your Microsoft Certified Engineers to adapt to Linux. You'd be better off hiring new people to be the Linux experts.
There's a fairly recent version of SAPGUI for Mac, and it supposedly works well enough for our accounting goons that are using ITS as well if they want to do it from the lounge.
Catching a whiff of FUD there. They're playing that card with Linux too; they claim to be able to distribute the Linux kernel irrespective of the outcome of the IBM/SCO legal battle (At least that's the way I read it.) They may have a mexican stand-off with Microsoft over document technology, but IBM still has the biggest patent portfolio on the planet. No one but a complete idiot would attack them.
These sorts of tactics... annoy me.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"Microsoft Certified Engineers to adapt to Linux" Isn't that called deprograming?
All a certification does is remove any excuse for not knowing what you're supposed to. I like to take my employees certs, roll them up, and beat them with it when they get something wrong. Well, I would if I had any employees.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
To most users, it *is* UNIX. Just like the box of generic store brand paper nose-wiping things on the corner of my desk is a "box of kleenex" to 99% of the people who see it, Linux (or anything else that has /bin/ls) is UNIX.
I realize that irritates people who paid money for the UNIX trademark, license zealots, and anyone who has been using UNIX since the 1970s, but that's the way it is now.
0 1 - just my two bits
Good stuff, that.
your point that it is a corporate-oriented distro i agree with, however. do the other distros handle it any better? yes, unfortunately. to the public, linux is one entity. it sucks, but i think its true.
i sell illegal drugs
You are completly right. This is way we want to make Linux fit for games (It is fit for the desktop already)
The downside: All those dump little gamers will flood the help places very much more and the open mailinglists and forums will perhaps close some parts, before stupid game kids ask RTFM questions.
I only want hardware firms to support Linux with drivers as they do with windows (see Winmodems), nothing more. I don't need any more Linux users, which don't contribute to Linux anyway.
If memory serves, Microsoft and Novell came under fire a few years ago for their use of the word 'Engineer'.
Very true. But all they have to do is rearrange the letters to "eenginer" and no-one will notice. Personally, I prefer to think of myself as a penguineer.
>doesn't make you a dumbass.
I think most people understand that. The important point though is that if you ARE a dumbass, having an MCSE doesn't help, on the contrary, it just makes you that much more dangerous. And there's the problem. An MCSE should be treated, at MOST, like an A+ in Networking Methodologies 101 as taught at your school of choice. It should not be a job requirement. It should not make anybody go "Oh great, you can run our network then." It should only make folks say "That's nice that you're good at reading comprehension and regurgitation and are comfortable with taking multiple choice tests."
Having an MCSE doesn't make you a dumbass. Though framing the cert. and hanging it in your cube does. And so does listing it as a job requirement.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
The autohiding menus frustrate me no end. Half the time I go to use a function, I wind up spending more time searching for it because the menus keep changing.
First, I have to "read" all the items on the menu, instead of having the position practically implemented in muscle memory.
Second, after quickly reading every item and not finding the one I am looking for, I either assume that didn't remember the correct dropdown menu for that function (and compound the error by looking elsewhere), or I have to *pause...* on the expansion arrows. When the menu finally expands about 3 seconds later, the process begins again, read every item, etc.
The hiding/unhiding process has therefore increased my time to pick a menu fuction from ~1 second to anywhere from 3 to 15 seconds, with a corresponding increase in frustration.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Back when the rumor was that Netscape was on the block i thought for sure Sun would buy it...seemed the best fit...but AOL did and till this day i still scratch my head. They could get a deal on it now and bring a browser into the mix - which has been notably absent thus far.
.NetMono) + Mozilla + Open Source items = At least a slim chance at gaining ground on redmond.
On to my point, 'The network is the computer' mantra suggests a client/server mentality for Sun and it has the goods to deliver on the backend but not the front end - which, i would argue IS the browser. I hope this mad hatter is good but it would be mad to ignore the obvious synergy between what sun has now and a competent/complimetary browser, like mozilla, which is sound but could use the commercial direction and funding of a large player. This would benefit the entire industry except M$.
Linux + Sun + Apache+ JBoss(or unix
my other sig sucks less
My boss, a wise old business man, once commented to me about how ironic it was that we went from mainframes to PC's and now we're headed back to mainframes again, maybe not in the strictest sense but the concept is the same. Personally, as a system administrator, I like the thin client environment. PC's make it difficult to do the things you actually want to do while making it quite easy to things you really don't.
