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Test-Drive a Linux Desktop From Windows

Posted by timothy on from the hey-lookit dept.

debiansid writes "The Open Soucre Region Stuttgart is now offering a free demo of the Linux Desktop to users through their web browsers. They had earlier launched a German version before which received more than 100,000 responses, after which they decided to launch an English version. The website requires you to download and run an exe - it does not install anything on to the hard drive. The demo system is Debian based with a v2.4 kernel and KDE."

4 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. NoMachine? by Mad_Rain · · Score: 3, Informative

    My question is " How is this different from NoMachine's NX Server?"

    NoMachine and their NX server also allows you to testdrive a linux desktop on windows, over a remote connection. I found my FreeNX server usable even over dial-up, and could show my parents what my linux desktop looked like, and think it might be a useful migration step for some users. It's even bundled with Knoppix.

    --
    "What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
    1. Re:NoMachine? by advocate_one · · Score: 3, Informative
      My question is " How is this different from NoMachine's NX Server?"

      It's far worse... it uses a heck of a lot of bandwidth compared to NX... (It was maxing out my downstream on this broadband connection 130KBytes/s). It would be impossible to use it over dialup...

      --
      Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  2. Just a remote connection... by dolmen.fr · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is just a remote connection to a Linux server using the Secure Global Desktop Enterprise Edition from Tarantella.

    Is it a coincidence that Sun just announced yesterday they are buying Tarentella?

  3. And that's a big problem by infernalC · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Users need to know that just because a program doesn't come with another program which "installs" it doesn't mean that the program isn't put on their computer and can't do some sort of harm to it. People have a false sense of security about downloading programs. Users should know what "running a program from the Internet" really means: copying the instructions to the hard drive, and then to memory, and then executing them. Period. Registering (or not) the software in some list maintained in the operating system or placing the software in a temporary file path or in a designated program file path makes no difference as to whether the software can effect malicious ends - that's what I'm saying. The whole concept of what it means to "install" something needs to be clarified to the end user.

    I could accept that the software is not "installed" if it were sandboxed in some way.