Pitfalls and Options For Business-Desktop Linux

swhiser writes "Tom Adelstein dispassionately surveys the remaining fixes that will put desktop Linux through in the enterprise. Peer-to-peer networking, functional printing, laptop support, single sign-on to Active Directory and a better Device Manager (with a driver-get mechanism) are among the things companies are asking for. He says, 'The Linux desktop could fail if companies continue to pilot programs and conclude that it's less trouble to buy Microsoft. Everyone loses in that scenario.'" Pre-loaded systems are no longer a pipe dream or an obscurity, though; read on for one reader's mini-survey of Linux systems from large computer vendors.

Acidus writes "I called around today to the big OEMs (Gateway, Dell, HP, IBM) seeing who offered systems with Linux pre-installed, and the results were good. 3 of the 4 offered Linux on workstations. While no one offered Linux preloaded on laptops, Dell has some references nn how to install Linux on their laptops, while IBM has a scattering of docs on their website about installing Linux on systems. The reps at Dell, even though they have a series of Linux workstations, had to ask me what Linux was, and how to spell it. "Is that L-Y-N-I-C-S?""

Comments

As long as tech-knownothing PHBs keep making

[Megaweapon]

decisions in IT departments, Linux won't make much inroads on the desktop. They generally make decisions based on paid consultants and glossy magazine ads. Now, if the word spreads that companies can negotiate with MS based on threats of migration that'll keep some IT costs (somewhat) lower. Of course this can only work in bigger shops. Smaller companies can't do this.

Re:As long as tech-knownothing PHBs keep making

[the_mad_poster]

Tech know nothing PHBs know something you don't: if it's going to cost 2000 man hours of work at a $30 an hour average to redesign internal systems, templates, and procedures to work on a non-Microsoft system, that more than wipes out the cost of licensing the desktop systems. That doesn't include the cost of the lead up in which you have to test, deploy, and integrate all of your servers and desktops, plus the lost productivity from people needing to be retrained or retraining themselves on the shortcuts to use Linux.

People here act like a platform migration of this scale is simple as flipping a switch, and I think that really highlights how little experience in practical technology the Slashdot collective really has. You can reformat your system at home and install Linux in an hour depending on options and system speed. It's not that simple when you're talking about a business with 20 locations and 5000 workstations to migrate. It's not that simple when you have internal customer service apps to migrate. When you have internal template and procedures to rewrite. When you have to audit your hardware to ensure compatibility and then repurchase anything that might be too much hassle to fiddle with.

Migration to Linux isn't speading like wildfire for the same reason Windows shops don't jump ship to run to the superior UNIX systems even when that's cheaper: it's not as simple as you people think. It's not free. It's not even necessarily cheap. If it's going to cost you $250,000 to migrate and you're only going to be saving an average of $25,000 in license fees and support each year, it will take you ten years just to break even. Linux is not a magic bullet. You people whine and whine like little babies, but I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is that 99% of you only whine because you don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about. And the more you whine about your complete and total lack of knowledge, the more steam you give to other companies to muscle in on place where Linux could be making inroads.

What you need to do, if you really want Linux to succeed that badly, is address its single biggest shortcoming: the difficulty in migrating systems from Windows to Linux. No, it's not your fault that it's so hard. Microsoft intentionally makes it difficult to leave the nest. However, since you keep bitching about it, it IS your problem.

Quit being a whiny little bitch and contribute some code, documentation, consultation, or just shut the hell up. Your whining isn't going to change the fact that Linux just plain isn't a good solution for a lot of shops, but if you'd actually do some freaking work you chould change that.

Re:As long as tech-knownothing PHBs keep making

[passthecrackpipe]

real sad thing is - most of those issues have been sorted some time ago - in the shortlist of TFA, all except 8 are happening without problems today, and number 8 is happening but needs engineering. Rather clueless article, if you ask me.....

