IBM Launches Microsoft-Free Linux Virtual Desktop

VorlonFog writes "According to Information Week, IBM has introduced a line of business computers that avoid Microsoft's desktop environment in favor of open source software. IBM worked with Canonical and Virtual Bridges to create the platform, which IBM claims saves businesses $500 to $800 per user on software licenses and an additional $258 per user 'since there is no need to upgrade hardware to support Vista and Office.'"

Comments

fp

[CheshireFerk-o]

one small step for OSS...

Desktop Environment?

[RandomPsychology]

because for some strange reason, we're not allowed to use the word "Windows" anymore due to the DMCA...

Re:Desktop Environment?

[VorlonFog]

Mostly, I removed Windoze from my post summary because I didn't want to bother too many Slashdot readers with it.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

because for some strange reason, we're not allowed to use the word "Windows" anymore due to the DMCA...

The DMCA has nothing to do with it. "Windows" is a trademark, and trademarks are a different thing than copyrights.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[MikeDirnt69]

I removed windows from my house, thieves used it as backdoors.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Richard_at_work]

A desktop environment is so much more than the OS, its even more than the OS plus Office suite.

Off the top of my head, our 'desktop environment' consists of:

• OS (Windows XP Pro or Windows 2003 R2 for Terminal Services)
• Office 2007
• CRM application
• Report generator
• CCM application
• Autoroute 2007
• TopCalc (a third party Line of Business application)
• CAP (a third party Line of Business application)
• Legis (a third party Line of Business application)

And thats without listing the several internal Line of Business applications we use.

I can't remember when the last time was that a 'desktop environment' I used consisted solely of the OS and an office suite - and thats why we can't migrate to a different platform: theres no alternatives to 90% of the applications we use on other platforms.

I think thats a point that many people gloss over.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

What you can do--and it's not a bad idea--is deploy the Microsoft apps via a Citrix server and give clients Linux or thin-client desktops. You can secure, update and configure your Citrix boxes much more easily than a zillion desktop clients, Linux or Windows.

Desktop support is an incredible sink of effort and money. The thinner the desktop, the better things are. Laptops present a problem, especially if always-on internet isn't an option, but at least you're getting the workload down.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, most people's 'desktop enviroment' looks like the following:

OS
Sony Rootkit
Spyware
Spyware
Adware
Trojan
Keylogger
Trojan
Hidden folder full of p0rn
Quicktime nagware
Realplayer nagware
Text file with all passwords
Adobe nagware
Hidden folder full of stolen (err, I mean shared) mp3s

Re:Desktop Environment?

[daethon]

To help those American's who took the time to read this lineup but are unfamiliar with Autoroute. Autoroute is the European equivilant of MS Streets and Trips. It is also made by Microsoft. Both great products for those who don't have internet access all the time and like to know where they are going.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Relying on Win32 software is a dumb mistake and will prove costly. They should be replaced with open products & web apps.
AutoRoute stands out as being a pile of crap, google maps is so much better.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Dan Ost]

"Windows" by itself wasn't trademarkable. "Microsoft Windows" is a trademark owned by MS.

Or something like that.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Seth Kriticos]

I thought IBM would sell "IT Solutions", not "desktop environments". Can't we just stick with a standardized way of term obfuscation?

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you tried running any of these Line of Business applications using wine?
http://www.winehq.org/

Just a thought.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Richard_at_work]

This is also something a lot of people do, just say 'you should do this and thats the end of it'. Replacing the above with open products is all very well and good, but the devil is in the detail - actually replacing the above with open products!

CAP and TopCalc are used because of the industry data they expose, which you can't replace and we don't want to write our own complex front end for. So wheres the open product or web app?

And again with the Autoroute thing - sure, Google Maps has its points, but its not there when theres an internet connection glitch, our when our mobile users are ... well, actually mobile. So, no contest.

So what do you do when you are looking at actually doing something productive, or doing something else? In a business environment, productive is always the winner...

Re:Desktop Environment?

[QuantumRiff]

couldn't your Legis, CAP, and TapCalc sit on your terminal services while you lean on the vendor to produce native binaries...

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Archangel Michael]

You forgot ....

Shockwave/Flash
Java
YahooToolbar
Ask.com bar
Google toolbox
Weatherbug
Weather channel desktop (need two weather icons, one might be wrong)
Kodak Picture viewer
Musicmatch Jukebox
CouponsPlus (I think that is the name)
Ding (SW Airlines)

I could go on.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

It stopped being cool to put a 'z' in Windows about 5 years ago.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[BPPG]

It stopped being cool to point out when something stopped being cool at about...

oh, crap, never mind.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[fat_mike]

Either you've never worked in an office or if you are working in one then your network and security guys need to be fired.

This IBM thing is good for a small company (under 15 people) but as the Parent poster described most medium to large companies have third-party or internally written software that isn't going to run on The Linux. And binaries aren't always possible because they person who wrote it doesn't work there, died, retired or the third-party company isn't around anymore.

I love OSS but I really wish some of you would figure out that it is NOT going to work for everyone.

Build me a OSS insurance agency management system that is easy to use, works without problems, interfaces into an OSS email client that resembles Outlook, integrates with an office suite that resembles Office, has to import the existing 100,000+ tables I currently have plus our 120gb database.

Oh yeah, it has to interface with 25+ national and international insurance company's download and underwriting systems (Insurity being a big one)for rating and policy updates even though most of them don't use the ALG3 standard.

Also, it has to be licensed with ISO so that it has the most updated Acord forms which I need to be able to download as their released because if I can't then my agency is liable under E&O. That Errors and Omissions, which I could be sued over if my stuff isn't up to date.

Your auto insurance policy? The form the insurance company used had to be approved by ISO. Just to use their reference library to download the most up to date forms costs $2800.

You make that and give it to me free and I'll switch the entire company over to it.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[jemtallon]

In soviet russia, windows owns you!

Re:Desktop Environment?

[jemtallon]

Don't forget incredimail and desktop snow. Those are crucial parts of any productivity suite.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you could run linux locally and run the following off a server (as they should be...):
# CRM application
# Report generator
# CCM application
# Autoroute 2007
# TopCalc (a third party Line of Business application)
# CAP (a third party Line of Business application)
# Legis (a third party Line of Business application)
# the several internal Line of Business applications we use.

These things should all be run off a server anyway.....

Save your organization lots of money and admin headaches...... :)

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

theres no alternatives to 90% of the applications we use on other platforms

Have you tried running Windows applications under WINE? http://www.winehq.org/

The version that comes with Ubuntu works really well for me: DVDFab, DVDShrink, and a DirectX based Windows game all work perfectly.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Inner_Child]

Oh God, Incredimail. Would you believe that's the only "app" that's preventing my mother from switching to Linux? Yeah, and she wonders why her system's messed up all the time...

I've tried time and time again to show her the evils of that particular software package, I've even configured Thunderbird for her in an attempt to wean her off 3d-accelerated email. I'm hoping that she will eventually see the light, because as much as I'd like to, I can't force her to switch.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for giggles here - have you looked into k9copy as a DVDShrink replacement? It's actually quite nice.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

A desktop environment is so much more than the OS, its even more than the OS plus Office suite.

Off the top of my head, our 'desktop environment' consists of:

• OS (Windows XP Pro or Windows 2003 R2 for Terminal Services)
• Office 2007
• CRM application
• Report generator
• CCM application
• Autoroute 2007
• TopCalc (a third party Line of Business application)
• CAP (a third party Line of Business application)
• Legis (a third party Line of Business application)

And thats without listing the several internal Line of Business applications we use.

I can't remember when the last time was that a 'desktop environment' I used consisted solely of the OS and an office suite - and thats why we can't migrate to a different platform: theres no alternatives to 90% of the applications we use on other platforms.

I think thats a point that many people gloss over.

Have YOU personally asked an Executive from even ONE of the application companies that you listed, if they have a Linux version, OR plan a Linux version?

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

It stopped being cool to put a 'z' in Windows about 5 years ago.

No it didn't, Micro$oft shill

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at what I do:

Office apps: Google Docs
CRM; Sage CRM via web browser
Email: gmail

I can do almost everything I need to do from ANY platform with a capable web browser. The ONLY fish hoook in that group of apps is Sage CRM, which only works properly in MS IE....though you can run MS IE on Linux and other platforms if you have to...

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Caedis]

Is it hard for you to be so funny, or does it come naturally?

But seriously, it does not matter if you are working on the safest platform designed, if that platform does not support the applications you need on a regular basis, you are simply stuck.

I love Linux, and want to see it advanced. Sadly, there is no way I can migrate, hell I have enough problems migrating from IE6 to IE7 without the required web apps that my work uses freaking out.

That does not stop me from using my favorite flavor on my servers ;)

This is a great point though, Linux has a few more years a head of it. I think Google will help push Linux with the development of their web apps.

Re:Desktop Environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a lot of data recovery on your hands when Microsoft no longer exists. We all die at somepoint even companies....

The Captcha: Lesson

Re:Desktop Environment?

[overlordofmu]

I don't believe anyone glosses over that most desktop software is developed and sold for a platform that has the vast preponderance of the market penetration due, in part, to the illegal practices of said platforms manufacturer. You should realize we are excited by this news because it represents a push back again this monopoly. When the market is a overflowing with a veritable myriad of platforms all sharing open standards then, and only then, will our "Information Age" will be truly healthy and robust. In a better world, your software could be purchased for any number of platforms and the data files would be identical and portable between platforms. - "Power to the pupil."

Better?

[magister159]

And this is better than virtualizing $LINUXDISTRO + OpenOffice.org how?

Re:Better?

[YrWrstNtmr]

It's better for IBM. No one ever said it was better for you.

Re:Better?

[truthsearch]

Support from IBM. Costly, but effective, for many large corporations. Plus, for corporations which already pay IBM big bucks, it probably lowers support costs to use their desktop.

Re:Better?

[Paul Pierce]

You must have missed how the article mentions: "combines the Linux operating system". Now you don't have to figure out which distro is the best - IBM already knows.

Re:Better?

[pavon]

Because it includes Lotus Notes! Who wouldn't want to use Lotus Notes!

Re:Better?

[vishbar]

Many companies don't want to find out which distro is the best. That's precisely why they'd buy from IBM--a full Linux environment set up for them.

Re:Better?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's better than exchange and outlook!

*ducks*

Re:Better?

[fantom2000]

well it is... stand tall.

Re:Better?

[postbigbang]

'Cause it's crunching on their hardware, not yours. Easy in, easy out. Stay if you want. Don't feed the Microsoft Monster. That's why, chiefly.

Re:Better?

[laederkeps]

Add a machinegun to that deal, and you'll have the finest desktop available!

Re:Better?

[hobo sapiens]

Support from IBM. Costly, but effective, for many large corporations

Effective? Hah.

I just left a company which was a big IBM shop. I had never worked in an IBM shop before. That was eye opening. We spent more time fighting the software that we did working. It was the most frustrating experience I have ever had to deal with in the workplace. I think on all future job interviews, I'll ask straighaway if the place is an IBM shop and if they say yes I'll thank them for their time.

IBM doesn't provide support, unless by support you mean allowing their you to hire their overpriced consultants. IBM takes what should be open source products and strips them of useful features, loads them with cruft, and then sells them for exorbitant prices (looking at you, Rational Application Developer).

There's a reason the definition for fear and loathing references IBM. As a former co-worker once put it: "Nobody was ever fired for choosing IBM."

I'd argue that an IBM issued linux desktop is just as bad as Windows. Leave it to IBM to find *some* way to lock you in. You'd expect that from proprietary software. But using F/OSS to accomplish vendor lock-in? That's a complete abomination.

Re:Better?

[Mister Whirly]

Because nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.

Re:Better?

[Lodragandraoidh]

$$$$, and less risk --- that is how.

Most shops don't have the desire to do this themselves...they would rather farm it out to a vendor who they can hold to the fire (via contractual obligation) when things go wrong.

This saves money -- because the Microsoft tax is avoided, and centralized management doesn't require as much resources.

This is less risky because IBM will be around a lot longer than Biff the system admin (who would have built your system by hand in your example).

Re:Better?

[Anonymous Coward]

Regular people also don't want to find out which distro is the best.

Re:Better?

[sunshinekiller]

hahaha, true dat with their noob iphones and their highly overpriced computers. This is a smart move especially with the vista hate out there.

Re:Better?

[deraj123]

I've experienced similar issues in a big "Oracle shop". Prior to that job, I never knew that Oracle produced such a multitude of applications. I think you're going to encounter similar issues anywhere that the tendency is to buy everything from the same vendor.

