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Distributing Windows Programs to Linux Desktops?

Posted by Cliff on from the halt-the-change dept.

prell asks: "Our company has approximately 250 Linux desktops, and an array of Linux servers. Recently, we've been presented with the possibility of migrating all or most of these machines to Windows to support one industry-specific application, and we do not want this to happen. Coming to mind immediately were: Wine and CrossOver Office; some sort of multi-user VNC setup; Ndiyo; and VMWare. Keeping in mind that the desktop machines are low-spec (~350MHz CPUs on average), what are our options? How can we preserve our Linux install-base in the presence of a non-canonical Windows program?"

1 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. consider porting it by cahiha · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For the amount of money that it's going to cost you to do this (easily $500k), you may be able to create your own version of the application. Of course, I realize that that may not always be possible, but it is worth considering.

    There may be a web-based version of the application.

    You may be able to outsource the application and have your users access it through rdesktop.

    If you only have a few users using it at a time, then accessing a bank of Windows machines through VNC should be enough.

    If it's a high-powered application that can't be ported, then you're in trouble. If you are really, really lucky, you can run it under an old version of NT on VMware on your current hardware and under Linux. If it requires a new version of Windows and/or significant resources, you need to upgrade all your hardware, no matter what you do. I'd still get a site license for VMware and run Windows under Linux--that way, at least you more easily avoid the costs of downgrading to an all Windows server infrastructure and retraining everybody, and you can more easily distribute and lock down the (virtual) Windows desktops.

    Don't blame your decision of using Linux up to now for your predicament--consider yourself lucky that you have been able to save money so far. The cost of dealing with Windows now (hardware upgrades, licenses, installation, system management, etc.) is the cost you would otherwise have been paying roughly every two years as the cost of doing business.