Re:As long as tech-knownothing PHBs keep making

[mgkimsal2]

It could be done with small gradual steps. Novell has done it, IBM is doing it and neither one of them is a small company.

They may be investing more heavily than other companies would for 'dogfooding' reason ('eat our own dog food', etc) They have services and products to sell and need to back up the claims of the products by proving it can be done, first and foremost. How they present accounting matters (if they do) is another issue altogether.

For most companies it's probably still cheaper just to buy MS than to move to Linux, due to all the migration issues. 'Cheaper' as measured in quarters, not years, but that's all most people can justify.

Re:As long as tech-knownothing PHBs keep making

[ckaminski]

Thank you for such an informative, and ultimately true, post. I've seen this working in large multinationals.

Remember, All. Microsoft won, not because they're technology was the best, or because of tying contracts. They won because of polish, and commercial developer support.

And Linux has trouble with both of those at the moment (although the polish is getting better).

Re:As long as tech-knownothing PHBs keep making

[the_mad_poster]

That's a highly irrelevant point you made. Migrating from 9x to NT was a complete platform migration. NT functioned significantly differently than 9x did, it just retained the surface elements that made it look familiar. It was well known that much of what ran on 9x would not run on NT or XP because they were, in fact, different platforms. The change is not as drastic as moving from Windows to a UNIX like system, but it's pretty bloody close. Upgrading from NT to XP, by comparison, results in far fewer problems because they share a common base.

Re:As long as tech-knownothing PHBs keep making

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy is right, all is broken and printing under Linux is a nightmare (ever tried to print a presentation using paper from a different tray from another tray for the first page ?).
All this things don't work right out of the box, nobody wants lost nights reading cryptic comments in kernel sources and n compiles to get it working.
People like you who refuse to see the problem are our real problem.
Ah, and the GUI tools are a sad joke, the usual problems break the abstraction layer and stand out right trough them.

Stable driver API

[TheToon]

A stable driver API is one of the things that is much needed. This is even a problem for server environments. In a perfect world, all drivers would be open source and easy to include, but that is just a pipe dream at the moment. There is a need for binary only drivers for several reasons, where a) support and b) it includes patented/licensed code are two of the biggest.

As it is now, Linux on the Desktop is only feasible for very specific desktop environments. And on laptops? Power management and wireless networking are not automatic, and with several different hardware versions and with users that roam the world... it's a pain.

Linux is getting there though, but slowly. The support cost for linux on desktops and laptops in corporations today would be too high I fear.

Re:Stable driver API

[TheToon]

Yes, because those last 10% is what gives you problems. If you just go to your local electronic store and buy a Wifi PC Card (both for the Radius servers at work and with WPA for the users home nets, and open or WEP or WPA encrypted customer/coffee shot nets), you buy a MP3 player where you want do up/download music and use it as a portable storage device, you buy a label printer and a scanner for desktop use. Will it all "just work"? Nope.

Sure, you can find stuff that will work in Linux, but some requires 3rd party drivers (madwifi? how can you support that in a corporation) or binary only drivers (video cards, custom high end storage devices) or you have to use "vi" to configure it.

It has to be easily installed even by Joe Sixpak, else your support costs will skyrocket. IMO, this is the largest stumbling block for Linux Desktops.

Re:Stable driver API

[MichaelIhde]

Why not create a kernel module that wraps the current API into some stable API? Instead of each vendor trying to do this (NVIDIA, etc.) you could create one standard that could be shared by all. Certianly you might have trouble getting it into the mainstream kernel, as Linus will oppose it.

Single sign-on to what ?

[Walrusss]

Why not single-sign-on to OpenLdap ?

Feel ready to own one or many Tux Stickers ?

Re:Single sign-on to what ?

[jmulvey]

Why not single-sign-on to OpenLdap ?

Is OpenLdap kerberized? (in other words, can you tie Kerberos security to permissions on the retrieval and setting of LDAP attributes?)