However, that same tendency could have positive effect to the open source world. This is just another example of a standard, mainstream company saying "You don't have to go with Microsoft. Here's an alternative." When businesses start seeing this sort of thing offered as a viable alternative from a company like IBM (Nobody was ever fired for choosing IBM, right?), it starts to become a viable alternative in their eyes. Proliferation of non-Windows use in the corporate world can only be beneficial.

Re:Better?

[Hognoxious]

nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.

Something you can't say about Compaq - just ask Carly Fiorina.

Re:Better?

[Kadin2048]

To a certain extent (and jokey sig aside), I'd say this is 50% true.

On the client side, I think I'd probably give an edge to Outlook 2003 over Notes 7; the latter was so filled with cruft and unstable, one of the first things you had to add to any computer using it was a little utility that killed all the zombie processes the thing created when it crashed (without it, you'd have to reboot the whole machine before being able to restart Notes!). It has the usual range of obnoxiously Microsoftian, we-know-best behaviors that ignore decades of Internet practice (strange stripping or inserting of LFs from plaintext, stupid quoting behavior, proprietary 'rich text' message format, to name just a few), but all in all it's not a terrible MUA provided you set it up right. I've used worse, anyway.

However, I think the Notes server edges out Exchange, which is a truly dreadful product. It works most of the time, admittedly, but even when I've had it hosted and run by dedicated outsourcers who do nothing but Exchange, I've found it to be a PITA. Its IMAP implementation is terrible and sometimes fills the logs with nonsense when some clients connect to it, under mysterious conditions neither I nor the administrators have ever been able to figure out. Sometimes it chokes on particular messages in users' mailboxes for no apparent reason, spewing errors until the message is hunted down and removed. While Domino can be validly accused of being far overbuilt and over-engineered for what's typically used for (not much more than email), Exchange has always struck me as something of a kludge.

To be honest I'd really rather use neither. They're both attempts at lock-in by particular vendors, and both are difficult to migrate away from once you've started down the path each vendor provides. The major difference is that while IBM seems to be moving in the direction of more openness, standards-compliance, and interoperability, Microsoft seems to be going in the opposite direction (they "de-emphasized" the RFC-compliant WebDAV protocol in Exchange 2007, in favor of the more-proprietary Exchange Web Services). In the very long run I think that open standards (like iCalendar/RFC2445, WebDAV, and iMIP/RFC2447) will displace proprietary messaging and scheduling systems, but it's going to be a long battle. Barring some major change at Microsoft, I suspect they're going to be the ones fighting against that change though, while IBM will be pushing for it. For that reason alone I think Notes is probably a better product when viewed in the long term, and all else being equal.

Re:Better?

[SoopahCell]

If anyone working for me chose/recommended IBM Lotus Notes, that would definitely put them teetering on the brink of fired. That thing is a nightmare for everyone.

Re:Better?

[RulerOf]

I'd say this is 50% true.

What's the other 50%? ;)

I've extensively used Exchange/Outlook 2003, Exchange/Outlook 2007, and had a dabble at Domino/Notes on Netware from a friend's work laptop. From what I understand, Domino scales better than Exchange, and they're all a pain in the ass to administer.

That said, when it comes to the end product, I personally prefer Outlook 2007 on Exchange 2003 or 2007, with a widescreen monitor (very important) just for the way it presents information. Calendar, tasks, email, etc, all lined up in a way that gives a disorganized twerp like me a very relevant view of what I need to be paranoid about :P

Re:Better?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the client side, I think I'd probably give an edge to Outlook 2003 over Notes 7; the latter was so filled with cruft and unstable, one of the first things you had to add to any computer using it was a little utility that killed all the zombie processes the thing created when it crashed

I wish this was a joke. At my work, every single Start Menu has a little utility called "Kill Notes". Yes, really.

Re:Better?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about more complicated support, but IBM runs our helpdesk, and they usually pick up before the second ring and resolve my issue rapidly. Of course, all of my issues were relatively simple, mostly VPN and VOIP related stuff, and could have been answered by a well-maintained support wiki... but it's still pretty good support, from my perspective.

Re:Better?

[CronoCloud]

As the famous sig says:

Ladies and Gentleman, my warbot features Lotus Notes and a machine-gun, it is the finest available.

Re:Better?

[CronoCloud]

I see somebody else likes that sig.

Re:Better?

[deraj123]

Then you sir, would be somewhat enlightened. Unlike most management that I've worked with (not all, just most). Now, I'll admit that I don't have a tremendous amount of experience with Notes, but the short amount of time I spent filling in as an admin for some Domino servers has cured me of ever wanting anything to do with Notes again. So, we're on the same page. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that the majority of people making purchasing decisions in the industry are.

Re:Better?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is windows not in the list of feared and loathed systems on foldoc.org?

Re:Better?

[JAlexoi]

Well to be fair, when IBM gets enough admins and consultants in, the solutions tend to work quite well.

Re:Better?

[Anonymous Coward]

As the famous sig says:

Ladies and Gentleman, my warbot features Lotus Notes and a machine-gun, it is the finest available.

You misspelled that! Did you mean: "my warbot features Loose Nutts and a machine-gun"?

Re:Better?

[miro f]

because the majority of people making purchasing decisions in large companies make their decisions based on who provides the most lavish Christmas parties, the most golf trips yearly, and the best steak lunches.

That's why with all our amazing purchasing power, it's always more expensive to buy from the "preferred vendor" than it is to buy from, say, Coles.

Re:Better?

[Jataro]

Rational Application Developer is built on top of Eclipse, a platform that was originally created and open sourced by IBM. Its pretty unfair to criticize them for a that.

Re:Better?

[Anonymous Coward]

That post and probably also the signature you are thinking of are futurama references.

Wernstrom: Ladies and gentlemen, my Killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available.
Farnsworth: Like fun it is, you glass-headed wallaby!
Wernstrom: No one calls me that! I'm having at you!
Farnsworth: Wernstrom!

Re:Better?

[CronoCloud]

Thank you, AC, for that informational post, I didn't know it was a Futurama reference.

Re:Better?

[VGPowerlord]

By any chance, were you forced to use Lotus products?

*shudder*

Re:Better?

[hobo sapiens]

"Its pretty unfair to criticize them for a that."

I don't really even know where to begin in telling you how wrong you are. Have you even used RAD and Eclipse? (note the logical operator I used in that sentence) Eclipse is a steaming pile of crap to be sure, but RAD manages to make said steaming pile of crap even more putrid. It's like they took a dump on the proverbial pile of crap and garnished it with the rotting carcass of a dead skunk. And while you can get the aforementioned steaming pile of crap for free (which is still too much to pay for it) you have to pay through the nose to get the two-layer poopcake with the dead animal on top.

The proof is in the pudding when large dev team in an even larger IBM shop has a major initiative to eliminate RAD, which has already been paid for at something like $5K a pop, in favor of Eclipse. RAD actually prevents developer productivity. At least Eclipse is marginally better than using Notepad or vi to write Java code, even if you do spend half your time waiting for it to do stuff.

Jeez people, just use PHP or Ruby already. But that's another rant.

Re:Better?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well yes, you would say that, wouldn't you?

Where do you people COME from, anyway?!

Re:Better?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a large FTSE100 company where the e-mail weapon of choice has been Lotus Notes for yonks. The original versions were pants, but the latest is much improved.

Re:Better?

[nozzo]

You've hit the nail squarely on the head there Vishbar. Here is a cost effective desktop served on a plate with a side order of support from a long established company. It makes a lot of sense from many perspectives to many companies who don't want to be beholding to Microsoft or who cannot believe the price of Vista + Office Business. Don't get me wrong I'm not anti-MS by any means however I do believe in healthy competition.

Re:Better?

[echetto]

I'm a Lotus Domino admin and it's not a nightmare, not even for the end-user.

Re:Better?

[rrohbeck]

Amen. I read TFA until it mentioned Domino.
The GP about Oracle is right on the money too. Back in the old days Oracle was just a good database. Nowadays they're trying to rival every other cruftosystem out there. I just had an interesting experience trying to get at some data in our corporate Oracle system. Perl DBI, some filtering/processing/reduction and exporting into Excel seemed like the straightforward solution. Unfortunately, that's not the way it works these days. Everything is hidden under so many layers that our IS people were unable to tell me the table and field names to make up a simple SQL query. The business logic seems to happen in opaque Java apps.

Re:Better?

[hobo sapiens]

Fortunately not. Just RAD and Websphere. It was bad enough, trust me.

Re:Better?

[mikechant]

IBM doesn't provide support, unless by support you mean allowing their you to hire their overpriced consultants.

This is not true as a generalization. From my direct experience over the last 15 years, IBM provides excellent support for their mainframe products - as in writing fixes quickly for a bug that *only you* have encountered, or at least a good circumvention until the next release. Typically you are (if necessary) put in touch with the actaul code maintainers. Of course, we pay a lot of money for this, but it doesn't involve any consultants.

Of course, their non-mainframe support may be lousy.

Re:Better?

[edittard]

For $21 million (that was a lot of money, back in those days) I'll take a pink slip right now. I'll even fill it in myself!

Re:Better?

[Anonymous Coward]

-- But using F/OSS to accomplish vendor lock-in? That's a complete abomination.

You could argue that Apple has done the same thing. (Not trying to start a flame war, just making an observation).

Most interesting line

[truthsearch]

To me, the most interesting part of this short article is this:

Revenue from Microsoft's Client division, which derives mostly from Vista... edged up just 2% year over year... despite the fact that the overall PC market grew 10% to 12% during the same period.

Re:Most interesting line

[EXMSFT]

That was interesting. Though I thought this was interesting too:

IBM is offering virtual systems based on the Open Collaboration Client through its Global Services outsourcing and system integration unit.

Meaning, the software is cheaper than Windows (I'll let you conclude what you want about the cost of the the services to integrate it into your business).

Re:Most interesting line

[lightsaber777]

You can add to this that Microsoft's market share for the operating systems dropped below 90% for the first time in forever. Now if I could only install a Linux desktop at work, my work life would be much improved.

Re:Most interesting line

[Ilgaz]

If I told you that I haven't yet seen a single Vista desktop on places I go? They are the first ones to jump to OS upgrades, small business, single machine etc. No testing etc. for them.

I also noticed they all turned off "Automatic Updates" because of that WGA junk. They started to rely on antivirus software and firewalls. A company which can't manage to convince them to upgrade (we got funny prices here) or make them so afraid to turn off security updates should be thing of the past if they don't do a radical change. A change that is so big to be compared to IBM in 90s.

IBM could be a thing of past if they didn't change from "Evil Big Blue" to what they are now.

Congrats

[ericrost]

On linking to the "Printable Article" rather than 6 pages of 3 sentences each (I'm assuming since I didn't bother to look) that is the standard format for Information Week!

Re:Congrats

[VorlonFog]

You're welcome. I hate those damned advertisement screens that pop up before you ever see the first page of the article. I also hate how they break a small article like this into multiple pages to increase the volume of adverts they can cram around the page. (I really wondered if anyone would notice or care.)

Re:Congrats

[nschubach]

Noticed and thanks!

Re:Congrats

[Albert Sandberg]

no one noticed because this is the way web pages should look like? :-)

Re:Congrats

[Anonymous Coward]

its called firefox + adblock

Re:Congrats

[Anonymous Coward]

I notice. It's why I don't frequent sites like Information Week. It's kindof a rag anyway.

I'm confused - how does it save $258?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can save $258 because you won't have to upgrade hardware to support Vista and Office. And for this, all you'll have to do is buy our new line of business computers.

How exactly does this work?

Spend less money, upgrade less stuff.

[staryc]

IBM claims the system can save businesses $500 to $800 per user on Microsoft software licenses and an additional $258 per user "since there is no need to upgrade hardware to support Windows Vista and Office."

This seems like a good idea. The relationship of 'cheap' is directly proportional to 'easy maintenance' in this case. (Expressing this relationship very loosely anyhow.) The necessities are covered with a list of typical applications, but is there anything missing here?

Re:Spend less money, upgrade less stuff.

[Ilgaz]

I keep seeing full feature desktops used for MS Word, Open Office (clever ones) and mail and I have no clue why they don't buy a big machine, serve 4 desktops to super small (Even mac Mini) machine using it.

It is not a rocket science anymore. Even home users started to take advantage of local VNC.

I am saying even small companies having more than 3 desktops should be using Terminal like machines. It doesn't have to be some branded thing or total remote booting. A lightly configured small form factor PC (or Mac Mini if Apple drops price).

So this is the year of the Linux

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It has finally arrived! Hallelujah!

Re:So this is the year of the Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

But is this the year of the [virtual] linux desktop? Well, if it's virtual, that's close enough.

