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

[killjoe]

If you want to migrate away from windows you need to start divorcing MS. Take a look at how Novell is doing their internal migration for example.

1) Do away with office. Replace office with openoffice the desktops (still windows).
2) Do away with outlook/exchange. Lucky for novell they have groupwise.
3) Set up a CMS system (novell used thei ifolder product) which keeps track of documents the employees create. This trains the employees to go to an abstract location for all their documents rather then "my documents".
4) Set up a desktop distro with open office, groupwise, ifolder and you are done.

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.

Re:As long as tech-knownothing PHBs keep making

[einhverfr]

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.

The decisions have to be made on the basis of the business, not the basis of the technology itself. So I don't blame them for hiring experts (consultants) to do this sort of work.

THe fact is, there are Linux consultants too (I am one of them) and we can create decent marketing material. But the best marketing is done face to face where you can actually communicate with your customer.

Most of the problems talked about here are due to trying to fit a square peg (Linux) in a round hole (Windows workstation concept). Yes, it can be done, but it is not really optimal. Yes, we could use some more tools for allowing easy sharing of printers, for example.

Linux workstations are viable today, and have been viable for the past five years. THey offer unparalleled ease of use (given a little bit of effort to ensure that the desktop has the best icons, etc) and ease of administration, especially when given to someone who knows absolutely nothing about computer (Linux or Windows). For people who have become comfortable with Windows, this is another matter-- the computers are different enough that some frustration can be expected.

For small to midsize businesses who don't have an existing IT infrastructure, I tend to recommend Linux. For those who are not dependent on commercial vertically targetted applications, I recommend Linux. There are some gaps (payroll software being one) but these are relatively easy to mitigate.

Linux is not at the moment the desktop for everybody. Many businesses have way too much invested in Microsoft to make the move easily. And this is OK. It is up to consultants to counsel customers when their preferred solution is *not* likely to succeed too (far few take this road though).

The window of opportunity for desktop Linux is just beginning to open. Don't expect it to close too soon.

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

[killjoe]

"Is it simple enough for a PHB to understand and use?"

Yes. If a PHB can use office they can use open office. IF they know how to use outlook then can use groupwise.

"Of course, here we are assuming you're not using Linux as a multi-user server system and are instead running it in as a single-user "desktop" machine system."

No I am not presuming that. Novell has full linux desktops.

"Ease of installation and availability of software is a big one."

This is handled by the IT dept.

"Can the PHB "Hotsync" with their Handspring / Blackberry? "

Yes.

"Can they just download some software and install it themselves"

Yes but they probably should not be allowed to.

"How about their iPod? Their digital camera? Their scanner? The latest and greatest gadget that does who-knows-what?"

At work? Why?

"I'm afraid that even downloading and installing Firefox on a Linux desktop would be too much for a PHB"

Why would it be any harder then windows. Fire up YAST, click on firebird and it installs. That's a lot easier then downloading MS software, unzipping it and then installing it. With YAST you don't even need to hunt it down on some web site.

"Until is it pretty much exactly the same as Microsoft Windows you will have a hard time getting anywhere with a PHB."

Linux is growing at an explosive pace. It's definately not having problems getting anywhere. WHen the growth of linux adoption slows down even a little bit then I'll worry. Until then it's all sheets to the wind and full force ahead.

"Until hardware and software vendors put the same time and money into developing solutions for Linux as well as Microsoft Windows, it just isn't going to get the recognition it deserves"

It's already getting the recognition it deserves. It's growing wildly despite the best efforts of MS and SCO stop it. They can't even seem to slow down a little bit. Tens of millions spent on lawsuits and it did not even slow down the growth of linux by .01%.

Honestly what planet do you live on? Are you under some impression that the adoption of linux is slowing down or has stopped? If so where did you get that impression.

WiFi support

[ChrisMDP]

From the article:

"Broader WiFi card support needs to be introduced to Linux. WiFi card support for the large and important group of laptop users hardly exists. The expedient solution here would to use something like Linuxant's DriverLoader which has the elegance of being a single point solution that's applicable to the great majority of user/device scenarios."