(hint: the answer is NO)

And because of this, OpenLdap authentications solutions are NOT secure, as they pass credentials in CLEARTEXT. Yes, you can use certificates but now you've introduced the thorny issues of key distribution.

Microsoft's Active Directory has smartly tied Kerberos and LDAP together, so LDAP queries can be encrypted with Kerberos... so no certificate distribution problems and secure from sniffing.

Sorry to rain on the MS-bashing parade. They did a good job here, too bad Slashdot isn't a merit-based rating.

Re:Single sign-on to what ?

[jrcamp]

Who moderated this lunitic +5? He is absolutely WRONG. My sibling poster already pointed this out but anybody who can google for "openldap kerberos" sees that people do use it.

A HOW-TO is even available here:
http://www.bayour.com/LDAPv3-HOWTO.html

Moderators need to only moderate on what they know about. These ones don't.

Re:Just keep using Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! Why will I even bother to have Active Directory compatability if I can use kerberos and LDAP for this stuff?

Re:Just keep using Windows

[Bandman]

What's the point of using Linux, 'just because'?

Cost of licensing? Upward compatibility? Freedom of choice? Hardware requirements? Ability to customize workspace? Freedom from Microsoft inspections, like the ones MS has forced on city buereaucrats before? Better security?

Do I need to continue? I can...

Risk aversion

[Octagon Most]

Risk vs. reward for the decision-maker is going to be a key factor. If I am a CIO or CTO I am likely unwilling to bet my career on the risk of the unknown. There are possibly great cost advantages to deploying Linux on the desktop in the enterprise, but if that's not a primary focus area for the head of corporate technology then it is better to stay with what is know to work. Security factors are another big consideration, but in both of these cases it's a bit of a leap of faith. Windows is the known quantity and there is a massive budget in place around it. In other words, the main technology decision-maker is not likely to be rewarded as a hero for the advantages that Linux might bring, but would be sacrificed for any unforeseen downsides. One does not have to be too risk-averse to see why Microsoft remains entrenched.

Re:Risk aversion

[Neil Watson]

That's what's wrong with people today. Everyone 'plays it safe'. No wonder some argue that innovation has slowed.

Domino

[cdimart]

The only thing that I am waiting for is a Linux Domino Client and Admin Client (not iNotes). One would think IBM could get this taken care of.

"We are good, but everyone is against us"

[Trurl's Machine]

If you read a lot of Polish press - I do - you will often find this kind of reasoning, especially whenever Polish national soccer team coach explains his latest failure (and in Polish soccer, there's always a failure to explain). My favorite is "we actually won the first half, but...". There ARE some important issues with Linux in corporate environment - laptop support, printing and device managing among the most important ones. Don't comfort yourself with easy explanation that corporations reject Linux migration only because someone is "tech-knownothing". Maybe they know something - namely that the overall cost of the whole hit-and-miss game with installing Linux on laptops might cancel the benefits of such migration?

This is backasswards

[RealProgrammer]

The way Linux will make inroads on the corporate desktop is not by some big push to get it over the top, but by steady, incremental improvement. Not to mention any names (lest I be accused of flamebaiting) but targeted super-projects will not work.

Reacting to the perceived needs of corporate users is fine, but that's not a good fit for the Open Source way. You need someone who has enough pull with a developer to get a single feature or bug worked on. In the early stages of a project, that person is the developer or people he knows personally, with the circle expanding outward as the project grows.

Companies with perceived needs for a Linux desktop can sponsor development of those needs. Sure, the rest of us can try to guess what to create based on surveys and hearsay, but it's way better for the people close to the problem to come up with the solution.

The best way to promote Linux on the desktop is with apps. If a killer app appears, people will adopt Linux and be motivated to fix whatever perceived flaws they find.

Are you sure about that?

[lukewarmfusion]

...and conclude that it's less trouble to buy Microsoft. Everyone loses in that scenario.