Re:So this is the year of the Linux

[X0563511]

It'll be a short year... what, how many days left?

Re:So this is the year of the Linux

[_Sprocket_]

I'm shocked to see this meme trotted out again. Shocked. :)

But it does bring to mind something: when was the year of the microcomputer? The microcomputer was industry changing; world-changing even. But when was it called?

I would note that microcomputers had impacted business well before the first IBM PC. Microcomputers as indispensible business equipment started with the Apple II and Visicalc. That got IBM's attention and changed its perception of the microcomputer from hobbiest toy to desirable market. Thus is born the IBM PC. And while IBM's entry in to the market did a lot to re-enforce (and in many cases introduce) the perception of the microcomputer's business use, IBM's entry lagged behind events.

And so IBM is officially jumping in to the desktop Linux market. As the lyric goes, " its all just a little bit of history repeating." The year of the microcomputer belongs to a period of history, not a date. Likewise, the year of Linux (if it ever is), will also not be televised; it will be reflected in history.

Re:So this is the year of the Linux

[mrdoogee]

2% here we come!

Re:So this is the year of the Linux

[CronoCloud]

But it does bring to mind something: when was the year of the microcomputer? The microcomputer was industry changing; world-changing even. But when was it called?

1982, when Time magazine named "The Computer", "Man of the Year"

Re:So this is the year of the Linux

[_Sprocket_]

But it does bring to mind something: when was the year of the microcomputer? The microcomputer was industry changing; world-changing even. But when was it called?

1982, when Time magazine named "The Computer", "Man of the Year"

Hmmm... OK. But is that it? Is Time the authority? What if something else stole away Time's attention in 1982? And were they even correct? Microcomputers were already changing the world when Time took notice. Maybe they were too late in their announcement. But at the same time, things were yet to come - maybe they were too early. Compaq doesn't enter the fray until 1983 and its then that the IBM clone rears its head - the initial brick on the road of commodity microcomputers which further disrupts things.

Re:So this is the year of the Linux

[CronoCloud]

Sure, but IBM entering the microcomputer market re-assured business users: "You'll never be fired for buying IBM." Rather than a plethora of computers to choose, from manufacturers as varied as Apple to Zenith, there was a "safe" choice.

Re:So this is the year of the Linux

[_Sprocket_]

Rather than a plethora of computers to choose, from manufacturers as varied as Apple to Zenith, there was a "safe" choice.

One of the big questions about microcomputers was "what can it do?" As far as business went, there wasn't much a microcomputer could do for them (word processing was already very well handled by specific systems built for that use). That changed with Visicalc - the first spreadsheet. And Visicalc ran on the Apple II. Apple II was a part of the package that defined business use of microcomputers. That helped drive sales of Apple computers and turn microcomputers in to a multimillion dollar industry (of which Apple was a major part). And it was what caught IBM's attention who then introduced their PC.

Yeah, sure... there was always the "you'll never be fired for buying IBM" thing going on. But it was also IBM entering the market that got people wondering what was useful about microcomputers and even noticing that a revolution was going on around them. Picking IBM over Apple would become a factor later (to Apple's detriment).

But again - the point is that nailing down a particular "year of the microcomputer" isn't so easy. It was already happening before IBM took notice. It was already happening before TIME took notice. It wasn't yet happening until Compaq shipped their first product. It hadn't happened until the Internet gave home computers killer apps; email and the World Wide Web. The "year" of the microcomputer spans over a decade.

Likewise, Linux is intermixed in history. It's fun to poke at those who so badly want Linux to be a run-away success story of disruptive technology (akin to the microcomputer). But the meme is nonsense. Our tech history has never worked that way. It just seems like it does to those who one day wake up to a whole new world that appears to spring up around them like technical mushrooms.

Re:So this is the year of the Linux

[CronoCloud]

Likewise, Linux is intermixed in history. It's fun to poke at those who so badly want Linux to be a run-away success story of disruptive technology (akin to the microcomputer). But the meme is nonsense. Our tech history has never worked that way. It just seems like it does to those who one day wake up to a whole new world that appears to spring up around them like technical mushrooms.

Ahhh, very insightful. So you think that the "Year of Linux on the Desktop" will arrive in bits and pieces. Like having a distro that the less technical folks can install without out being a Minix guru, which leads into someone porting X11/Motif/Athena and all the other stuff, which leads into graphical window managers, which leads to desktop environments, which leads to software that you don't have to be a command line jockey to use, which will eventually lead to "Linux distros for the masses, not just for those who've taken programming classes."

That makes sense, I came to Linux via the PS2. I had read many stories about this "Linux thing" on Slashdot and bought a PS2 Linux kit to find out what it was all about. At that time I was a WebTV user, and it also turned by PS2 into a nifty little "computer" that was far more capable than that WebTV was. Got Linux on my PS3 now, still using Linux as a "Desktop", works pretty well for my desktop needs.

Re:So this is the year of the Linux

[_Sprocket_]

So you think that the "Year of Linux on the Desktop" will arrive in bits and pieces.

If it does happen. I view Linux as being a potential disruptive technology. Linux could quite possibly be the second phase of commodity platforms, providing a commodity OS on top of the existing commodity hardware (look who gained and lost from hardware commoditization and who would gain / lose from the OS becoming a commodity). I couldn't say that it will happen. But if it does happen, it'll be over time. Or it has already happened. :)

That makes sense, I came to Linux via the PS2. I had read many stories about this "Linux thing" on Slashdot and bought a PS2 Linux kit to find out what it was all about. At that time I was a WebTV user, and it also turned by PS2 into a nifty little "computer" that was far more capable than that WebTV was. Got Linux on my PS3 now, still using Linux as a "Desktop", works pretty well for my desktop needs.

Wow. If you don't mind my saying, that strikes me as a very odd route. But very interesting.

I've been using microcomputers for years - my first being a TRS-80 Mod I my father purchased in 1980. I've always had a "home computer" to play with. In 1997 a friend of mine showed me Slackware with Enlightenment. It looked slick and I had to admit it seemed very cool. But I just couldn't see any reason to mess with it myself ("OK - Linux looks interesting. But what does it do?"). Then in 1998 I got the opportunity to be a Unix admin - so I used Linux and an old DX2-66 system to get myself up to speed enough for the job. Now I'm one of those guys who hopes Linux will be in the list of disruptive technologies he's witnessed first-hand.

Re:So this is the year of the Linux

[CronoCloud]

Wow. If you don't mind my saying, that strikes me as a very odd route. But very interesting.

Oh I agree, it's an odd route all right.

Now I'm one of those guys who hopes Linux will be in the list of disruptive technologies he's witnessed first-hand.

I think it will be disruptive...eventually, not that I know much about disruptive technology.

Fantastic but...

[Lucid 3ntr0py]

What do we do about Powerpoint, Xcel, Visio, and the other MS utilities? Please don't act like OO is a feasible alternative for these programs. Other than that I would be a huge fan of this.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Anonymous Coward]

But Open Office is a workable alternative to Powerpoint and Excel (unless you're looking at running VBS to connect to access).

I haven't found Visio to be highly useful, personally.

Re:Fantastic but...

[kwabbles]

What do we do about Powerpoint, Xcel, Visio, and the other MS utilities? Please don't act like OO is a feasible alternative for these programs. Other than that I would be a huge fan of this.

Install the alternative application of your choice. I work with and collaborate with a Microsoft world 100% from linux and/or BSD. The only thing that's ever hung me up was creating Visio diagrams. Reading them is no problem. I read/create Powerpoint presentations, read/create/share Excel spreadsheets, Word, you name it. Oops, I forgot Access... I just never have to deal with it (I make it clear that I won't have anything to do with Access).

Re:Fantastic but...

[jellomizer]

I haven't found Visio to be highly useful, personally.
Umm. So what. Other people do. If it is not on there then it is a problem. Heck I would be happy for a mac port of Microsoft Project.

Re:Fantastic but...

[copponex]

Please don't act like OO is a feasible alternative for these programs.

Why not? And please, be very specific.

Some stuff doesn't work exactly right, but they offer pretty robust file compatibility. If you have coded yourself into a corner and are dependent on their VBA platform, now is a good time to start getting off the junk.

The only program for most businesses that's missing is a full featured and multi-user accounting package like Quickbooks. There are certain programs which have zero alternatives, like Final Cut, Photoshop (for serious CMYK), Autodesk products, etc. But the beauty of OOo is that those windows and mac users can be on the free office platform, and as soon as the vendor offers a Linux release or a viable alternative arises, you have one less thing to migrate.

Migration is painful, but if you choose the right platform to move to, it can be worth it. I recently moved a small office from SBS 2003 to an Ubuntu box. It was time consuming, and there were a lot of unforeseen problems the first few days, but now they have stopped obsessively checking the server to make sure it's still working, they receive far less spam, and when a free alternative to Quickbooks arrives, they will use all of the same programs - OOo, Firefox, Thunderbird - and only their OS will change.

Building the bridges to dumping Windows is key. In my opinion, the open source community should focus on releasing cross platform applications and frameworks. Once you make the choice of Windows or Linux trivial for application support, people will undoubtedly choose the cheaper operating system, especially during the next few years while the economy is suffering worldwide.

Re:Fantastic but...

[bledri]

Heck I would be happy for a mac port of Microsoft Project.

Have you tried Omni Plan? I've been impressed with their products in general and supposedly it imports and exports to MS Project. Obviously it's not MS project and I have no idea how good the import/export work.

Re:Fantastic but...

[gosand]

What do we do about Powerpoint, Xcel, Visio, and the other MS utilities? Please don't act like OO is a feasible alternative for these programs. Other than that I would be a huge fan of this.

Install the alternative application of your choice. I work with and collaborate with a Microsoft world 100% from linux and/or BSD. The only thing that's ever hung me up was creating Visio diagrams. Reading them is no problem. I read/create Powerpoint presentations, read/create/share Excel spreadsheets, Word, you name it. Oops, I forgot Access... I just never have to deal with it (I make it clear that I won't have anything to do with Access).

Microsoft Project? Essential
Outlook? (I HATE it for email, but I couldn't do my job without the calendar integration)

I've used Linux at home exlcusively for years (since Redhat 5.2 to be exact) but for work I use Windows. 1. because I don't have a choice, and 2. because it works for what I need to do. (software project management)

Re:Fantastic but...

[alexme]

The system, which IBM calls the Open Collaboration Client, combines the Linux operating system with IBM's open source Lotus Symphony desktop package.

Based on the IBM alternative, they'll use Lotus Symphony instead of OpenOffice.org

Re:Fantastic but...

[X0563511]

I don't use powerpoint, so I can't answer that.

But I have to say that I would prefer OO Calc to Excel, and I hate Visio. I would rather use any other vector diagrammer (inkscape, dia, etc) over that.

Outlook is nice, only because I've never used anything else and I have no use for anything but email outside of work.

I've found all of MS Office (except word, excel, powerpoint (in school)) to be useless or clunky (and easily replaced). I've never used Access or Publisher extensively however.

Re:Fantastic but...

[shutdown -p now]

In this specific case, IBM is bundling Lotus Symphony. Which is based on OO.org 1.x. Which is pretty outdated as far as things go in general, and for interop with MSOffice file formats in particular.

Re:Fantastic but...

[John Hasler]

If you are a Fortune 1000 company, you send documents OpenOffice can't deal with back to the suppliers who submitted them and tell them to get it right next time or lose the contract, same as you did back when you were using Microsoft Office.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Constantine XVI]

Which is the unholy offspring of OpenOffice.org 1.1.x and Lotus Notes. Which are both lean, lightweight, and easy to use~

Re:Fantastic but...

[Dragonslicer]

I haven't found Visio to be highly useful, personally. Umm. So what. Other people do. If it is not on there then it is a problem.

It's only a problem for people that need it, and I would guess that the majority of computer users at the majority of companies do not need it.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of curiosity, why was SBS 2003 failing? I'm running SBS 2000, and thinking of moving to 2008 - 2000 has only ever had issues for me when we filled up the Exchange db, which is easy enough to avoid. 2008 has a much larger db, so that shouldn't be an issue for us. I've always found 2000 Server to be as stable as, well, a Linux box. Not that I haven't thought of moving away from it, but I just can't make a compelling case for it given our requirements.

Re:Fantastic but...

[kwabbles]

For Project I use OpenProj from Projity. I use Thunderbird for all of my mail - calendar working with Exchange via WebDAV.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Hatta]

Nothing, yet. Give these desktops to the lackeys who don't need that software. It'll save money, corporate likes that. As corporate acceptance of Linux grows, there will be a greater demand for more commercial Linux software. Eventually people will start porting to Linux. As that happens you can switch more and more desktops over to Linux, which will create more and more demand for more commercial Linux software. Sure it won't be Microsoft software, but they're not the only productivity suite around.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? And please, be very specific.