This is the single reason that stopped my from installing Linux on my laptop. Until I discovered ndiswrapper, that is, which wraps windows wireless drivers...

Now if ndiswrapper worked out of the box, that *would* be a step forward.

Re:WiFi support

[Anonymous Coward]

Try FreeBSD 5. NDISulator included, right out of the box. I use it on my laptop with a Linksys (Broadcom) NIC and it works like a dream.

Re:WiFi support

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Try FreeBSD 5.

Don't like your bathroom? Purchase a new house!

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 ?

[blowdart]

Why not single-sign-on to OpenLdap ?

Because companies want to use their existing infrastructure? Are you seriously suggesting you can sell linux on the workstation by telling companies to throw away their windows "investment" server side at the same time?

Re:Single sign-on to what ?

[ReelOddeeo]

Let me get this straight.

Gradually migrate desktops to Linux. Make them do sign on and authentication to a Windows server.

End result: Linux on the desktops, Windows as the server.

That way, each platform is being used for what it is best at.

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 ?

[blowdart]

Nice sarcasm

My point was, I guess, that telling a company they must replace both parts of their infrastructure in order to use Linux is not the way to market it. Like it or not AD is being used in large companies, in concert with Exchange, ISA, Sharepoint, VPNs and whatever else. Lack of single sign on from workstations can well be a deal breaker, and saying "Oh just migrate your backend too" is not a helpful attritude.

Re:Single sign-on to what ?

[demented]

If I'm not mistaken, according to this official OpenLDAP Admin Guide, OpenLDAP supports SASL framework, which, in turn, supports Kerberos V authentication via GSSAPI. It took me some time to put all the pieces in the right places on my Gentoo server installation, but after some Google searching, I finally had OpenLDAP over Kerberos authentication, and on top of all that, an AFS cell (using OpenAFS, of course).

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:Single sign-on to what ?

[PoochieReds]

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) Sorry, but this is just plain wrong...

OpenLDAP fully supports kerberos authentication (and many other types) via Cyrus (and maybe GNU) SASL libraries.

See the OpenLDAP SASL Instructions that document how to do it.

Re:Single sign-on to what ?

[fsmunoz]

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)

Er, the answer is YES. I have it working here. You can use the Kerberos tickets to authenticate to OpenLDAP and have ACL's in the LDAP server to define the permissions. It's done trough SASL and it works transparently.

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.

Not so. Understand that this is however seperate from the availability of Kerberos. Other methods can be used to pass the crendentials (Digest MD5, etc). Aditionally you can force the use of SSL, so even cleartext passwords are not problematic. You can actually define that the server won't accept cleartext from non-TLS connections.

I use OpenLDAP integrated with Kerberos and both integrated with the authentication and authorization of several different things (including machine logon). I also have a cross-realm trust relation between AD and the Unix LDAP which allows AD users to use their Windows tokens in the Unix environment (user "bar@WINDOWS.NET" assumes "bar@UNIX.NET" identity trough cross-realm). Aditionally, as a last resort for use in non-kerberized apps one can use the password '{KERBEROS}boo@UNIX.NET' or '{KERBEROS}boo@WINDOWS.NET' to make the LDAP server check the user supplied password in the Kerberos server.

We've been running Linux for quite a while now

[YodaToo]

We currently use a kickstart install of Fedora for our EE workstations. Customized it with everything we need including configs for the various workstation/networked printers.

We use NIS so that workstations are completely interchangable. Had an EE harddrive meltdown, grabbed a spare machine, ran the kickstart, and the user logged back in via NIS within 15 minutes with no data loss! Could have had him backup instantly if he wanted to go to a spare office.

I can't believe how much easier workstation admin is now that we use Linux.

Re:We've been running Linux for quite a while now

[sporty]

You are right, they are messy. Thus things like IMAP, webdav and the likes. But mind you, what you gain in portability, you lose in performance. Things like photoshop might not be happy when you deal with multiple multi meg files. Well.. not unahppy. .just slower.