And Microsoft loses...how?

Re:Just keep using Windows

[Mr. Slippery]

What's the point of using Linux, 'just because'?

For one, not wanting to have your business rely on a single supplier, especially a criminal monopolist. Also better security and lower TCO.

Re:VPN

[stratjakt]

Linux needs out of the box L2TP, not PPTP. PPTP is insecure and shitty, MS abandoned it. L2TP isn't perfect, but it's better.

Of course, if the OpenVPN client for Windows worked better (no friggin WinPcrap dependencies), and the architecture on both sides better supported dynamic "road warrior" scenarios, it could render the whole issue moot.

Re:Just keep using Windows

[jimicus]

1. Windows Network Neighborhood visibility and UNIX/Linux visibility in the same panel.

Check. It's called Samba.

2. Active Directory password management which includes single sign-on and password expiration policies.

Check. It's called Samba with Winbind. Though it could do with being better integrated with most distributions.

3. Interoperability with Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2000.

http://www.novell.com/products/connector/

4. Font compatibility with Microsoft Office and Openoffice.org and/or StarOffice.

TrueType fonts work fine for me. Though again, a well-designed installation program would be nice.

5. Windows Terminal Server clients using RDP out of the box for home grown applications and special Windows applications.

http://www.whitepost.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/rdp.png

6. Ability to click on a file in a Windows or Samba share and initiate the associated application.

Have they used Konqueror lately?

http://www.whitepost.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/useprog. png

7. Device management for hardware compatibility.

One already exists, it just doesn't (yet) integrate to the point whereby it can install drivers automatically.

http://www.whitepost.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/infocent er.png

8. Compatible Windows Media player Codecs.

Which ones? Xine supports most:

http://xinehq.de/index.php/features

Wuh?

[Wylfing]

Peer-to-peer networking, functional printing

This is a good list of criticisms....for me to poop on!

Really, I don't get these problems. Getting networked printing to work with Windows leaves you with red marks on your forehead from banging it against the desk. And P2P networks? Half the time Windows machines don't see each other in the "workgroup" or refuse to exchange information or doggedly insist on logging you in as the wrong user. In both cases, printing and networking, if something doesn't work correctly there's often nothing you can do to fix it besided rebooting and seeing if that helps (which, bizzarely, often does).

On the other hand, networked printing in Linux amounts to selecting a CUPS or Samba printer and clicking OK. Oh, and you might have to specify that it's an HP G85. How is that not functional? I think I took one step to set up my OfficeJet as a shared CUPS printer, which was "apt-get install hpoj". P2P networking, uh, come on you must be kidding me. We had this nailed before Micros~1 even knew what a network was. And with the interfaces now available in Gnome and KDE, traversing networks is almost transparent. "Sharing" is even very Windows-like in KDE (right-click and choose share). How's that not functional again?

Now as for the others -- AD support? That's rich. Not exactly parallel, but where is, for example, the support in Windows for ReiserFS, ext3, and JFS? I say that makes Windows "not ready for the corporate desktop" because it can't read non-MS filesystems. A clever driver-getter would be spiffy, but in Windows it's merely an agreement with hardware manufacturers to bundle/offer their drivers. This would be a reality for Linux if hardware vendors had open source drivers available, so really it's not a Linux shortcoming at all but a hardware vendor problem.

Re:Wuh?

[yoz]

Half the time Windows machines don't see each other in the "workgroup" or refuse to exchange information or doggedly insist on logging you in as the wrong user. In both cases, printing and networking, if something doesn't work correctly there's often nothing you can do to fix it besided rebooting and seeing if that helps (which, bizzarely, often does).

You're right, Windows Workgroup networking utterly sucks. I ccontinually wonder how something so successful and so mature can still be so hideously unreliable.

However, your criticism is irrelevant, because almost all large enterprise installations of Windows use Domains rather than Workgroups, which work a hell of a lot better.