Some stuff doesn't work exactly right

You just answered your own question! Why bother offering an obviously half-baked alternative? If you offer me an alternative that I'll need to relay on, it had better be good. And I don't care if it's free (as in freedom or beer) either. Obviously buggy software will not cut it.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Lucid 3ntr0py]

Specifically creating presentations in Open Office is not nearly as easy not function filled as Power Point. Specifically Open Office uses a different way to allocate space. Something which is 10 pages in OO as a .doc will only show up as 8.5 on Windows. Specifically OO doesn't isn't the same as Microsoft. Yes it doesn't matter if everyone uses OO but it does if you are trying to communicate with the outside world which uses MS Office.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Jason Earl]

Chances are good that IBM isn't really targeting your desktop with this plan. IBM knows that every large business (and most smaller businesses) have tons of desktops where Windows and MS Office are overkill. In these situations thin-client or virtualized Linux desktops make perfectly good sense, and there really is a great deal of money that can be saved by going this route.

Some employees, on the other hand, really do need their Windows machines, and that's fine, as IBM's Lotus Software also runs on Windows.

You see, this may appear to be an attack on Windows, but that's not really the case at all. The real attack is on MS Office as the default business document format for the business. IBM is happy to let some power users still use Excel, Visio, and PowerPoint, as long as Lotus software is installed as well (to work with the non-power users). Heck, it wasn't that long ago that Microsoft used the same tactic to supplant Lotus 1-2-3.

If you drink Microsoft's Kool-Aid then you have little choice but to deploy PCs running Windows and MS Office everywhere. Licensing fees quickly add up, as does the cost of maintaining that many PCs. IBM is simply offering a lower-cost alternative for the least demanding of your users. The catch is that if you want your power users to be able to communicate with your non-power users you are going to have to adopt Lotus software across the board.

For some of IBM's customers this arrangement is likely to be compelling. For others, not so much.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are certain programs which have zero alternatives, like Final Cut, Photoshop (for serious CMYK), Autodesk products"

Cinelerra, Gimp, Blender

You have not listed programs that have "zero alternatives". So how about try again.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cinelerra, Gimp, and Blender

Eat it

Re:Fantastic but...

[Arkham]

A lot of development is moving away from the waterfall model that helped MS project become so entrenched in the first place.

We've moved to using scrum (a form of agile development), which has no use for MS Project. We do use ScrumWorks Pro, but that's mostly because we have developers and QA spread around the word. It's a java app that works on Windows, Linux, and Mac, so there's no platform lock-in.

It has a lot of and graphs for the manager types to look at, and does seem to help developers spend more time developing and less time deciding what they should do next. It's not perfect, but it's better than a bunch of Gantt charts.

Re:Fantastic but...

[waa]

The only program for most businesses that's missing is a full featured and multi-user accounting package like Quickbooks.

Really?

Have you seen MyBooks/MyBooksPro from Appgen?

Server runs on Linux, and they have Linux, Windows and OSX clients.

Been using it here for years.

It will even IMPORT your Quickbooks data!

PLUS, unlike the ubiquitous Quickbooks, MyBooks is a double-entry, fully audited accounting system that conforms to the standards of GAAP.

Re:Fantastic but...

[TheRaven64]

Something which is 10 pages in OO as a .doc will only show up as 8.5 on Windows

Something which is 10 pages in MS Office can be 8.5 pages in MS Office on a different machine with different printer drivers and fonts installed.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Bert64]

What do you use for viewing visio files?

Re:Fantastic but...

[Bert64]

I use iCal for calendar, and a separate mail client...
I never understood why people think it needs to be built in to the mail client.

Re:Fantastic but...

[rufus t firefly]

The only program for most businesses that's missing is a full featured and multi-user accounting package like Quickbooks.

Have you seen Openbravo? It has pretty full featured ERP and POS packages, and is written in nice cross-platform Java.

Re:Fantastic but...

[shutdown -p now]

In my opinion, the open source community should focus on releasing cross platform applications and frameworks. Once you make the choice of Windows or Linux trivial for application support, people will undoubtedly choose the cheaper operating system, especially during the next few years while the economy is suffering worldwide.

Such a framework already exists - it's called Qt.

Re:Fantastic but...

[jedidiah]

OO is no more "half baked" than just dealing with
different versions of office itself. This is quite
apparent once you dump msoffice. On the odd chance
that you do have problems, you will find people
generally don't even consider that you might be
running something that's not from Microsoft.

People are already conditioned to things being "half baked".

There's nothing "obviously buggy" about OO or any of the
other office suites that aren't current version of
monopolyware.

Really, you won't know if a non-microsoft product is a
problem until you try it. You really wont know if the
fact that microsoft formats are opaque and proprietary
is REALLY a problem until you stray off the reservation
for a awhile and try something else.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Haeleth]

Gimp does not do "serious CMYK" yet, though it's being worked on, and most people don't need it anyway.

However, for the minority that do need CMYK, there is no native Linux software that suits. Gimp has a separation plugin, but that's too limited to be very useful; Krita is too immature for serious use (and is heavily specialised towards natural media simulation, in any case).

Many Photoshop versions run fine in Wine, of course, and it's not like VMs are difficult to set up.

Re:Fantastic but...

[quarterbuck]

You can get all these applications to run under wine
I dual boot Ubuntu/Vista and end up booting to Ubuntu just because it boots faster. So I ended up installing wine and the full Microsoft suite in wine. It was not easy to set up Office under Ubuntu because the latest version of wine supported on Ubuntu breaks excel, but Google provides a nice script to fix the dependencies and libraries. Once I got it to run I never booted to Vista again (I don't play video games, I run tons of business apps).
IF IBM can get the set-up of wine right, I am fairly certain that as long as you don't need Internet explorer you can run Powerpoint, Excel, Visio and Other MS utilities. I have also been able to install tons of business applications under wine with no problems --but strangely MSFT applications run the best under wine.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Anonymous Coward]

And something which was 10 pages in MS Office v4.2 can be 0 pages in Office 2007.

Re:Fantastic but...

[quarterbuck]

As somebody who is hunting for a job right now, I have one advice - Do not create a CV/resume in OO and email it to companies. It messes up formatting beyond belief. (I believe due to different margins/fonts)
I love Openoffice, and as I said in another post, dualboot both Windows/Ubuntu. I have filed bugs when I find them against OO.org, but I would not right now recommend using OO.org for business unless your counterparty is also using OO.org (ie use it for internal documents/spreadsheets, but don't mail it out to other companies).
If you want nitpicks -
1) OO spreadsheets do not run macros/vbscript - this means that tons of businesses could not use it. (you would'nt believe how many finance companies run entirely on excel)
2. It slightly and strangely messes up embedded images - I have a collegue who mails out screenshots embedded in word documents - And I can't read it in OO.org. I have to run word under wine
3. OO.org spreadsheet's goalseek is bad (wrong?) and its financial functions are extremely limited. I once completed an entire financial statement for a company in Calc, but the experience was extremely painful
4. The mail software (Evolution) crashes when there are large number of emails- and refuses to receive new emails on re-opening. The solution is to disconnect from exchange, close Evolution and to restart it again- but this is not easy to guess at for a new user.

I love Opensource as much as anyone on /. and have contributed what I can, but recommending Openoffice (unless you personally are going to support it) is a disservice to the community. I could survive with Openoffice, you could, but Joe the regularemployee would not be able to.

Re:Fantastic but...

[prozaker]

gimp is not an alternative to ps if you use it for professional work.
for example :

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=940757
I've used gimp and photoshop and there are things that still need to be polished in gimp before it can be a real competitor
I like how you can do some stuff in gimp really easy and i definitely like it, but it's not the same.

Re:Fantastic but...

[mgblst]

No. Something that is 10 pages in Ms Office can be 8.5 pages on the exact same machine under a different printer driver. Selecting a different printer can have a huge affect on a MS word doc. Try it out, load a doc, change the printer, then quite the doc. It will ask if you want to save the changes.

Re:Fantastic but...

[yuri benjamin]

In the seven years that my wife and I have been together, I have changed jobs 3 times and my wife has changed jobs 5 times. Each time we have emailed CVs as PDFs created in OO. This did not stop us getting the job. PDFs will look the same on every platform from windows 95 - vista, MacOS, *nix etc.

I do not recommend sending a CV or Resume as a Word doc using different version from your prospective employer, or you will get the margin/font/etc format mess-up that you mentioned.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand it, in the USA, Quickbooks has about 80% of the SMB market, with the other 20% split between Microsoft and Sage.

The marketshare of everything else put together, is not enough to even register.

I think there could be a significant issue when it comes to support. And by support, I don't just mean the guy on the phone from India. I mean: accountants that will accept the format, employees who are experienced with the application, consultants, 3rd party developers, and so on.

Re:Fantastic but...

[Anonymous Coward]

have you tryed planner? (http://planner.darwinports.com/)
I know, I know... a bit buggy, not proyect at all, but a nice app overall for simple things.

- voyager

Re:Fantastic but...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Photoshop (for serious CMYK)"

Okay, this proofed that you are very 'out of date' from digital media. CMYK is 'dead' and there is better alternatives for it. GIMP is not enought still because it has just got somekind CMYK support but it does not still include all needed features.

Forget CMYK and do not repeat it like idiot. It is same as talking on these days abot xcopy or sysconfig.sys...

Re:Fantastic but...

[gosand]

I work for a large bank, and I work from home. I schedule and attend LOTS of meetings, with people all over the country. Having it integrated with the mail client is very very useful, as much as I hate saying it.

Re:Fantastic but...

[gosand]

I am sure it might work... but I work for a large bank. I schedule and attend tons of meetings, and I have to work on shared MS Project files. I have issues with Project, as do others who use it. I'd love to try another project application, but bottom line is that my employer only allows certain applications.

My employer has standardized on MS Products. While things MIGHT work with other apps, the fact of the matter is that there are many other issues involved with having apps work. There's support, installations, maintenance. As much as Outlook is a thorn in my side as an email client, the integration between Communicator/Outlook as they have implemented it is pretty good. I haven't seen any other calendar integrations that work as well, but I suppose they could exist.

about time

[stonedcat]

It's about time someone released a Microsoft-Free Linux.

TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm posting anonymously because I don't want to have people at my company know who I am. But it seems to me that Linux while cheap to buy is not cheap to keep patched and secure, particularly in a fleet of inhomogeneous platforms and users and network,printer, or disk sharing conditions in different buildings and subnets.

The nice thing about Linux however is that a very skillful and thoughtful person can plan out a very robust network and can mange the patches. But it takes effort, dicsipline and an above avegage IT guy. And if you lose that person, you are screwed. Even a new equally skilled guy probably can't get all the scripts and stuff the last guy used to manage to work.

With windows, you can take a balow average imbecile, get them through a certification course, and they become almost interchangable monkeys. you need a lot of them since you will constantly be fighting fires or hunting down the right driver for the given brand of computer, but they can do it and it will work.

Moreover, and this is the critical part, a manager who is not an expert can tell if his monkies are keeping up with patches. MS tells him what he need to do. With Linux you can't really tell if the IT guy is doing it all, or if your pants are around your ankles.

So it's not enough to use Linux to reduce TCO. you need to have a company like IBM telling you how to manage your configuration. Not because a skillful IT can't. But because a manager will know that IBM has his back.

saddly a mediocre virus prone Windows network is, to a manager, much easier to sleep at night, than a well run Linux system that's tight as a ducks Ass, simply because he knows it's reasonably safe from an industry standard point of view.

people will trade, extremes (linux) for mediocre, if they can limit thier risks.

I note this is one reason people think macs have low TCO. They are more secure than windows, and a manager can also know if they are getting patched right. So it's win win.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm posting anonymously because I don't want to have people at my company know who I am. But it seems to me that Linux while cheap to buy is not cheap to keep patched and secure, particularly in a fleet of inhomogeneous platforms and users and network,printer, or disk sharing conditions in different buildings and subnets.

and how is it so much cheaper to keep windows patched and secure?

Re:TCO

[goombah99]

Nicely said. I use macs for that very reason since I need Unix and I have to be my own IT guy a lot of the time. It's hard to find a budget to retain a good Linux sys admin. They tend to go away if they are really good!