HP has a Linux laptop

[robyannetta]

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/3219 57-64295-89315-321838-f33-395654.html

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

[tbedolla]

I currently work closely with the CIO in a medium to large restaurant company where we are installing a POS system with Linux as the OS...Suse to be exact although we'll probably be using IRES from IBM which is just a imaging and deployment package around Suse. While we are working out the kinks of the POS, our online ordering system running IIS and Windows 2000 was comprimised and has left us waiting for a green light with our payment processor that has resulted in approximately 1 million in losses. I don't care how much of a budget Windows has if being a "known quantity" makes you a target.

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.

Cut Dell some slack!

[stratjakt]

The outsourced tech support probably couldn't spell "Windows" either. They don't even have the same letters on their keyboards as you do.

If someone called you up and asked you to spell some random word in Hindi I bet you'd mess up too.

As for the first topic, it should be no shock to any one that linux needs a whole shitload of stuff, Samba and others are great projects, and provide a lot of the desired functionality, but getting them installed and set up and "playing nice" with your Windows network can be a real bitch.

I mean, who here has jumped through the hoops of adding a linux server to an AD domain? Compare to adding a Windows server to an AD domain. Now imagine Betty McOfficeGirl trying to follow some written instructions to set up her fancy new linux desktop. Not all offices have a team of IT guys swarming around taking care of everything. Most people are on their own.

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...

Everytime I criticize linux I get modded down and shouted at by morons for being a MS "fanboy" or "astroturfer". It's all obvious to anyone who cares to look, though.

Frankly, I don't think linux can do it (replace windows). I don't think linux will do it. 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.

I see something like ReactOS developing into the horse to bet on.

To me, a Windows killer is something you install over some guys copy of Windows, and they never even notice that some of the icons are in different spots, or the Windows logo is replaced with something new. Everything works as it always did, albeit with all the transparency a GPL'ed project gives us.

Just my 0.02. I really don't think linux could ever replace Windows any more than a tractor trailer could replace a honda civic. All those regular non-mechanical folk don't want to drive a tractor trailer, and don't want to learn.

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.

Once again ... Why bother.

[JPyObjC Dude]

The truth is that Linux is no where near the quality and refinement of OSX. The only thing that is holding me back from recommending OSX as the switch to platform is the lack of native OOO and in particular a stable 2.0 trunk.

Once native OOO comes out next year, OSX will be the `switch` platform I am recommending to all my friends relatives colleagues...

Regarding Linux, OOO 2.0 is again a main switching point. OOO 1.1.n is still too limited to be useful for power users to switch.

Another HUGE blocking point for switchers to any platform other than win32 is the lack of a `all in one` netmeeting'ish application. Sure there is gnomemeeting but it still does not support an secure integrated vnc server/client p2p component. This is greatly limiting.

JsD
[dreaming of programming Java/obj-c/Python on an apple at apple while programming in Java/tcl/JS on a dell at another]

Re:Once again ... Why bother.

[slushbat]

Yes why bother ... posting a comment which nobody will understand? WTF is OOO?

Re:Just keep using Windows

[webzombie]

Sure... like just
- keep fighting terrorism
- losing indivdual freedoms
- stop thinking

For christ sakes... just because something isn't point click and done doesn't make it any less viable.

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

XANDROS 2.0, Lindows, Lycoris, MEPIS

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

Novell Evolution embraces mail, calendar and address book standards to ease data sharing.

Supported mail protocols include IMAP, POP, SMTP and Authenticated SMTP, as well as Microsoft Exchange 2000 and 2003. Novell GroupWise support is currently in our development branch.

3. Interoperability with Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2000.

See above

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

Crossover

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

Xandros, Lycoris, SUSE, RedHat... or just install VNC...

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

Fille association is not a roadblock. Simply a minor configuration issue.

7. Device management for hardware compatibility.

XANDROS 2.0, Lindows, Lycoris, MEPIS, RedHat, Suse

8. Compatible Windows Media player Codecs.

Crossover, MPlayer, XINE

"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.