Not exactly parallel, but where is, for example, the support in Windows for ReiserFS, ext3, and JFS? I say that makes Windows "not ready for the corporate desktop" because it can't read non-MS filesystems.

Oh, please. "I'm not driving on the wrong side of the road! Everyone else is!"

Besides, anyone who's going to access those filesystems from Windows in a corporate environment is going to do so over the network, so filesystem drivers are irrelevant. You either want Samba on the UNIX side or NFS on the Windows side.

Re:Just keep using Windows

[PoprocksCk]

Well, when looking at the above list, I can't help but be frustrated. The majority of those things are already available. Let's go down the list item by item:

Windows Network Neighborhood visibility and UNIX/Linux visibility in the same panel.

Huh? What are these people using, FVWM? With Samba it's easy to set up a Windows network on a Linux box that can be viewed on both GNOME and KDE. In the same place as Windows shares. GNOME (and probably KDE, not sure) can even display different manual networks, such as FTP servers in its network place.

Active Directory password management which includes single sign-on and password expiration policies.

Can't comment on this, I'm not familiar with Active Directory.

Interoperability with Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2000.

Am I completely crazy, or can't Ximian Connector & Evolution already do this?

Font compatibility with Microsoft Office and Openoffice.org and/or StarOffice.

Again, I ask the same question -- "huh?" -- if you want to use the Microsoft core fonts, install them! It's not that hard. It's not a fault of OpenOffice.org or StarOffice, it's just a case of the fonts that come on a Linux distro by default -- there's not Arial, Times New Roman, etc. because those are Microsoft fonts and Linux distributors can't distribute them. Might I ask a daring question: why don't Windows users install the Bitstream Vera fonts? I find it annoying that "Microsoft Office" doesn't have compatibility with "OpenOffice.org" (even though the office suites are not the problem in the first place).

Windows Terminal Server clients using RDP out of the box for home grown applications and special Windows applications.

Again, excuse my ignorance, but ... what's wrong with VNC? Why not switch to an open solution?

Ability to click on a file in a Windows or Samba share and initiate the associated application.

I don't agree that that's the problem: KDE (and GNOME maybe, I'm not sure though) can open the desired application just like normal but it does it in an undesirable way, IMHO -- it doesn't open the file from where it is, it copies it to your home directory and opens it from there. I think that that should be improved.

Device management for hardware compatibility.

That's very vague. Do they mean a GUI? If so, what's wrong with distro-specific hardware GUIs such as YaST (which is very good IMHO). A universal distro-independent solution is not a good idea, as is exemplified by LinuxConf. If you want a GUI for hardware management, pick a distro that has one.

Compatible Windows Media player Codecs.

That's the dumbest one yet, and the answer's right here: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/

Re:Some Insightful, Some Not So Insightful

[stratjakt]

Article Myth: Linux doesn't do P2P networking.
Fact: Linux just doesn't have a Net Neighbourhood/Places GUI. There is nothing that requires Linux (or BSD) to have to have a domain controller

It's all about single sign-on and "zero configuration". Sure you can manually configure user lists in 900 linux machines, or you could set up a seperate LDAP for linux and have AD for windows, and manually sync them. But thats not what businesses want. That's twice as much time to add a user in their minds.

As for the Net Neighbourhood thing, it's not even just that. I rarely use it on windows, but I'm always typing stuff like \\SPIKE\Shared\Sourcecode\ into the address bar of explorer.

The closest thing to getting that behaviour to work in linux is that LiSa daemon which I positively can't stand. I shouldn't have to tell some daemon how big my subnet is to be able to browse local shares. There should be no configuration needed to do that, it should work "out of the box".

Similarly, Samba should install with a default config that works out of the box, rather than having HOWTOs tell you to edit the smb.conf file by hand because only morons and idiots use swat. WTF is that? This is how we're trying to entice switchers?