Additionally, what happens is that when you do have a sys admin who'se good, you still run into problems that are beyond his ability from time to time. He might be a whiz at getting your disk server talking to 400 nodes at the same time, but then along comes some problem, like setting up an in-company DNS or VPN, and he's not really sure how to do it. He can crack some books and try to learn on the job, but both you and he will never be sure he got it perfectly right? Did he turn off the default passwords, or close the all the right ports. Did he root squash things just right.

with microsoft and IBM and Apple, if they define your configuration then you know that when the next storm blows in, and you have to make some big new non-routine change, it will never be over the head of your current sys-admin because they will tell him all the surprises or send a patch that does it all. With linux it's a lot of Lore and reading the last post in some outdated forum to find the magic solution.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

You speak as if it is commonplace that management never has any idea what their workers job actually consists of. This has been the case everywhere I have worked, but did now know it was this prevalent.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

I note this is one reason people think macs have low TCO. They are more secure than windows, and a manager can also know if they are getting patched right. So it's win win.

I'm just curious, from a manager's perspective, how is it easier to tell that a Mac is patched versus a Windows PC?

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

I cannot compare costs of patching Windows vs Linux, but I know for Windows you can use Windows Server Update Services. It is free, admins have the ability to control settings via group policies, and can check status of workstations/servers via the WSUS web interface. If it is configured properly then the cost of keeping computers updated is not that high. As for other security measures, there is always other group policy options available such as configuring Windows Firewall.

Of course these steps are only as useful as the Administrator who oversees them.. network infrastructure security, audits, training employees, following procedures, etc must be followed.. but how is that any different than other operating systems?

Re:TCO

[_Sprocket_]

I would say you're spot-on. Not that any of this is really technically accurate. But rather, the perception is accurate. Many managers really do believe this.

Such is the nature of IT. I've seen pre-packaged, supported software completely screwed up and ineffective in practice. I've seen Uber-admins roll together some scripts that just did amazing things for years and nobody ever really had to worry about it. I've seen amazing stuff completely fall apart when the guy who knew how it all worked moved on to other things. I've seen people say something is "impossible" while ignoring the fact that not only can it be done in-house, but there's also several supported solutions being offered by big IT houses.

But at the end of the day, IT decisions are made on comfort alone. Sometimes that comfort comes from due diligence (experience and research). Often it comes from simple familiarity and a skewed perspective.

Re:TCO

[mhall119]

For linux you just host your own package repository, and configure the workstations to automatically install updates.

Re:TCO

[rickb928]

"particularly in a fleet of inhomogeneous platforms..."

You probably meant 'heterogenous', but being as this is the Intetrnet, ya gotta be careful with yer language...

"The nice thing about Linux however is that a very skillful and thoughtful person can plan out a very robust network and can mange the patches. But it takes effort, dicsipline and an above avegage IT guy. And if you lose that person, you are screwed. Even a new equally skilled guy probably can't get all the scripts and stuff the last guy used to manage to work."

My experience is that this is true of most every OS.

"With windows, you can take a balow average imbecile, get them through a certification course, and they become almost interchangable monkeys. you need a lot of them since you will constantly be fighting fires or hunting down the right driver for the given brand of computer, but they can do it and it will work."

Ya sure. The monkeys will do fine until something difficult comes up, and then they will cause the trouble you don't want. As for hunting down drivers, you haven't been around Linux for long, have you? fortunately, Apple doesn't inflict you with this. They just deny you much choice in hardware...

"Moreover, and this is the critical part, a manager who is not an expert can tell if his monkies are keeping up with patches. MS tells him what he need to do. With Linux you can't really tell if the IT guy is doing it all, or if your pants are around your ankles."

Ha. Almost funny. Again, really true of most any OS.

One thing you can be sure of. If you throw a loaded gun in monkey cage, something bad is going to happen.

Re:TCO

[steveha]

Moreover, and this is the critical part, a manager who is not an expert can tell if his monkies are keeping up with patches. MS tells him what he need to do. With Linux you can't really tell if the IT guy is doing it all, or if your pants are around your ankles.

I'm not sure this is correct.

With Ubuntu, a little icon lights up on the desktop if there are updates available. If you click it and type the admin password, the updates are installed and the icon goes out.

So, what more do you need than this? The manager can see if the icon is lit up or not. And all the updates, including critical security updates, come through this same updater; so if you are up to date, you are up to date.

It seems to me that it is easier to keep an Ubuntu desktop secured than a Windows desktop. With Ubuntu, you just run the one updater; with Windows, you have the Microsoft updater, the Symantec updater, the Apple updater, the Sun Java updater, etc. etc.

Ubuntu is what I'm most familiar with, but I know Red Hat has "up2date" which is similar, and basically all modern Linux systems have some sort of unified automatic updater.

So all that I'm left with is that there aren't as many trained monkeys with Linux certifications. But you can always get a support contract from Red Hat, Canonical, or someone else.

steveha

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't remember sleeping so well at night after setting up my Gentoo server. Not only because it took so long, but because I never had any problems with it (until I had to update, then it was hell - but that's a different story).

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

and how is it so much cheaper to keep windows patched and secure?

By reading the rest of the post where he actually addresses your question. Did you just read the first two sentences and then give up?

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds similar to WSUS from Microsoft.. the local server downloads and stores updates from Microsoft and pushes updates out to the clients based on group policy settings.

Re:TCO

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Ok. What Linux? Linux is the kernel, not a complete operating system. Compare it to a specific Distribution of the Gnu/Linux OS geared towards the enterprise (Redhat, SUSE, ect..) and you will discover how wrong you are. In fact, this article is one such distribution and the management tools for it. As other posters have said, you are probably correct about the perceptions of many managers, but that doesn't mean its true. Its like you are comparing the nutritional value of canvadish ( the only variety available in most grocery stores) bananas to generic apple seeds.

Re:TCO

[FictionPimp]

You could (assuming debian based) build your own repository. In each systems apt sources you could point it only to that repo. Then you could have a test machine where you test each package. If it works in your environment then you place it in the repo. Finally you have a cron job run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade nightly.

Patch management has been achieved.

Re:TCO

[FictionPimp]

This mindset is why there are so many security problems with windows. The system admins really have no idea what they are doing, instead they are following howto documents.

Administrators should know what they are doing and why they are doing it. Otherwise they are not administrating anything.

Re:TCO

[UnknowingFool]

One of my former companies was taking in cost-cutting ideas during the 90s recesssion. One idea was to replace our problematic Window NT floor machines with Linux. The manufacturing software ran on X Windows and so these machines needed an X Windows emulator. Cost wise we would replace 2 licenses with one license and machines would work much better because the X Windows emulator and NT was taking all system resources. Besides that the NT machines needed constant software support with constant reboots. The CIO axed this down because "there was no support" Someone pointed out that you could pay for support via RedHat and that despite the claims of MS support, the only support we got from MS we ever got was to tell us to reboot. That and sell us an enterprise application that would allow us to reboot the machines remotely. Still the CIO was much comfortable with this solution than using Linux.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had mod points...

That's been my experience. I've worked with Linux guys who were nothing short of extraordinary, but I've also known guys who after the initial setup just kinda let the system cruise. Most of the time you'll never know if a guy is slacking off until the excrement hits the air circulation device.
With windows, MS has built in that management-friendly oversight that let you keep track of a less than amazing IT guy.

Personally, I'd just hire a well-worth-the-money Linux guy, but.. then again I'm not a Fortune 500 upper management drone.

Re:TCO

[hal9000(jr)]

Mod parent Insightful. In Sprokets comment, I can replace "Linux" with "Microsoft" in every case. Just because someone is a Microsoft Admin makes them a monkey. Just because you use L-I-N-U-X doesn't make you a computer God. Sheesh.

An admin is skilled because they are, *gasp*, skilled in the environment they work in. I have met my fair share of Linux admins who couldn't do diddly without X being installed and couldn't install a program from source.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey anonymous! You are dead on! All the small/medium companies I know greatly prefer MS technology, even though they know how crappy it is. If some part of it blows up, they just shrug their shoulders, shake their heads and say, "Oh well, what can you expect?, everyone has this problem" They sell this line to their bosses. And they they keep on using it. As far as linux goes, they fear it, because they are not willing to spend the time to learn the technology, and don't want to hire anyone who knows it. Then they turn to their bosses and say, "We need to replace our xxx linux server because it can't be supported"

Re:TCO

[mlwmohawk]

The parent is a typical fanboi post, long on FUD, short on facts.
I'm posting anonymously because I don't want to have people at my company know who I am.

This gives it away, of course.

But it seems to me that Linux while cheap to buy is not cheap to keep patched and secure

Please site some documentation for this statement. It is pure FUD.
The nice thing about Linux however is that a very skillful and thoughtful person can plan out a very robust network and can mange the patches. But it takes effort, dicsipline and an above avegage IT guy. And if you lose that person, you are screwed. Even a new equally skilled guy probably can't get all the scripts and stuff the last guy used to manage to work.

Again, this is pure FUD. *All* of the major distributions have had large management facilities as standard for years. "apt-get update" "apt-get upgrade" is all you need to know on [K]Ubuntu. yum for centos, and rpm for RH.

Re:TCO

[abigor]

In a corporate environment, users don't do their own updates. On this work laptop I'm using (I'm a contractor), updates are pulled in via Altiris Agent, for example, whether I want them or not.

Obviously such a thing is possible on other platforms, but the key is to have it done via some accountable vendor. Plus, the updates can be corporate-specific, anything from the usual run of the mill MS stuff to new vpn profiles.

Re:TCO

[Timothy Brownawell]

I'm posting anonymously because I don't want to have people at my company know who I am.

And also because you're trolling?

But it seems to me that Linux while cheap to buy is not cheap to keep patched and secure, particularly in a fleet of inhomogeneous platforms and users and network,printer, or disk sharing conditions in different buildings and subnets.

So don't make it so heterogeneous, then.

But it takes effort, dicsipline and an above avegage IT guy. And if you lose that person, you are screwed. Even a new equally skilled guy probably can't get all the scripts and stuff the last guy used to manage to work.

Effort and discipline, yes, but doing anything well requires those. But if the new guy can't get things to work it means someone wasn't required to document things or use a versioning repository. I'd also question the "above average" requirement, unless you're saying that "average" means "insists on known-bad practices even when told otherwise".

With windows, you can take a balow average imbecile, get them through a certification course, and they become almost interchangable monkeys. you need a lot of them since you will constantly be fighting fires or hunting down the right driver for the given brand of computer, but they can do it and it will work.

Or you can take someone who knows what they're doing, and things will work about as well as your Linux system does with people who mostly know what they're doing.

Moreover, and this is the critical part, a manager who is not an expert can tell if his monkies are keeping up with patches. MS tells him what he need to do. With Linux you can't really tell if the IT guy is doing it all, or if your pants are around your ankles.

[citation needed]

So it's not enough to use Linux to reduce TCO. you need to have a company like IBM telling you how to manage your configuration. Not because a skillful IT can't. But because a manager will know that IBM has his back.

No, you just need to treat your config files and admin scripts like any other programming project and demand good practices like source control and adequate documentation .

saddly a mediocre virus prone Windows network is, to a manager, much easier to sleep at night, than a well run Linux system that's tight as a ducks Ass, simply because he knows it's reasonably safe from an industry standard point of view.

[citation needed]

people will trade, extremes (linux) for mediocre, if they can limit thier risks.

People would rather flee the unknown and stay in their comfort zone, instead of learning about something new. With hard times forcing people to make an effort, maybe they'll find out that Linux isn't as scary and risky as they've been told.

Re:TCO

[flyingfsck]

Uhh, that is why we have Linux Distributions from Mandriva, Novel, Canonical and Redhat that provide all those features you are yammering about for a minimal support fee, without you having to script stuff yourself. It is time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Re:TCO

[RotateLeftByte]

The RH 'up2date' is v.old.
Nowadays, RH based Systems use YUM as its updaters. Yum uses Repositories which can be local or remote and like other Linux Distros, can be totally divorced from the ones hosted by RH.

You are correct in that updating can be far easier on Linux Systems than windows. Another big plus is the endless reboots are a thing of the past.

In a properly (and that is the main point) setup environment a Linux Server/Desktop solution can result in significant savings on the Bottom Line costs to the biz. Typically a 30-50% saving (gtom my experience) in Admins (because they are not MCSE Monkeys) can be made.

Re:TCO

[Kadin2048]

Taking what you're saying on premise (and I'm not sure I agree with it at all, but setting that aside for a minute), what it suggests to me is that with a Linux-based infrastructure, at least it will be obvious when your staff is over their heads. With a Windows-based one, it won't. That doesn't seem like a feature to me.