Re:Just keep using Windows

[pqdave]

The eventual goal might be to switch to an all-Linux environment, but in the meantime Linux users need access to all the things they use now. Microsoft would love it if the only practical way to switch to a Linux desktop was to throw out all your existing backend software and start over.

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:Just keep using Windows

[BJH]

Most of these already exist in one form or another.

1) Use smb:// in Nautilus.
2) Dump Active Directory and use something that's a bit more cross-platform. There's plenty of LDAP-compatible stuff out there, and Novell will sell you a drop-in solution for single signon. If you do it right, you get single signon across Windows, Linux, Solaris and HPUX.
3) Evolution Connector.
4) Just set OOo to use the MS TT fonts.
5) Terminal Server Client or rdesktop (I'm guessing they mean a RDP client here).
6) Nautilus can handle file associations just fine.
7) Not sure what the hell they mean by this.
8) Mplayer using MS codecs ;)

Basically, it sounds like a list drawn up by someone who hasn't considered that introducing a new platform into a corporate environment means that they're supposed to exploit the advantages of that platform, rather than force it to conform to whatever existing platforms they have.

Some Insightful, Some Not So Insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

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. In the past week, I've provided support in online forums where the problem is stated that on Windows they can't see the other Windows box - because they are using Network Places, which relies on NetBIOS and can take up to 45 min for a computer to show up in. This is the reality of the userbase - GUI.

Myth: Printing sucks
Fact: No argument - it sucks. No central tie-in into the system so all programs use the same printing config. I shouldn't have to setup CUPS, and then setup each and every program I want to use to use CUPS.

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...

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

There's other issues, but those are the most visible. Not to say the article isn't overall wrong in it's assertion - that in order for Linux to get to the point where drivers are listed with hardware along with Windows, the hobbyist programmer mantra of "it works for me, so fsck you" keep stagnating Linux where it is today - where it's been for the last couple of years ever since "this will be the year of the Linux desktop...No, THIS will be..."

It's not acceptable to have to install 3+ programs in sequence to get an app to work - bundle the bloody stuff already, quit being lazy. Funny from the crowd who chastizes closed source about how bad their software design is...

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.

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.

Re:Some Insightful, Some Not So Insightful

[bluekanoodle]

I agree with you on most the points here, except for rdesktop. Rdesktop is a client to connect to a terminal services server. Compared to Windows RDP app, or Citrix ICA Agent, it's pretty bare bones, but it does work

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

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/

roaming profiles

[cliffyqs]

that would be nifty... we have no such thing. Outlook gets mail and stores it on the local machine, removing it from the server. this may have been done because of server space in the past, but now it is a pain if a workstation dies. spares are a pain. users exist on the server (for email) and on local machine, everything on the local machine. not many computers to support here, but enough that I would like it to be easier.

don't be like us, plan ahead for time & cost of support.

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.

WHY?

[Libor Vanek]

8. Compatible Windows Media player Codecs.

WHY???? Show me ONE big corporation which needs to play movies on the users desktops!

Re:WHY?

[lavezza]

The company I work for (big, multinational, etc.) has training courses in Windows Media format. A lot of the new hire stuff is now done on the desktop after the employee is hired and not in instructor taught courses. Also, once or twice a month there is another Ethics/Legal type training video that EVERYONE has to watch.

Sure, these could be converted into another format. But that is just another line item that needs to be done to switch to Linux. Once the "Things we need to spend money on because they don't work in Linux" list gets to a certain number, migration just isn't going to happen.

Re:WHY?

[bluekanoodle]

Let's see. Here are some things that Corporatations need movies for. Corporate training videos Online training Advertising Review Promotional materials As far as answering your question, we made exactly these kind of materials at one of my previous jobs. Our Clients included: Intel HP Sharp GM Do I need to go on?

Re:WHY?

[/dev/trash]

AOL Time-Warner?

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...

Interface

[cliffyqs]

which will bring us to: "Computer... Tea, Earl Grey, hot."

