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Where Is The Plug-and-Play Linux Office System?
cdlu writes "Where oh where is the plug-and-play Linux business computer? Robin Miller asks the question and makes the case for starting a business to sell a self-updating networked Linux system for small business. Any takers?" (NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.)
I think MEPIS Linux is like that.
The author isn't talking about auto updating software or and OS, he's talking about prebuilt Server/Clients for small offices. --> So really, who is hotter? Alley or Alleys sister?
My company, Local Net Solutions has been working toward that goal for about a year now. The system is about ready to go. Depending on the office size and bandwidth from that office, I am looking at a local machine to be the master update server. The SOHO office will update directly from my servers.
Where is interop Linux/Windows groupware?
It's called Groupwise can you dig it?
Ok, the client's still in beta, but it works. There's a version for OS X as well.
When you get to hell -- tell 'em Itchy sent ya!
I can sort of visualize how this would be done properly. Since the vendor is selling a complete maintenance package, it would certainly make sense to maintain a workstation onsite configured *exactly* the same as the units that the customer has onsite. At the bare minimum, the vendor could just have a copy of the disc image, and load it up on a box when work needed to be done. This way any updates/new software/drivers etc can be tested by the vendor before deployment to the customer site. This is similar to the way that a lot of thin-client vendors work currently, since TC's generally have flash memory instead of a disc locally and therefore modifications to the image are generally done by the vendor.
\/\/oobie
There's GnuCash http://www.gnucash.org/ and Lazy8 http://www.lazy8.nu/
4 31.html
And Jim blogs his thoughts on many others.
http://www.jimohalloran.com/archives/000
And this was just a quick google. There is progress on a number of fronts.
Actually, the GroupWise client for Linux/Macintosh is not in beta. It was released a while ago and the client is up to SP2 already. FYI, the GroupWise server agents run on Linux (and Netware and Windows as well).
Self awareness - try it!
GnuCash, while not suited to heavy business uses, can be used for simpler accounting tasks. I know of no replacement for TurboTax, however.
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My work desktop has a broken MDAC 2.8 install. WinXP SP2 doesn't let you reinstall it! When I try to reinstall MDAC 2.8 I get a message that I already have these features, though WinXP doesn't care about the fact that MDAC 2.8 is broken. I searched the web and MS knowledge base, the only option is to _remove_ sp2, reinstall MDAC 2.8 and then reinstall SP2, a _very_ slow process which could result in more things breaking. The only solution I have right now is to downgrade some of my programs to MDAC 2.7. Again, I have never run into this type of madness on my Linux computers at work or home.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Why is it that the snooty Linux gurus always pooh-pooh Linspire anyway?
."
Because it's a really lousy distro for Linux gurus on several levels. Even Linspire recommends Mandrake for "technical" users and Red Hat for servers.
There distro is clearly aimed at user who need to be told that:
"Linux is an "Operating System". .
I strongly suspect that the people at Linspire would consider anyone who feels talked down to by putting "Operating System" in quotes is "technical" user who might be better served by using Mandrake.
There is also the issue of the company itself. While not outright evil it has a whiff of sulpher about it, and always has. Their website, while never outright lying, is rather smarmily disengenuous about just what Linux and Free/Open Source software is. In effect they have the appearance of catering to the ignorant Windows user in order to prey on them. They talk about the Linux "per user" license, rather than the free license. Their own license is refered to as "per family" which sounds somehow superior to a "per user" license distro like, oh, Debian, which they never mention, because then they'd have to point out that you just download that one free and get into the real issues of the Linux licenses. They also never mention that the distros they do compare Linspire to (and as noted even recommend to certain users) may have a freely downloadable version.
So, on the whole the product and the company are repulsive, not just to the Linux guru, but even to the merely Linux aware.
My impression is that it's probably a nifty little distro for the bubblegum popping receptionist who doesn't want to move from Windows because she'll get lost if the blue on an icon is a slightly different hue, but the average Linux guru, while he may find certain individual aspects of said receptionist rather attractive, is going to be repulsed by the entire package taken as a whole.
And so for Linspire.
That doesn't mean it's a Bad(tm) distro, just why a snooty Linux guru would pooh-pooh it.
KFG
While I was still using Windows 2000, shortly before ServicePack3 IIRC, I went to windows update and installed the critical "you must install me now biaatch!" updates. Suddenly my system was running so unbarably slow that it was rendered unusable. After a considerable amount of research the problem was tracked down to one of the critical updates that while fixing a GDI exploit, it caused many systems to slow to a halt. This update is one of the updates which would be automatically installed by anyone with automatic updating enabled.
This is by far not an isolated occurance, and not as severe as many other problems windows system administrators see on a frequent enough basis that many of them adopt a phylosphy of not updating until absolutely necissary. However, now you can no longer claim to have never heard of windows update problems.
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
Because self-updating works so well for Windows...
It works well for Debian...
Combine that with certificate authentication for your SSH logons and you're good to go.
Yes, my only tool is a hammer. And you're starting to look like a nail.