I think I'd rather have people say "look, I have no idea how to do this right, I think we should bring somebody in," than try to cookbook their way through it using tools or techniques they really don't understand. I've seen a lot of really ugly and insecure setups come out of the latter school of thought.

Having lots of support from a vendor is great (and Canonical and Red Hat provide a lot on the Linux side, including security updates and patches, so I think your characterization is an unfair strawman to begin with), but it doesn't replace actual competence. If it does, your whole enterprise is living on borrowed time: cruising along, waiting for the moment when something in your setup differs, as it inevitably will, from the assumptions the vendor makes when they're putting together the latest monthly megapatch. And (perhaps more seriously) it puts you at the complete mercy of the vendor's whims, in terms of what they decide is a serious enough problem to enough customers to warrant a fix, and what they're just going to write off as not worth dealing with. Neither are nearly as much of an issue with a competent IT staff who actually understand the underlying infrastructure: both how it works and why it exists in the way that it does.

If a company is having trouble finding or retaining competent technical staff, my first suspicion (and borne out all too frequently) is that they're undervaluing and undercompensating them. Such a business would be wise to consider how important a solid, reliable infrastructure is to their business, and also to keep in mind that IT isn't like shift-work in a factory: one very skilled and properly motivated person can be worth an army of questionably certified button-clickers.

Re:TCO

[goombah99]

That doesn't seem like a feature to me.

I think I'd rather have people say "look, I have no idea how to do this right, I think we should bring somebody in," than try to cookbook their way through it using tools or techniques they really don't understand. I've seen a lot of really ugly and insecure setups come out of the latter school of thought.

Sure in a perfect world. But most folks have budgets and existing staff. You can't just decide to hire or even contract something on that budget.

it gets slightly easier when you are talking about corporate budgets. Then it's just overhead. But when your corporation uses "project" based budgets then you have hard limits.

It may all average out in the end but in any given year you have to do what you planned on budgeting. So youhave to either work with what you have or... go with options that are more easily budgeted.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't blame Linux that your IT guys are as you put it, imbeciles. Patching Linux is easier and costs less than any windows platform. Although I will say that most shops I have been at would fire an admin for having auto update on any production server. Linux or Windows.

Re:TCO

[sleigher]

Thank you. If someone is just applying a patch or installing some service because a vendor said so then they are not a sys admin. Sometimes, when an admin has to implement a new service for a company they need to stop and think. Where I come from this is what we call due diligence. You know, planning and all that. Trying to be aware ahead of time os the impact it may cause. This may be to some, lore and on the job learning, to me it is the job. If I let a vendor tell me what to do with my systems I deserve to be beaten.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

With windows, you can take a balow average imbecile

Irony!

Re:TCO

[fat_mike]

You mean like WSUS?

Re:TCO

[JAlexoi]

You are missing one critical point here.
It's IBM that is offering the SOLUTION.
Meaning everything WILL work quite well, and you will even have a list of things that are certified as hot pluggable.
Need be, IBM will even offer you a bunch of hired and trained monkeys from India...

Re:TCO

[grantek]

With Red Hat you can go to a website and it will list all your systems and whether they need patching.

Re:TCO

[mhall119]

Does WSUS let you push updates to third party applications, or only update workstations with the application already installed?

Re:TCO

[Jason Earl]

Yes, and ten years ago that sort of attitude was understandable. However, these days you have to look pretty hard for an organization of any size that doesn't have some Free Software running as part of their organization.

I imagine that Free Software is going to do very well during this recession. Most companies are no longer afraid of the Penguin, and there really are cost advantages.

Re:TCO

[CronoCloud]

I have met my fair share of Linux admins who couldn't do diddly without X being installed and couldn't install a program from source.

I may be a bit naive here, but I find that a bit hard to believe, considering all the users (who claim to be admins) on slashdot or various bloggers and forum posters who claim to live in the linux console, extol the virtues of GNU screen and live in vi or emacs. I'm a "Desktop" Linux user, I don't code, I can't program my way out of a paper bag and even I know how to compile source. My first source compile was back in 2002, it was either Gaim .58 or AbiWord .99, so I'm a relative newbie to Linux.

Re:TCO

[sir fer]

I've never met a Linux user who didn't know windows, but have met many windows users who have never even heard of Linux. Linux users *do* tend to be computer gods to the average knucklehead, simply because they know *more* about computers. Find me a Linuxer who has never heard of windows....

Re:TCO

[some-old-geek]

Regarding TCO, the C is rarely T. It is, at best, the Total Cost of What I Can Account For Easily. At worst, it is Total Cost of What Supports the Decision I've Already Made. Most often, it's Total Cost of Acquisition.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

If you throw a loaded gun in monkey cage, something bad is going to happen.

You don't know that for sure, it could be something funny that happens.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't allow to say Windows! BTW it's X Window,

Nothing special to see.

[danieltdp]

From TFA: "The system, which IBM calls the Open Collaboration Client, combines the Linux operating system with IBM's open source Lotus Symphony desktop package."

I see nothing special in here...

Symphony, yet, Lotus SmartSuite

[davidsyes]

Lotus SmartSuite is STILL languishing. Shame.

What is this Virtual Bridges thing?

[Ed Avis]

Any idea why they didn't just use X11 thin clients or other free remoting systems like VNC or NX? What is so great about Virtual Bridges? I hadn't heard of it before.

Re:What is this Virtual Bridges thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any idea why they didn't just use X11 thin clients or other free remoting systems like VNC or NX? What is so great about Virtual Bridges? I hadn't heard of it before.

Virtual Bridges is a new technology that, while derive from OS standards, when packaged with an IBM support contract is capable of massive increases in the relative margins of IBM and therefore is a preferred tech.

Linux desktops with proprietary apps! Sign me up!

[Hobart]

Wow, this sounds fantastic! Instead of using Ubuntu with OpenOffice from the repos, and paying Canonical for support, or, say, being able to pay *ANYONE* for support, since I have the full source...

I can be locked into paying IBM for support for all the proprietary binaries! What a great idea!

...except not.

Just goes to show

[roc97007]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Re:Just goes to show

[shutdown -p now]

Not a friend. An ally, perhaps. Definitely not a friend.

Re:Just goes to show

[moreati]

Might I suggest The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates

29. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less.

Single Point of Failure

[Desert Raven]

Meh. Not real fond of "thin clients", terminals, etc.

Single point of failure. 'Nuff said?

Re:Single Point of Failure

[oodaloop]

No, there's so much more. There's no CD drive, no USB drive, no external drive of any sort. There's no custom software or anything requiring its own license. We have a thin client terminal within the intelligence community called the DTW (Domain Trusted Workstation) that is pretty much universally despised by its users. DIA et al think it's a great idea though. Tom Freidman in his new book: Hot, Flat, and Crowded seems to think that it is the wave of the future though, even for home users. Let's just say I'll remain skeptical.

Re:Single Point of Failure

[SportyGeek]

I understand the no CD drive argument, but no USB drive or external drive support? I know the Sun Ray thin clients have USB ports and you can attach disk devices which will mount on the Sun Ray server.

Re:Single Point of Failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you have some poor ass thin clients going on. I've seen and used multi monitor thin clients with several USB ports, utilising everything from graphics tablets to DVD burners the lot.

Actually at home i'd love it if I have the know-how to setup a full thin client network. Wouldn't matter if I have a notebook in the living room or a "desktop" in the office. I'm always on the same login with all my files right where I want them and all the processing power of the server.

These things don't really suffer single point on failure if you set them up right either. Run the clients off a cluster (so we are talking multiple redundant machines) and the network becomes no more-or-less single point than the normal business network.

Re:Single Point of Failure

[jimicus]

No, there's so much more. There's no CD drive, no USB drive, no external drive of any sort.

Might work in a call centre but in many other parts of business, one size doesn't fit all.

Re:Single Point of Failure

[Jason Earl]

Modern thin clients can have CD drives, USB drives, local printers, the works. Don't judge what thin clients can do by whatever it is that you are using. They are probably intentionally broken for security purposes.

The only real downside of modern Linux thin clients is that you have to make do with Linux software. If you don't mind using Firefox and OpenOffice.org, then things are fine.

Re:Single Point of Failure

[oodaloop]

USB drives are pretty much a no-go in classified environments for non-IT and non-security personnel. It's too easy to move, intentionally or otherwise, information between networks ie Secret material to the internet. CDs are used extensively, because no one has burners except appropriate security personnel. So for thin clients, there's no pretty much nothing. You have to find a thick client, upload to a share directory, and go back to your thin client. Highly efficient.

Re:Single Point of Failure

[SwedishPenguin]

As far as I know, there's no reason why a thin client couldn't have a CD drive.

thin clients

[Raleel]

So, virtual desktop, new computers, saving on software licenses per user, saving on power and cooling.

the ibm website says it runs on suse, but i find other sites that say redhat and ubuntu.

The video on their website shows it using ODF. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-qK34CzKjM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcoustenoble.typepad.com%2F is said video.

Not that I am opposed, but this seems suspiciously like a thin client arrangement and a nfs root mount arrangement. Which makes me think that no one has heard of thin clients on windows, which work just fine. Less training to move someone onto citrix or windows terminal server clusters than to move your infrastructure to linux.

Re:thin clients

[argent]

Which makes me think that no one has heard of thin clients on windows, which work just fine.

For small values of "fine". We tried moving to X terminals with a Citrix client built in to transition from UNIX to Windows, and the behavior of the thin clients was enough to make us move quickly to dataless Windows desktops (enforced in practice by limited local disk space... Windows doesn't have really good dataless support either) with a local X server.

X terminals, diskless workstations, and dataless workstations, these all work very well in the UNIX world, but Windows is still too tied into the single-user model and there are simply too many shortcomings for any but the lightest use.

Re:thin clients

[Anonymous Coward]

You just don't want to run a "thin Windows client". The ideal solution would be a hardware Citrix client,
just like a X-terminal, but (afaik) it doesn't exist.
The next-best thing is an OS as far away from Windows as possible running a Citrix-client... why you want it not to be Windows ?
Because the whole idea is that you don't want to support local Windows and when people (or worse yet, the management) realize that they are running Windows they will request local software (MS messenger, MS mediaplayer, MS Internet Explorer) and you'll lose the whole idea behind a thin client.

Re:Everyone is reporting it.

[Anonymous Coward]

how many of your sock puppets did you use to mod yourself up, twitter? are we going to see responses from your schizophrenic zoo of alter egos gnutoo, mactrope, erris, wileyhill et al, on this thread?

If they did it right....

[mlwmohawk]

One of the things that truly sucks about Windows is the registry. Each windows box is its own unique little snowflake, thus impossible to replace easily.

If this is done right, all the configuration is in the user's home ditrectory, probably shared on the network, and the rest of the system is a standard image. That means any user can use any computer and have their system where they want it.

This is no surprise to us UNIX folk, but POWs "Prisoners Of Windows," will love it. Imagine being able to replace/upgrade your computer simply by dropping a new box in front of you. Your settings completely unchanged!!!

I have been doing this with Linux for so long (separate /home disk that persists), I can't believe people still put up with Windows nonsense.

Re:If they did it right....

[Shados]

On home network its a little more awkward, but in corporate environment, this is common and easy to do with Windows too. Its not auto-magical as it is with Linux, but still. Even at home, my User directory, and my user-specific settings are shared with a Windows Home Server, so I can go on any computer in the house and have access to my stuff.

Now, a little bit of configuration with a Windows Domain, and the registery settings and login stuff will follow. At work, I can go to any machine, and things follow. The only thing missing is that in Linux/Unix, 99% of software can be -installed- in your home directory, in Windows, many can, but not all. Aside that though, everything can be made not to be tied to the physical machine no problem. Windows wouldn't be a viable corporate platform without it.

If in Windows you really need the software to follow, for anything aside games, you can use Windows Server 2008's X11-like feature that allows you to remote app GUIs, and just install it on the server, problem solved.

Re:If they did it right....

[jimicus]

They're called Roaming Profiles.

(ducks)

Re:If they did it right....

[mlwmohawk]

On home network its a little more awkward, but in corporate environment, this is common and easy to do with Windows too

LOL, you can "say" this, but it isn't true.

Its not auto-magical as it is with Linux,

So, you can't do it on Windows.

Re:If they did it right....

[ben0207]

Macs have done this since OS X came out, probabnly before. I've technically had the same user account since 2002, spread over at least 7 Macs and every OS upgrade :)

Re:If they did it right....

[spazimodo]

That's some fine trollin' Lou. The product described in TFA sounds more like a competitor to VMWare VDI in which case the proper "b-b-but UNIX was doing it 20 years ago!" response is to bring up the magnificence that is X11.