OS X Meets Criteria, But Not Solution

[Spencerian]

Mac OS X meets almost all of the criteria that the article suggests for Linux compatibility... ...except that Mac OS X is not Linux. (That, and the Windows codecs, although the popular VLC application does the trick in all but the stickiest non-QuickTime codec.

So, taking a page from both Apple and Microsoft's business handbook, what can the Linux community "steal" from Microsoft and Apple to make Linux a stronger enterprise player?

Getting things from the Apple side isn't very hard since its resources come from the FreeBSD world, which is open source. Samba works great in OS X, which means stronger integration in Linux is needed to match OS X's performance, which I suspect does nothing particularly special.

Same is true for AD authentication. Mac OS X uses a plug-in its Directory Services that understands this LDAP-variant...surely this is something that would work in Linux, or does it lack a refined mechanism for handling multiple directory services as OS X?

Ximian already provides Exchange compatibility in its mail product, and Exchange 2000 works with IMAP provided that Outlook Web Access (WebDAV) is running. Special features of Exchange (and its Outlook client) may be missing, but Mac users are still missing features from Entourage, the successor to the Outlook client on Mac OS X, so this is not quite the biggie. Linux/Intel users can run VMware (as Mac users would run Virtual PC) to use the actual Outlook client if needed.

The Microsoft Office component is a toughie. Mac OS users have a genuine Office client. Microsoft knows that holding back creation of a Linux client would sap power from its enterprise drive.

No easy answers in this, really. I think, however, that Linux could use a central business owner, although I know its nature makes that impossible. But wait--isn't that what Apple's doing with OS X by licensing or using BSD components?

What if a company licensed a Linux distro and took the reins to make a Linux-compatible OS with the same functionality, but also the "one-click" simplicity, application strength, and security that Mac OS X enjoys in its Mach/BSD fusion?

Of course, we know that this appears to have been done, with Red Hat, et al. But has it really been done well?

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.

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.

Are 26 letters in the alphabet too much?

[kardar]

Exactly. Or take a directory of files named file001 through file999 delete file001 and file002 and move the rest of all of the filenames down two numbers - do that with your mouse!

People who don't understand the CLI don't realize that it's actually a programming language file, but you only get to see one line at a time (default file size is 500 lines) - you can change that, you can search, edit, switch to multi-line mode, write little scripts, change the copyright year notices on all of your webpages on Jan. 1 with a simple one-line command, etc...

Extending the argument that GUI is better, what you're actually saying is more like questioning why we should use C or C++ or Java or basic or any programming language that has to be typed in, let's just point and click our way to writing software programs!

Furthermore, why should we even use the English alphabet or the keyboard? We can do everything we need to do with a mouse - that way, you get carpal tunnel sooner, which means you can quit your job and get paid more than half of what you were earning for having people do surgery on you!! Great idea, huh?

English is a language, just like Perl is a language, just like C is a language, just like any other programming language. And you know what? Bash, the Linux default shell, it is also a programming language. That's the whole point. You can type your business letters with your keyboard or you can type them with your mouse...

On top of everything else, if you make it so darned easy for anyone to do anything on a computer, you will outsource yourself to someone making minimum wage. Since when is being stupid a desired thing? I think we need to get over the idea that computers have to be "easy" to use - it's a skill - take 6 months to learn how to use a REAL operating system the right way - what is life expectancy - 65+ and growing? What is 6 months out of that to learn how to use a tool that you are going to use for the rest of your life?

Setting stupidity as a goal is counterproductive. I think it would be better if the goal were that computer operators learn the skills necessary to use something like Linux or BSD. The basics are something you only need to learn once - they are more like concepts - so if the computer operators learn how to use the computers properly, we will have a more realistic computing environment - because no matter how "dumb" you make something or how "dumb" you make a job description, it's always someone else's job to come and fix it when it doesn't work anyway. What I don't understand is why intelligence and skills aren't the focus - they are in almost anything else? You don't hear someone say - "They ought to make theoretical physics easier... it's too hard!", or "They ought to make Partial Differential Equations easier... they're too hard!". C'mon, people... get with it already.

Re:Are 26 letters in the alphabet too much?

