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Distributing Windows Programs to Linux Desktops?
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?"
Windows Terminal Server would be less problematic. Citrix opens up an entire can of worms. I have been running a farm of about 20 Metaframe servers for two years now. The additional features it brings to Terminal Server are simply not worth the trouble.
The short list:
1. Citrix servers have to be rebooted every night or they exibit wildly unpredictable behavior.
2. Each Windows 32-bit client that connects to a Metaframe server uploads its print driver(s). If one of these print drivers disagrees with the server, the client either (a) can't print (b) can't connect (c) crashes the server.
3. Citrix charges $400 per tech support incident. The first ten minutes of the conversation is spent by Citrix telling you about the items they will NOT help you with.
4. Their products are exorbitantly priced.
5. They still haven't got the clipboard-between-apps thing figured out. It works sometimes(:
6. Few companies write their applications with Metaframe in mind. Most line-of-business applications require some workarounds to run properly on Metaframe. Particularly, the ones that want administrative privileges.
And remember, you are going to spend at least three of your evenings at the data center patching servers every month. One night for Microsoft's regular patches. Another night for the Microsoft patches that unbreak what the previous patches broke. And another night for the Citrix patches.
My opinion: Citrix Cucks!
My recommendation, if you have to run this app, is to use a Windows Terminal Server without Citrix. It's not perfect but will be much less of a headache than Metaframe.
Or just find an application that runs on *nix.
Note: Of course, "4.0" is "supposed" to fix a lot of these problems. I'll try it next year, if I have to...
This is definitely an option. In fact you don't even need vendor co-operation, CodeWeavers can make apps run without access to the source code.
I work for CodeWeavers and I'll say now that for 250 licenses we can put a few hours into making a custom app work for you. For exact details you'd need to contact jwhite@codeweavers.com. How much effort it'd take to get the app to Gold status depends on a lot of things. It may require no effort at all, in which case your problem is already solved. Congratulations. You have a zero cost way to deploy this app.
It may be that the app basically does work, but it's not reliable or it suffers visual glitches. This is the sort of app we can often make work in return for guaranteed sales of X licenses, even without the source code.
It may be that the app won't start or won't install so you can't tell, but we can coax it into working and give you an evaluation. We have 4 developers who specialise in installers (2 in MSI, 2 in InstallShield respectively), so this is definitely possible. We usually do "kick the tires" evaluations either cheaply or for free.
Basically, the best solution for your desktop users is going to be a Wine/CrossOver based solution. The app will run at native or nearly native speed, you won't need an app server, it will integrate nicely with their desktop and appear in the menus, copy and paste will work etc. And you don't need any Windows licenses. Seriously, drop us a line.