IT departments all over the world do what you describe with Windows boxen every day. You can store data centrally and have users work off of standard images, you can use several tools to migrate profiles and settings between PCs, you can use roaming profiles (OK, I admit the last one is a joke)

On the other hand, there's still no definitive system for managing Linux desktops comparable to AD/Group Policy. And interoperability in heterogeneous environments is fun too (e.g. winbind randomly dying or being broken by updates, Gnome's had a bug for almost a year that prevents listing of shares on SMB/CIFS servers that require authentication)

Re:If they did it right....

[Shados]

The only difference is that in Linux, as long as the /home directory is mapped, you get all your settings and everything you installed in home. In Windows, you can map the user directory, so you get everything that doesn't need the registery right there, so a lot of app's settings, and your documents. The only thing missing is the registery, and thats just done by using roaming user profiles on the domain, which is one of the basic features.

So why exactly "can't I do it on Windows"? You -do- know that HKEY_CURRENT_USER can be roaming, yes?

Re:If they did it right....

[radish]

LOL, you can "say" this, but it isn't true

Yes, it is true. I'm sitting at a Windows machine right now. I could get up, move over the the next office, log in, and it would look exactly the same. Same settings, same desktop wallpaper, same homedir, same everything. It's just standard roaming profiles. The only difference is for locally installed apps, but as our app image is largely the same on every machine that's not much of an issue.

Re:If they did it right....

[mlwmohawk]

So why exactly "can't I do it on Windows"? You -do- know that HKEY_CURRENT_USER can be roaming, yes?

OK, here's what you need to do to be real.

You need one, that's right, one, system image that is either replicated and maintained on all the systems or is used to netboot the clients. The image contains all the companies approved and installed applications. This is a HUGE benefit to the IT department as they only have to test and deploy one image at a time.

Any approved machine can netboot (or copy) the system image, mount a home directory and work. Try to do that with Windows. *All* applications must work.

I have set up a number of systems like this, including beowulf clusters. Windows is a complete joke. A pseudo-thin client (netboot with local disk) network made up of UNIX boxes is the simplest of things to manage. All you need are machines that can netboot, a file server with dhcp.

Re:If they did it right....

[Shados]

I did that 1999~ on Windows NT 4.0. We had an image (with all approved legit software) on a lap-top harddrive for the smartbay. You could take any machine, stick the harddrive in the smartbay, copy the data, hook it up on the network and it "just worked".

Ok, you had to change the machine name. Maybe with your method you didn't have to do anything at all in Unix. So I guess it is simpler by 15 seconds and a reboot. I now bow down to the superiority of Unix.

Re:If they did it right....

[Anonymous Coward]

Any approved machine can netboot (or copy) the system image, mount a home directory and work. Try to do that with Windows. *All* applications must work.

How about using this device? We got a demo of these units from a company.. and I hate trying to advertise their equipment because we haven't fully tested it yet. So far it looks good.. you just install the software on the server, and the clients find the server via network broadcasts. When you connect you get a Windows login where you are actually logging into the server. Not using remote desktop, terminal services, or anything else. You are actually logging in locally to the computer. Home directory, applications, whatever else you want will work that would normally work locally on the computer. How is the end result of this any different than using netboot image and accessing the server remotely?

Sorry but your perception of "being real" and calling Windows a "complete joke" is an elitist attitude that only shows how smug you are and does not help to get the point across that you are trying to make, no matter how valid it might be.

Re:If they did it right....

[Computershack]

One of the things that truly sucks about Windows is the registry. Each windows box is its own unique little snowflake, thus impossible to replace easily.

If this is done right, all the configuration is in the user's home ditrectory, probably shared on the network, and the rest of the system is a standard image. That means any user can use any computer and have their system where they want it.

This is no surprise to us UNIX folk, but POWs "Prisoners Of Windows," will love it. Imagine being able to replace/upgrade your computer simply by dropping a new box in front of you. Your settings completely unchanged!!!

I have been doing this with Linux for so long (separate /home disk that persists), I can't believe people still put up with Windows nonsense.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT? Windows has had roaming user profiles since 1996 when Linux distributions were still grappling with figuring out how to get a GUI.

GO LEARN SOMETHING

Re:If they did it right....

[Computershack]

On home network its a little more awkward, but in corporate environment, this is common and easy to do with Windows too

LOL, you can "say" this, but it isn't true.

Its not auto-magical as it is with Linux,

So, you can't do it on Windows.

Yes you can. Roaming User Profiles have existed in Windows for over a decade.

Re:If they did it right....

[mlwmohawk]

Ok, you had to change the machine name. Maybe with your method you didn't have to do anything at all in Unix. So I guess it is simpler by 15 seconds and a reboot. I now bow down to the superiority of Unix.

You winbois don't get it. UNIX is designed to do this stuff from the start while Windows only has it bolted on.

In your example, all that stuff is handled by "dhcp."

Re:If they did it right....

[Shados]

You winbois don't get it

The irony.

Re:If they did it right....

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been doing this with Linux for so long (separate /home disk that persists), I can't believe people still put up with Windows nonsense.

You obviously don't know Windows very well then. It's had this capability (and centrally manageable) for years and years now.

Having said that it's not quite as elegant as home directories over NFS or what have you, but it's pretty damn close.

Trust me, I work in a shop that uses Linux and Windows extensively and all workstations can be 'drop-in' replaced in less than 15 minutes, with all the user's stuff just magically working as it always has.

Re:If they did it right....

[Shotgun]

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT? Windows has had roaming user profiles since 1996 when Linux distributions were still grappling with figuring out how to get a GUI.

GO LEARN SOMETHING

You and the other Windows fanboys should go first. Roaming profiles are a poor hack of a properly configure NFS/NIS system.

All you need on the client side for a netbooted linux system is a floppy with a kernel, or a network card with a bootable PROM. It will download the entire operating system, GUI, home directory and all the applications. Roaming profiles still leave the administrator roaming from box to box to do updates of the OS. Windows is not, nor will it ever be, a properly networked OS.

Re:If they did it right....

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, network profiles are great ... not!
They have a tendency to get corrupted ...
It is fun when you mix a xp/vista/win2k3/win2k8 user profile in the same folder ...
People want to save stuff in their desktops. Unless you block that, you will have hundreds of MB's being copied back and forth in your network just because somebody logged in.

Just compare those things with: login, you get your network homedir with nfs and ldap, and that's it, your settings are there and stay there.

Windows profiles suck big time. I know it, unfortunetaly.

Re:If they did it right....

[baggins2001]

you can use roaming profiles (OK, I admit the last one is a joke)

Finally someone who has seen the difference between roaming profiles and what a Unix box can do.
Roaming profiles is one of the most screwed up things I have ever seen, when compared to the login method used in Linux. Have you ever heard a CEO yelling because his computer wouldn't boot in less than 10 minutes. Why, because someone set his computer to use roaming profiles, and put his email files there. Why, because this is what is taught or was taught in MS classes.

So now someone is going to say well you can fix this in MS by using Exchange. My answer is that you can fix a lot of stuff in MS Products by spending more money. So when does it end? When you run out of money.

One of the first things I learned is how to set up this feature in *nix. Still haven't learned how to correctly set this up in Windows.
The only place I can think of for using roaming profiles is in a call center where 100 people have exactly the same configuration. And they really don't need roaming profiles, unless the want the same wallpaper. Whoopeee
Why Samba chose to use this for default PDC installations is beyond me.

Re:If they did it right....

[mlwmohawk]

Yes you can. Roaming User Profiles have existed in Windows for over a decade.

"Roaming Profiles" is typical of Microsoft features in Windows, its a nice little check box for IT managers. The deeper story is that "Roaming Profiles" are difficult to maintain and more work for IT departments.

Since Windows ZAK (Zero Administration Kit) it has been a bolt-on feature that does not work in anything but the strictest way.

You need 1, one, uno, system images. Multiple user directories, and a DHCP server for UNIX type systems and everything will work just like it is supposed too. In Windows, with a special server, login profiles, etc. it still does not work right. The applications don't work right, the default directories don't work, and it is, in general, unusable.

Re:If they did it right....

[drinkypoo]

If in Windows you really need the software to follow, for anything aside games, you can use Windows Server 2008's X11-like feature that allows you to remote app GUIs, and just install it on the server, problem solved.

You could do that on Windows XP, too, or Windows 2003 Server, or Windows 2000 Server for that matter, via Remote Desktop Connection. Unfortunately, there was a laundry list of things that mysteriously didn't work right via RDC, even if you were the ONLY one logged into the system at the time, and even though they had nothing whatsoever to do with things that have an excuse to have been affected by running in a remote session, like GDI or something.

There is no way I would trust Microsoft to get this right. (Citrix couldn't get it right, either, and had similar problems.)

Now, there is the option to use vmware. You could probably cut your number of Windows systems in half by buying expensive multiprocessor systems, and using thin clients at the desktops... :)

Re:If they did it right....

[TheRealSlimShady]

If this is done right, all the configuration is in the user's home ditrectory, probably shared on the network, and the rest of the system is a standard image. That means any user can use any computer and have their system where they want it.
You know that in Windows, the user part of the registry is stored as part of the users profile right? And you also know that there is such a thing as roaming profiles. Which combined together leads to three things:
1. All the configuration is in the users profile directory, which is better than being in their home directory cause it means it's not polluting their home directory
2. The configuration is shared on the network
3. The rest of the system is a standard image

How about that? Windows provides exactly the infrastructure you just talked about, and I don't even really care whether configuration is stored in the registry or in the filesystem (for example favourites are just .url files stored in the profile, and they roam as well).

So really, the crucial part of your comment is "If this is done right". Same on *nix & Windows. And it's not hard to do on Windows.

Us POW's as you affectionately call us have been doing lots of smart stuff for years. You *nix guys might be surprised what you can learn...

Re:If they did it right....

[TheRealSlimShady]

You need one, that's right, one, system image that is either replicated and maintained on all the systems or is used to netboot the clients. The image contains all the companies approved and installed applications. This is a HUGE benefit to the IT department as they only have to test and deploy one image at a time.
That is great 1990's thinking there. Times have changed, and smart Windows admins are changing with it. What we do now in the Windows world is a thin image (base OS, Antivirus, Office probably) that is deployed to the local hard disk, and then virtualise applications into their own separate environments, and deliver them dynamically based on the user group membership. This is a huge benefit to the IT department as they maintain an image that is stripped down, and they don't have to rebuild their image every time a patch for any one of the applications comes out. Applications just work, and the great news is that we don't worry about app to app conflicts, or whether an app will do something to the OS - they're all virtualised so they just can't. Realistically a "mega" image is more work, not less. I encourage my clients to get to a single thin image, and then apply applications dynamically on top.

Oh yeah, you want to deploy it with netboot (PXE)? Not a problem. We've been doing that for years as well.

Re:If they did it right....

[TheRealSlimShady]

Ever wonder how all these other people can get it working, and you can't? Every thought it might not be the technology, it might be you? Just asking...

In Windows you need 1, one, uno, system image. Multiple user directories, and a DHCP server (plus Active Directory) and everything will work just like it is supposed to. Of course you need to change your way of thinking to accept this possibility.

Re:If they did it right....

[Ilgaz]

It is because your preferences are nothing special. No binary, flat, gigantic single stuff. They are plain XML tiny files. Your OS or FS doesn't really care about having 1400 files there (my number) or 10. Even if you left every single unused preference file, OS or apps shouldn't care. They don't even look at them.

Re:If they did it right....

[fat_mike]

The latest version of Ghost Suite does this and its a hell of lot less painful.

Re:If they did it right....

[Ilgaz]

It is worse than that.

Please check this tool and see what it does. Also such a thing should be part of OS, not "Genuine Validated Windows" !

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1B286E6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en

"The User Profile Hive Cleanup service helps to ensure user sessions are completely terminated when a user logs off. System processes and applications occasionally maintain connections to registry keys in the user profile after a user logs off. In those cases the user session is prevented from completely ending. This can result in problems when using Roaming User Profiles in a server environment or when using locked profiles as implemented through the Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP."

On Windows 2000 you can benefit from this service if the application event log shows event id 1000 where the message text indicates that the profile is not unloading and that the error is "Access is denied". On Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 either event ids 1517 and 1524 indicate the same profile unload problem."

Re:If they did it right....

[Shados]

Not what I was refering to. Windows Server 2008 has a new feature that works a bit like X11. It is still RDP based, but you only remote the apps you want, not the entire desktop (and you can integrate those apps in the start menu and stuff as you wish, so it really feels like the app is local).

On a local network, the experience is really like if the app was running locally (including modal windows and stuff).

Re:If they did it right....