[kardar]

1. The files thing - it's not THAT particular thing, it's the concept - performing a series of operations, any operations, on a series of objects, in this case, filesystem objects. It's the CONCEPT - you can't do that with a mouse in Windows. Sure, it's easy to do some things in Windows, but it's EASIER to do much more complex stuff in Linux if you know what you are doing. A blender might be easy, but an industrial blender is EASIER for a particular job, even though using the machine might be more complicated. It's not the difficulty of using the tool, it's the difficulty of the job that the tool has to do.

2. You obviously don't understand the CLI. If you understand the CLI, you know it's a programming language. A simple one, but a programming language nonetheless. How could you not care about that if you knew it? It's the case of the sour honey - the bee's nest was too high up in the tree, the bear couldn't get to it - so he gave up and consoled himself by becoming convinced the honey was sour anyway. It's not that hard, trust me, you just have to take one step at a time. Bash is your friend.

3. I guess what I see is that perhaps many people feel that it's "not worth it" to learn GIMP. Your attitudes towards GIMP are the cause of your difficulties. Many individuals, for instance, would gladly take lots of time to learn Photoshop, because their attitudes towards Photoshop are more favorable and Photoshop has the "image" and the "coolness" factor. Truth be told, if you are a graphic artist, you need to know both. Comparing GIMP to some application that allows you print out wallet-sized photos isn't fair... GIMP is an incredibly complex program with intense capabilities - you're comparing apples and oranges. What YOU want is called the "Gnome Photo Printer". Google for that and you will have your wallet-sized photos.

I guess it just boils down to whether or not the whole point of the thing is to sell massive quantities of computers to massive quantities of people, or to produce a quality product that appeals to certain types of people, regardless of the quantities of people.

Seriously... if you like Windows so much, use it - but if the reason you don't like Unix or Linux is because OTHER people like the advanced capabilities it offers, or because "everyone who stands up for Unix never goes outside" then I would have to say it's a failure to understand what a computer is. A better analogy, perhaps is a stick shift, not a hand crank. Got a problem with my stick shift? C'mon. Your opinion counts just as much as anyone elses - so it's always best to respect yourself and make up your OWN mind - if you don't like Unix because it's got a "command line" - if that "command line" which you never have to use really just bugs you that much, and that's how you really feel - why of course you are entitled to that opinion. Don't let others' appreciation and respect for the command line drive you away from a superior product.

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.

Re:Wuh?

[iabervon]

I think Linux printing is ready, but just recently. That means that things don't come preconfigured to use CUPS yet, which means there's significant setup effort.

The way things go with Linux is that things start out unsupported. Then they get flawed support. After a bunch of development, the right solution is made, but it requires a lot of configuration to set everything up. Then it comes preconfigured and everything just works.

(When I started using Linux, in '96, in order to get X working, you had to write a mode line with the timings you wanted to get things just right. Then X started coming with mode lines for all the nice modes. Now you don't need mode lines at all; the server will come up with the right information itself. Imagine my surprised when my new X server, with nothing in the config file other than my monitor's capabilities (old monitor; new monitors report their own capabilities), instead of coming up in 1280x1024, came up in 2048x1536 because that's what it could do.)

Today you have to tell CUPS what your printer is. But tomorrow, you won't because the software will read /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usblp/*/../product, and look up the right info. Then it will look in /sys/class/printer.

The article is thinking in the microsoft way about getting drivers. Why should you have to click on an unsupported device in order to get a driver for it? Just try to use it and it should fetch (or build, or just load) a driver. If it doesn't know what the device is, it should use a cddb-like system to report the lack of support, and let users who get it working report what they did.

100% identical? Good luck.

[mgkimsal2]

I just ordered 100 lattitude D800 laptops. every one of them will be 100% identical

Wow - we ordered 2 *on the same day* and they both arrived the same day from the same location. They have different wireless chips inside. One person has wireless under linux, one doesn't.

Here's hoping all *100* of yours are 100% identical down to the internals.