And the old main frames are better at doing "thin client" then todays browser apps. One day just like in the mid to late 80's IT managers will wake up and think "why the Hell are we wasting all that desktop power, and spending on these expensive servers?" And the circle will be complete.
OSX was mentioned, but as the main discusion centered around intel hardware, your point is mote. One point, if existing wintel is replaced by lintel, then user wishing to introduce Macs would meet less resistence.
I can verify that the MCSE community is about 50% losers who I would not trust to tie their own shoe, and about 50% who know what they are doing on SOME if not MOST computing environments. Those are the ones who DONT just do Windows, but are versed in UNIX, Mac and other systems, and are prepared to deal with differences. I would suggest that any company that hires an MCSE who knows no other platform, is a very dumb company.
That's right. Because an el cheap-o quickie cert is no substitute for actually knowing something about computers It's certainly no substitute for a CS degree and 20 years development and admin experience on other platforms. Experience on a variety of platforms is actually the only guarantee you have that the person has any idea what's going on when taken out of their little point-and-click dumbed-down MCSE world.
I just had to laugh when this one MCSE was running around to my management telling them that my Linux box was "insecure" because it didn't have a virus checker. In actual fact, I'd put a virus checker on it that was 10 times faster than his, just to whipe his arse when his complaints got loud enough. I was also running a full-blown IDS, proxy and firewall on the Linux box.
When the "meeting" came, where I was supposed to be on the defensive about my "insecure" Linux box box, I told him how I'd tested the security on his "corporate level IT", described the measures I'd taken on the Linux box, and told him if he could show me a text file on my hard drive saying "MCSE WAS HERE" (like I'd left a note on his saying "TUX WAS HERE", and showed it to him in front of the very management he was bitching to about my "insecure" box), then I'd agree with him that his systems were more secure than mine. Never happened. The little toad. He went out and spent 30 grand on a turnkey firewall box after that, and had to get someone else in to set it up. And it was still crackable because it was so badly configured. Helped that I knew the guy that had designed it. BSD-based box. Nice little unit. Utterly useless in the wrong hands.
You know if these stupid, arrogant little MCSE toads weren't running around trying to play politics while not knowing even the fundamentals of their fields, it would be easier to help them get on with learning what Linux is about. They must get some sort of Ballmeresque Monkey-Dance Pep Talk about how it's in their best interest to play politics to try to ensure Micorsoft lock-down in their company or something. Monoculture.
I suspect little dramas like this are being played out all across the world, and the details of this particular story (mine, or the MadHatter's) are not particularly important.
What is important is the point that a quickie cert on which buttons to push is no substitute for actually understanding how things work, by the experience of having built things yourself , noticed the commonalities between systems (and the differences amongst them) when going from MVS to VM/CMS to Wylbur to TECO to TOPS to UCSD Pascal to VMS to BSD to SysII to HP/UX to SysV to Irix to SunOS to Solaris to NT to DOS to WinXX to RedHat to SuSE...in addition to a formal education.
The difference between an MCSE with 5 years of "experience" pushing buttons, and an MSCS with 20 years of experience in devlopment and systems planning and admin is like the difference between the machine-operator and the engineer. Why aren't the engineering societies demanding that the "E" in MCSE be changed to "O" -- for OPERATOR. (Support Engineer? What is that, somebody who designs sports bras and jock straps?) Because that's all they really are, is computer operators, NOT Engineers -- unless they have a whole lot of other training and experience, as you point out.
An MCSE is like someone who struggled through a high-school equivalency and then barely got an SAT score that qualified them for college by "studying the exam" vs someone
You Know the first computer I ever put together to play games was installed from a borrowed copy of 95. Come to think of it I didn't have any money left for the OS (spent it all on performance hardware). The first thing I did was direct dial up my friend for a game of Warcraft (which I did purchase).
You bring up a good point. Given the chance would a current day Gamer opt to shell out $100 for the next MS upgrade or buy a couple of new games and a 40 oz. Maybe Game developers will realise if Gamers can switch to Linux they will have more money to buy thier games.
The truth suffers more from convictions than from lies.
I've got to stop sniffing the whiteout confiscated from the MS Windows users. After reading the following quote from the article...
In the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark Indiana Jones is confronted by an obviously highly skilled and aggressive local sword fighter who clearly expects to hack up our hero after a glorious, and ritualistic, hand to hand battle. Unfortunately Dr. Jones is too harried to play, and shoots him dead at twenty paces in a classic demonstration of what happens when a clearly superior technology appears on the scene.
I had this vision...
Bill 'Rabid Sword Fighter' Gates faces off Indiana 'Linus' Jones...