Integration is lacking here. I should be able to right click and select "share via SMB" or something in my file manager to create a new share, just like we do in Windows. Having to edit a text file, then restart the daemons is kind of ridiculous.

Myth: Laptop support is non-existant
Fact: There's sites dedicated to it; as long as the hardware is available, for the most part there is no trouble booting linux on a laptop. Rather, the article says that there's just not enough wifi support in laptops...

Wireless is the major selling point of a laptop these days. It's the whole ballgame. IMO, wireless is the only thing a laptop is useful for with their tiny little cramped keyboards and endlessly frustrating touchpads.

Don't you see all those businessmen at the starbucks in the airport all wirelessly doing their important business? They didnt get the company to agree to buy them so they could sit there disconnected and play Tux racer (even if that's what they really are doing).

Myth: No Terminal Services client
Fact: rdesktop worked fine for years now

TFA is talking about a client, not a server. We need to be able to start a windows terminal session from a linux desktop.

I can tell you that I couldn't use linux on my desktop box at work for this very reason, I regulary have to connect to clients machines via Terminal Services, or PCAnywhere.

I may have some techie cred in our office, but I have no say in what OS our clients want to run, and I can't tell them to install VNC or anything.

What you can do

[PigeonGB]

Quit being a whiny little bitch and contribute some code, documentation, consultation, or just shut the hell up.

Actually, shutting the hell up isn't going to help anyone. Speak up. Don't like how a program works? Let the developers know what you want. Feature requests are important. Found a bug? Speak up.

Shutting up only prevents the knowledge from getting to who needs it.

I understand the point of the previous post, but having a dialogue with developers is important. Mailing lists, IRC channels, etc all exist to help contribute to software which is made by community rather than marketing/legal.

Re:Just keep using Windows

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

repeat with me:

backward compatibility.

again:

backward compatibility.
backward compatibility.
backward compatibility.

got it ? it may not be important to you, but some big companies have _decades_ of data stored in their systems, some of this data only accessible through aged proprietary apps written in clipper, cobol, VB 3.0, whatever (some of those only exists in binary form. sources are long gone)... heck, once i went to a stock brokerage office and they had an access 2.0 running under OS/2 (by M$ recomendation) because access 2.0 was the only thing their PBX supported, and they had by force of law to record every phone call, internal or external.

it's easy for me or you to ditch windoze from our home machines because we don't have such worries. most of our valuable data are stored in open formats or easy-to-break proprietary ones and in small volume. now try to imagine GE. GM. Siemens. Toyota. Citibank. US gov.

i'm old enough to remember the reluctance of compnies in migrating from DOS to windows 3.0, or moving away from wordperfect. it only happend when M$ word/excell became stable enough, with reasonably good WP/Lotus 123 converters. that was between 10-12 years ago.

now that linux is starting to mature as a desktop environment, companies can start evaluating it. but since IT people in big enterprises abhors sudden and traumatic changes (it can cost them mora than millions, it can cost billions if something goes terribly wrong), they'll firts demmand a high level of compatibility. then as old applications are phased out, compatibility becomes a seccondary issue.

a friend o'mine recently said me he was stuck with windows in his small company (he's owner and only empoyee) because of some old clipper apps. then i showed him flagship and sugested that he could run the DOS binaries in dosEMU while adapting them to compile under flagship. he did that and is pretty happy. he knew about linux desktop but delayed the move because of 10 yr old clipper apps. and he's only one. now imagine GE's 300.000 employees...

Re:Some Insightful, Some Not So Insightful

[doj8]

Myth: No Terminal Services client
Fact: rdesktop worked fine for years now

stratjakt commented:
TFA is talking about a client, not a server. We need to be able to start a windows terminal session from a linux desktop.

I can tell you that I couldn't use linux on my desktop box at work for this very reason, I regulary have to connect to clients machines via Terminal Services, or PCAnywhere.