NIS+NFS vs AD? Not a chance

[buchanmilne]

NIS+NFS more secure than Kerberised everything and well-secured LDAP implementation using signed and encryped CIFS?

Sorry, there's no way.

Now, maybe it's more resistant to spyware and virii, but it's not more secure.

Just run:
$ ypcat passwd|jack
to find out how insecure you are!

If you were running Kerberos, OpenLDAP and NFSv4 .... maybe, if your setup was good and your ACLs on your OpenLDAP server were reasonable, it might be more secure.

Re:I'm a PHB

[jmulvey]

Assign the half that don't like Linux to a "Special Projects" team. Give them jobs like sorting power cables by color.

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.

It's more than money.

[khasim]

No. Your first step, as with any business decision, is to justify the cost of the process. If you can't justify the one time cost vs. the ongoing costs, you don't do it.

You've never been in a company where the new VP pushes a migration from a working to system to the "new" stuff. I have. I've seen working NetWare/GroupWise systems ripped out and replaced with Win2K/Exchange systems, even though more servers were required and more money was spent on the software than was spent in the previous 5 years on those systems.

Politics is a major factor and the numbers can be managed to show any results that you want.

Businesses aren't generally interested in throwing money down the toilet in the interest of their IT department's idealogical bents, so if the cost justification doesn't exist, it doesn't happen.

Yet in case after case, that exact situation has happened. Again, the numbers can be managed to show whatever someone wants them to show.

Being the new CIO or VP and doing nothing except maintaining the status quo is not going to look good on your resume. That's where the politics come into play. If you aren't already on the most popular system, lots of "problems" will be "found" that can only be "fixed" by migrating to the popular system. If you're on the most popular system, then most managers will not risk their career by championing a migration to a less popular system. Instead, they'll focus on centralizing that which is decentralized and decentralizing that which is centralized.

Blaming non-migrations on "stupid PHBs" is disingenuous.

And I did not do that.

If they think that doing it will save money or increase productivity, they're not going to stand there and say "hmmm... something I could take at least some credit for - nope, I don't I'll further my career today".

Incorrect. The actual thought process is more "hmmm... something that might save money, but might fail and cause me to lose my job - nope, I'm not risking my career".

OpenOffice does not function like Microsoft Office, like it or lump it.

Yes it does. I can sit someone down and they can type and print from OpenOffice the same as from MSOffice.

Each of these also lack features of Office that some users will have difficulty getting over.

Only if the users at the company in question are part of the "some users" group that you mentioned. If they aren't, then there won't be problems.

On top of that, a GUI'ed Linux system is about as stable as a tower of Jell-O.

Whatever. Lots of people use it and is seems to work for them. I'll leave out the rest of your ill-informed rant.

In business, it's about politics. That's the fact. The sooner you learn that, the sooner you'll be able to move beyond tech.

Bullshit.

[jotaeleemeese]

After having to deal with underperforming Access "databases" by dudes that thought they knew better, my company (and another one I worked for) barred the damn thing from desktops and put DB development where it belongs: with dedicated teams.

These teams, knowing their stuff, would not touch Access with a 10 metre pole.

As for small companies, they are carving their own obsolescence: I used to porvide support for dentists. While the Access solutions they had normally gave uncountable headhaches, Linus or UNIX solutions kept working silently, the trusty powerhorses that ensured the dentist could do his work and not wait in frustration thanks to the latest virus or BSOD.

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.

Re:Device Manager

[Adam Avangelist]

There is sysfs and libsysfs with namedev parts of the udev/hotplug system. Desktops are (or should be) building in support for HAL and D-BUS. libsysfs provides a generic interface querying library for sysfs, which has information on devices. Namedev allows you to independently name devices in correlation to a unique serial id, and base device file creation off that with udev. Hotplug acts as a metigator for event notification with the kernel allowing for device detection. HAL and D-BUS are freedesktop projects, HAL a backend for allowing a more uniform presentation of hardware to graphical enviroments, and D-BUS for interprocess communication. The udev system is already real technology, integration of HAL and D-BUS into your favorite Window Manager/DE, assuming you use one should take several months or longer.