Bill: "What makes you think you can even begin to whoop me and my mighty MS Sword 3.1XP.NT.DOS!?! I've already vanquished CPM, IPM, GEM, Lotus, and the Federal Govment. I have a huge mighty MS sword developed by thousands of bonded slaves and maintained constantly by Micro Sword CE's to have the sharpest edge in the kingdom. You have a puny little pistol not even 1/4 the size of my sword, that no-one knows how to sharpen and therefore must cost a fortune to keep in service"
Linus: Bang!
They won't adapt. And some(many?) of them will do their best to sabotage the conversion/adaptation process. As would (to be fair) some linux people forced to convert to Windows.
And don't say "buy a distro" because I've not seen these as being much better. I've tried both Lindows and Lycorice - and with XP being only about $50 more with a new machine, they still suck.
Disclaimer: It took me four years of formal university education, some industry experience and membership of a professional asscociation before I could call myself and engineer - so I think if the MSCE's want to have such a title they should be prepared to be a bit more professional as well.
It's like calling naturapaths doctors - naturapaths do courses too.
The pendulum swung too far, now it is swinging back...
Oh well, what the hell...
Scox 10-Q just out a few hours ago. Sunw is giving scox another 2.5 million. And, in return, scox is giving sunw more warrants at $1.83/share, or about 10% of scox's present share price.
From scox's 10-Q:
During the quarter ended July 31, 2003, the Company issued a second warrant to the above mentioned SCOsource licensee in connection with payment of amounts owed to the Company under the initial license agreement. The warrant allows the licensee to acquire 12,500 shares of the Company's common stock at an exercise price of $1.83 per share
I was under the impression (from way back in first year engineering courses) that it was just the US that takes the word loosely.
urprisingly no. Everywhere in the commonwealth (England, Canada, Australia, etc.) we follow the strict rules about the usage of the term engineer.
I worked for a time for a biotech company in Canada. The programmers were all officially "Software Engineers", which royally ticked off one of them who actually *was* an engineer by training.
> It just sucked before to have a masters degree along with several
...
> years of experience and have an official title of "Software
> Practitioner." Bleh!
'Practitioner' is too bland, but there are plenty of interesting
words in the English language, words with positive connotations,
besides 'Engineer'. Try some of these on for size: Software Systems
Coordinator, Software Architect, Software Management Expert, Software
Consultant, Software Wizard, Software Technician, Software Remediation
Advisor, Software Selection Counselor, Software Coordination Leader,
Software Developer, Software Design Coordinator, Software Implementor,
Software Department Head, Software Overlord, Regional Software Arch
Policymaker, Software Incident Investigation Captain, Software
Design Committee Chairman, Software Implementation Partner, Software
Quality Control Sherrif, Software Usability Research Coordinator,
Software Antidefenestration Agent, Software Security Bosun, Software
Emergency Response Marshal, Software Planning Team Leader,
Personally, I rather favour the job title 'The Computer Guy'. It
abbreviates nicely to TCG, which sounds vaguely important, and it's
what everybody calls me anyway.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
And YOU just admitted to being afraid to admit that your an MCSE ;-)
It makes sense, all four cause damage or rapidly cause long term harm.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
In England anyone can call themselves an engineer. Anyone that comes out to service any bit of kit, be it ever so humble, gets called an engineer.
Calling yourself a "Chartered Engineer" is different matter, as that would be lying about your professional qualifications. That would be unfair trading, and illegal.
That is innovative and user friendly [tm]?
Whining but no substance....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Freedom for you to choose when, how and under which terms you update your software.
Freedom to re-install your software wherever you want (no more hardware locked OSes).
Freedom from harrasment by MS sponsored pseudo-auditors.
Freedom of choice between different suppliers without the need to migrate *your* data.
Not all the advantages and differences are technical or related to usability. There are other issues that may be far more important.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Because you can attach the images to the bug report. We use ClearQuest, you can attach whatever you want. Why not just attach the jpgs? Why add (1) the overhead of Word, and (2) the requirement that whoever wants to look at a screenshot have a word processor installed? It is a waste of resources and more importantly it doesn't make sense.
A JPG will still be a JPG in 5 years, who knows what the hell the Word doc format will be.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
There's probably a very good chance that CodeWeavers CrossOver Office will run your software. I recommend giving it a shot. It's not too expensive and the money you pay to CodeWeavers is mostly for support and eventually helps the Wine project.
Join Tor today!
I am not unemployed. In fact, I am a company officer in a respected small prototype manufacturing company. I am the head of IT and Purchasing.