I may have some techie cred in our office, but I have no say in what OS our clients want to run, and I can't tell them to install VNC or anything.

Uh. RDesktop is a Windows Terminal Server client. I've used it to connect to Windows Servers for several years.

Database access

[Durango_44]

Huh. No mention of databases let alone the ubiquitous Access97 variety. Look, I didn't pick the database the company I work for uses--Access97 was here long before me--but I am stuck supporting it. And for better or worse, many small businesses have homebrewed their data management using Access.

When I have documented the business case to move off windows to Linux, we always run into the lack of a comparable application within the Linux/OSS community. Staroffice had it on its previous version, but that is gone now. The OpenOffice folks seem to be working on it, but it is not yet ready. The Boss looks at my suggestion of MySQL and sees lottsa money and time spent converting and training. The use of various JDBC and ODBC drivers make a conversation technically feasible, but I suspect that many in the small and medium sized corporate world need a one-to-one application capable of natively sucking in those .mdb files and running with them. If that was there, we'd start converting to a Linux desktop this afternoon.

It is surprising that the Consultingtimes ( article literally does not mention databases.

Re:is the man an idiot?

[bluekanoodle]

"sorry, but single login to a active directory? that's a windows product why not use the unix solution like this that has existed for decades?"

I have to diagree with you. Getting linux in the the business is all about conversion. You can't change peoples minds overnight. You can't expect a company to throw out their entire infrastructure just to save a few bucks on desktops, especially when that infrastructure is already paid for, and it's working for their needs.

These are the types of statements that simply fool the "i'm a geek, and everybody else is stupid" crowd into thinking they now know more about a subject then they really do.

Without MS Access-like functionality...

[fyngyrz]

...Linux bars itself from business. Linux DB dweebs consistantly underrate the power of the Access interface, mistakenly focusing on the limitations of the underlying DB engine - limitations that are irrelevant to the majority of businesses, which are small businesses.

Linux has awesome DB engines readily available - unquestionably - but that power is not accessible to your average office cube dweller. That is the genius of Access; simple DB applications are easy, while amazingly complex ones are still possible, given patience and time. And that is how many of the more complex Access apps are developed; more functionality is added over time, as needs change and applications a tested against daily experience. This is easily done, because - Access is easy. Get that right, and a whole new class of businesses could come over to Linux. Without it, I think trying to sell Linux into the small business venue is just pissing into the wind.

One other area where Linux falls down is input methods for other languages. For instance, try entering Korean in a Linux system set up for English, using Open Office. Good luck trying. Ami (the app that is supposed to enable Korean input) doesn't even begin to work. You end up having to hand-insert each character from a font table, which is numbingly slow. It is awfully hard to share Linux in this direction or that when you can't get the thing out of its English entry state. I have not had occassion to try to enter Chinese yet, but I don't look forward to it based on my experiences with Korean. Windows, on the other hand, "just works."

Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge Linux fan, but these things have been brick-wall problems for my companies (three of them.) I think other business owners have very likely run into the same issues.

Re:Without MS Access-like functionality...

[Dunkirk]

That is the genius of Access; simple DB applications are easy, while amazingly complex ones are still possible, given patience and time. And that is how many of the more complex Access apps are developed; more functionality is added over time, as needs change and applications a tested against daily experience. This is easily done, because - Access is easy.

And this is the problem. It's easy to get something going with Access, but then you have people setting up databases who have ZERO concept of how

• Software development works
• Code ought to be commented
• How software scales
• What networks do to database traffic
• What file contention of a single .mdb means
• What a good user interface actually looks like

In short, its ease of use creates nightmares for those of us who have to come in behind some knows-just-enough-to-be-dangerous hack who now has gotten 18 months of the shop's time and attendance information locked up in some screwy schema which will only be straightened out with a complete rewrite. Preferably in a proper web application.

Gah!

Re:Without MS Access-like functionality...

[fyngyrz]

Fine. All of that will be true to some degree in many situations. None of it affects the fact that small businesses now expect to be offered easy database handling with an office suite. If they don't get it, they will, quite reasonably, decline to use that suite.

You may not like having to come after sloppy work, or trivial work, or even broken work. However, the bottom line isn't what you like. It is what the small business owner/operator likes.

I would also point out that making/keeping things difficult offers abhsolutely no insurance that things will be created beautifully, well documented, well interfaced, cleverly network aware, or with contention addressed. And so forth. I rather think the opposite is true. And, if Access has bugs, file contention problems and so on, there is no reason that a clonelike Access endeavor under Linux would have to bring over those problems.

Finally - if something is created that needs fixing, you have (or someone has) a job opportunity, don't you? Right now, very little is being created, because nothing can be created easily. Surely that's a far worse situation.

Hardware Failure

[copponex]

Replacing an x86 motherboard: $70
Replacing an x86 processor: $100-200
Competition in the x86 component market: priceless

Replacing a logic board: $200-500
Replacing a slow as shit G4 processor: $200-500
Having shiny buttons: goddamn expensive

Linux is where the two shall meet. Open platform hardware running open source software. In a few years, for FREE, I'm sure at least one distro will have it down. Fedore is damn close already. And at the price of a CD-R or DVD-R, I'm sure there will be a lot of takers.

And look out for Apple to start kludging up their OS again once some people with bad ideas get stuck in their hierarchy. Pretty soon it will be obvious that no large business can compete with the meritocratic programming method.

Let's just hope Apple and Microsoft get themselves a DRM system. Their market share will drop by 30% within two years if people have to actually pay for their products.

Re:Cut Dell some slack!

[electroniceric]

Let me second this excellent point:

Linux needs to fight this battle in the small businesses of the world. They got a toe in the door as far as POS machines and kiosks, that type of thing. But linux needs to be running on the PC in the back office of every mom and pop grocery store or restaurant or doctors office, etc... ...
I don't think we should be trying to shoehorn Windows compatibility into a Unix clone. Linux' strength comes from its Unix roots, and I think it should stay close to them, and stay focused on conquering the backend.

There are a lot of areas will OSS is already strong and will get stronger, but an polished, integrated desktop is not one of them. OSS's pillars of strength are its openness, robustness, and the way that it commoditizes previously pricey functionality. We should build forward from there.

Savvy tech observers have pointed out that attacking Microsoft where it thinks you will attack is always a recipe for failure. They have spent millions upon millions of developer hours and billions of dollar producing a desktop that is tightly integrated. If anything, it is their key selling point. For disparate groups of OSS developers to try to accomplish anything like that is lunacy.

When you stick the UNIX method of laying one brick on another to build a wall, you get slow, robust development. The article is right that several individual bricks must be easier to lay mortar for - his points about version dependencies and driver installation are right on, and these basically about gluing one more thing on at a time. General support for wireless, for example, is now feasible, as the technology has started to stabilize, and represents one more piece to add on.

A great example of growth through commoditization is in the database market, from embedded systems to big iron installations. The vast majority of businesses need nothing more than a simple, functional database server. MySQL and Postgres on Linux are both close to stepping in nicely to fill this void. Postgres needs another brick layered on it - that being a simpler install process, but most other pieces are there.

As long as Linux sticks to its roots, it will grow slowly and steadily, and obligate other market players to react to its strengths.

Re:Bullshit.

[fyngyrz]

If your company can afford a "dedicated team", your company by definition isn't part of the audience. Small businesses need small, easy solutions. You aren't talking about small solutions.

For the record, we've been using Access for many years here at my first company and the databases are still working fine. I wrote them; I do actually know what I'm doing to some degree (I write custom PostgreSQL and MySQL applications under Linux, in fact) and perhaps that has a little something to do with it. I have personal experience here, and I can assure you that your blanket condemnation of Access is flat out wrong.