A Liberal Arts Degree and experience in the field doesn't make you an Engineer. Unless you can sit down and read wiring schematics, make sense of complex mathematical equations and other aspects of 90% of all Engineering Degrees, then you are still nothing but a Technician. Perhaps highly skilled, but no more then a Technician.
BTW, it doesn't matter that you didn't attend a boot camp. What matters is that there are an incredible number of people out there that do attend boot camps and receive the 'right' to call themselves 'engineers'.
Personally, I never attended any boot camps or courses covering any Microsoft Course and I have passed their tests as well. However, after I discovered that passing their tests mean nothing a few years later, I decided to focue my attentions on LIFE-LONG certifications.
Like the CompTIA exams and then the Sun Solaris Administration Exams and perhaps the Cisco exams as well someday.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Are for the remainder of your life. I never have to recertify for one. With the Microsoft Way, you have to relearn practically everything every time a new iteration of their Server and Desktop OS is released. Then you have to either pay thousands for a new Boot Camp, or pay hundreds for some new books and then pay thousand or so for the new tests and then BAM, you are updated for a few years... Then you have to start all over once again.
If you knew UNIX 20 years ago, you would be comfortable with UNIX today. Sure, there are some tools that have been added, a few tools have been changed, but for the most part it has preserved the skills of its users, admins and programmers for nearly 30-something years now.
Today, if you became a Solaris Certified Systems Administrator, that would be with you for life. When new technologies arrive, you have to certify ONLY for those technologies. They don't change how Users, Groups and Domains act every few years. They don't change how systems are configured and controled every few years. Most of the update certs are based upon hardware knowledge, not major OS changes.
The same cannot be said for MS and Windows. The same will never be said about MS and Windows. They change everything far too often. Change is not always good. Having to go back and relearn everything is not going to help you move forward with other things. Having to reinvent the wheel every few years won't move you forward.
The lack of MS-Style changes are what has created such a strong backing of UNIX admins across the world. The lack of MS-Style changes are why the Internet was built on and runs on UNIX instead of DOS and later Windows.
Even if I had been around 20 years ago and using UNIX up to today. I would not call myself an Engineer, unless I had completed and Engineering Degree. I would call myself what I am, a highly skilled computer technician. A UNIX Technician, a UNIX Guru perhaps, but not a UNIX Engineer, unless I was an Engineer, especially if I was an Engineer that developed UNIX itself.
The title of Engineer is like the title of Physical Doctor. It is a respected title that is and should only be reserved for those that have gone the distance in an institution of higher learning and then spent time in the field gaining the respect of their peers.
It should NEVER be bestowed upon someone that could have taken the route of a 6 Day Boot Camp after barely completing High School. It doesn't matter that you didn't take that route. The point is that someone can and quite a few people have taken the 6 Day Boot Camp route.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
If you think people put to much importance on a word, then why don't you call yourself a Doctor of Network Topology or a Doctor of Network Infrastructure or a Doctor of Server Configuration and Maintenance?
For that matter, what is wrong with people bestowing professional titles on themselves because they feel like it? Of course, based soley upon your reasoning. Well, first off it dilutes that particular professional title. It takes the implied meaning of a certain level of knowledge and professionalism away from the term.
If that is is diluted enough, how do you know you can trust that so and so is what they claim to be? There are laws in many places that protect those professional titles simply for that reason alone. Nobody can just call themselves Doctor. They must have the professional skills and often a special license to practice in the state or nation they are practicing in.
That is not a requirement to work on Microsoft Products or any other Information Technology equipment or software.
It is required to design a bridge or to perform an operation on the human body and even to practice law. There are 3 different professional titles that I am talking about in the preceeding sentence.
There are many places where you would be heavily fined and perhaps even jailed for calling yourself an Engineer. You might be able to get away with the MCSE moniker, but if you explained it out, you would be breaking the law. I believe that throughout all of Canada the best you can call yourself is exactly what you are a Microsoft Certified Systems Technician.
You should refrain from diluting the professional business title of Engineer, otherwise you are simply one of many that are opening the door to dilute other additional professional titles. When that occurs, the person operating on your heart years from now might have gone to college for learning about surgery, but he might have just taken a 6 week boot camp and passed a few tests...
Of course, he/she will be calling themselves Doctor, but that title won't have any meaning anymore because the precedent of professional title dilution will have been set and possibly even 'won' in court. See, you aren't taking into account the ramifications of what calling yourself an Engineer means.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
And now I is one!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."