[drinkypoo]

Not what I was refering to. Windows Server 2008 has a new feature that works a bit like X11. It is still RDP based, but you only remote the apps you want, not the entire desktop

If it's still based on Windows NT and RDP, then why would I trust it any more than the last, seriously buggy and basically mostly unuseful-in-this-context RDP-based solution?

Re:If they did it right....

[Shados]

Hey, i'm not trying to convince you of anything. I was just saying that what I was refering to couldn't be done before WinServer 2008 (in Windows land. Of course it could be done in Unix since the dawn of time).

Fortunately for me, by luck or not, I never had any issues with it, (since 2k and the standard terminal service). Good thing too, since most of my machines are headless, so I'd be in trouble! Use it with the VMs too.

Re:If they did it right....

[Anonymous Coward]

That is great 1990's thinking there.

Says the Real Slim Shady.

Re:If they did it right....

[doesnothingwell]

Have you ever heard a CEO yelling because his computer wouldn't boot in less than 10 minutes. Why, because someone set his computer to use roaming profiles, and put his email files there.

I saw this happen with a Windows client and Samba server when one of our engineers put his games folder on the desktop.

Us POW's as you affectionately call us have been doing lots of smart stuff for years. You *nix guys might be surprised what you can learn....

Yes, you can do anything in windows that unix can do, but I am just tired of the windows tax.

Re:If they did it right....

[Shados]

Roaming profiles still leave the administrator roaming from box to box to do updates of the OS

Err what? You mean the administrator goes to the admin console, click a button, and all the machines (or part of them, as he/she prefers) get updated. I have a feeling you may be meaning something else, because updating machines from box to box is absurd, regardless of OS.

Re:If they did it right....

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of like using the user state migration tool for Windows, which is free and does just that?

You could also discuss the virtual desktop (several versions from MS, VMWare, etc) that also do this.

So...it's only a surprise if you don't know how easy it is to do in Windows I guess.

Re:If they did it right....

[mlwmohawk]

Ever wonder how all these other people can get it working, and you can't? Every thought it might not be the technology, it might be you? Just asking...

I'm just assuming they are astroturfers.

Re:If they did it right....

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but your perception of "being real" and calling Windows a "complete joke" is an elitist attitude

i think it's because of the fact that the feature came with the OS that he needn't spend another dime on, while in your case you had to restrain yourself from sounding like an advert for yet another 3rd party vendor locking you into Win even further, just to have that same feature. He may have cause to be smug.

Re:If they did it right....

[TCM]

So, you image an OS install and then image the application installs in order to run them with virtualization because they might conflict with other apps or do something to the OS?

Sounds like applying training wheels to an incapable OS, not like modern thinking.

Re:If they did it right....

[myxiplx]

Well that's just roaming profiles done wrong. Done properly it only loads a maximum of 30MB of data off the network, and won't add more than a few seconds to your logon time, even on 100MB networks.

We've used roaming profiles for years and they're more than worth it. If a users computer dies, we can simply drop in the spare from IT and they're back up and running in just a few minutes.

Re:If they did it right....

[Tubal-Cain]

...since the dawn of time.

January 1, 1970?

Microsoft-free

[should_be_linear]

Microsoft and Free world coming together.

What IBM is up to

[CopaceticOpus]

I noticed that these computers make use of Lotus Symphony rather than Open Office, so I did a little reading. Lotus Symphony is based on an Open Office back end with a custom front end. This front end has gotten mixed reviews for having a better interface than Open Office, but less features.

Symphony is not open source. Open Office is open source, but has loose licensing rules which allow Symphony to build off of it without contributing back. Symphony is free, which is nice, but IBM retains control of it.

Control is the key here. The point of Lotus Symphony, and the point of this line of computers, is the same: to sell other Lotus software which will tie in with Symphony, and to sell support for Lotus products.

This isn't such a bad thing, really. Having an IBM-backed line of Linux business machines will give Linux a better reputation in the business world. However, I am wary of the closed source Symphony becoming a standard for Linux business machines. Also, if IBM is going to benefit from Open Office, I hope that they would also contribute back to it.

Re:What IBM is up to

[Anonymous Coward]

About OpenOffice.org

The OpenOffice.org project is primarily sponsored by Sun Microsystems, which is the primary contributor of code to the Project. Our other major corporate contributors include Novell, RedHat, RedFlag CH2000, IBM, and Google. Additonally over 450,000 people from nearly every curve of the globe have joined this Project with the idea of creating the best possible office suite that all can use. This is the essence of an "open source." community!

(Emphasis mine)

Re:What IBM is up to

[IQgryn]

The important thing is that Lotus Symphony uses the same file formats as OpenOffice (and any other ODF-compatible office suite). It should not matter what software is used to edit the files, as long as anyone can write a replacement.

Now, if Lotus Symphony has it's own proprietary format, that'd be different entirely.

Re:What IBM is up to

[shutdown -p now]

I noticed that these computers make use of Lotus Symphony rather than Open Office, so I did a little reading. Lotus Symphony is based on an Open Office back end with a custom front end. This front end has gotten mixed reviews for having a better interface than Open Office, but less features.

Not just that, it's also based on a very old version of OpenOffice - 1.x, that when we already have 3.0.

Re:What IBM is up to

[Anonymous Coward]

Open Office is open source, but has loose licensing rules which allow Symphony to build off of it without contributing back.

Which is just a backhanded way of saying that something isn't GPL'd. Otherwise your argument is that Open Office is TOO open source.

Re:What IBM is up to

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM has been and continues to contribute to OpenOffice.org. After Sun they are the largest contributor. If you look at the commit logs, almost 1/3 of the commits from email addresses at IBM. If anything its the community who should think about upping their number of contributions.

Re:What IBM is up to

[Ilgaz]

Perhaps IBM and their customers would be more happy with Lotus brand of software? Or perhaps there is something in Lotus line of products which OpenOffice yet doesn't offer?

I mean come on, Open Office guys even forgot to ship a PPC Binary for weeks only serving to "Mactel is here, upgrade already" trolls.

Re:What IBM is up to

[Ilgaz]

Do you see anyone thanking for Sun's commitment to open source, the huge support of them, opening up entire Java etc?

I think IBM shares the same fate for years.

Re:What IBM is up to

[davidfree]

Not contributing back to OSS projects? You do realise that IBM is one of the largest commercial contributors to open source that there is... Certainly better than 99.9% of companies out there. How many companies are using open source software to run their business or part of their business, and yet have not contributed a penny piece to any open source project

Addition

[Lucid 3ntr0py]

Has anyone used the Symphony Applications that come with them? We have Notes here at our shop, and it's worthless. Well, there are always things that one can fudge, but try putting VBscripts even in Mac Office. It just isn't the same.

Re:Addition

[Bert64]

Yeah, VBA is a nasty hack and MS is trying to deprecate it anyway...
OpenOffice supports macros in multiple languages, including python java and javascript which are proper languages rather than having to use a single language that has no other real use.

It takes a thief to catch a thief

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Well, the Open Software programmers have done a great job of providing a very capable platform. But it is not the technical excellence that is keeping MSFT well entrenched. From barely legal tactics forcing the vendors to do things, playing with device drivers, many many marketing and business practices help MSFT maintain its hold. No matter how good the OS codes are, it is going to take significant investment to pry the users from proprietary MSFT format. Let IBM match MSFT in these tactics. The fall out would be good for the general community.

Damn, and it's almost over...

[gosand]

enjoy it while it lasts. :)

upgrade?

[s1lhouette]

and an additional $258 per user 'since there is no need to upgrade hardware to support Vista and Office.'"

Since when have people been upgrading to vista?

Re:upgrade?

[Naughty Bob]

Read your quote again.

And again.


Once more..... Got it?

Re:upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

and an additional $258 per user 'since there is no need to upgrade hardware to support Vista and Office.'"

Since when have people been downgrading to vista?

There. I fixed that for you.

Re:upgrade?

[calmofthestorm]

Some have hte Vista downgrade forced on them when they buy a new computer. I bought it since I had to pay $20 more for XP and I was wiping that shit as soon as I got it anyway.

Sucks, but thinkpads are good enough I'll take it.

Re:upgrade?

[Creepy Crawler]

"Upgrade to Vista"

Must have been from Mac.

Re:upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you really need to read his quote again. And again, in a funny cowboy accent. Keep going with the different accents until you get it right.
 
Cheat sheet: "you save an additional $258 by going with IBM because you no longer have to support Vista, whereas with Microsoft you would have to".

Re:upgrade?

[Repossessed]

and an additional $258 per user 'since there is no need to upgrade hardware to support Vista and Office.'"

Since when have people been upgrading to vista?

Check the prices for a business version of office 2007, Vista upgrades aren't in that 258 figure.

Re:upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just read they are now paying $170 to "upgrade" their NEW PC Purchases from Vista to Windows XP ??? Go figure that one out from a Msoft profit & marketing perpective

Re:upgrade?

[Jurily]

Since when have people been upgrading to vista?

The Windows 7 beta must be out already.

Will someone explain how...

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting locked into a contract and forced to use proprietary software is going to save money, if any, at all?

Re:Linux desktops with proprietary apps! Sign me u

[jimicus]

Wow, this sounds fantastic! Instead of using Ubuntu with OpenOffice from the repos, and paying Canonical for support, or, say, being able to pay *ANYONE* for support, since I have the full source...

I can be locked into paying IBM for support for all the proprietary binaries! What a great idea!

...except not.

Free clue: People are moving away from Microsoft for a whole bunch of reasons.

"It's expensive" is a common one.

"We're being pressured into upgrades we don't want to make" is another.

"It's proprietary and only Micosoft can support it" is very rare indeed. Go look in the Yellow Pages and you'll find hundreds of companies prepared to support Windows. Obviously they're a bit stuck if you hit a problem that's caused by a bug which cannot easily be worked around, but these are seldom enough that it's not really a big problem.

Re:Linux desktops with proprietary apps! Sign me u

[Nomen Publicus]

Perhaps you are not the intended market.

Many organisations outsource their IT services to companies like IBM. If IBM can supply the service and not have to pay for Microsoft licenses everybody (who matters) wins.

Whoa.

[Prysorra]

Guys. That was twitter. And it *wasn't* a troll post. Please mod accordingly.

Re:Whoa.

[repvik]

Yeah... it's currently at -1, Interesting....

The link in the article points to print version

[Britz]

While a hassle- and flash-free version of the article seems nice the linked page also does not seem to contain any adverstising. How does InformationWeek pay their authors and bandwidth bills (Slashdot seems to add a lot to the latter)?

Right: They pay the same way Slashdot does. With ads. It's a one page article:
  http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/open_source/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212202109

Re:The link in the article points to print version

[ericrost]

If they don't want it accessible they shouldn't leave a static link to it lying around. Its THEIR problem to monetize their business model, not MY problem as a consumer. Consumers should get EVERYTHING they can from the companies that compete for their business/attention, its what stimulates innovation and makes businesses run efficiently. If we all became so "sensitive" to the poor business's "needs" they'd just whine for money like the automakers.

Re:The link in the article points to print version

[Anonymous Coward]

While a hassle- and flash-free version of the article seems nice the linked page also does not seem to contain any adverstising. How does InformationWeek pay their authors and bandwidth bills (Slashdot seems to add a lot to the latter)?

Right: They pay the same way Slashdot does. With ads. It's a one page article:

  http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/open_source/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212202109

Maybe from people who find the article interesting and then go to the home page and see if anything else is interesting?

Think of it as an "ad-free" free sample.

Re:The link in the article points to print version

[Britz]

I wasn't talking about the consumer, I was talking about Slashdot.

How can they call it Lotus Symphony?

[nvrrobx]

The old school purist in me is disturbed by calling something Lotus Symphony that has nothing to do with Lotus 1-2-3 or the original Symphony for DOS...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_symphony

Oh well. I still miss WordPerfect....

Re:How can they call it Lotus Symphony?

[Blakey Rat]

You "miss" it? What's stopping you from buying and using it right now?

http://store.corel.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10302&mpe_id=14404&jspStoreDir=Corel&intv_id=40553&partNumber=OL_WPOX4&evtype=CpgnClick&langId=-1&catalogId=10103&ddkey=ClickInfo

There, you can even download it if you don't want to wait for shipping.

Re:Linux desktops with proprietary apps! Sign me u

[Kindaian]

The good thing of this deal is that cannonical is receiving resources from it, and that in turn can help make Ubuntu a better distro (alas... even i'm turning to Linux with Ubunto - all my machines have a VM with it hehehe)

danger dogware ahead

[cinnamon colbert]

I just downloaded symphony, imho, a piece of crap if there ever was one. no rreason even to try it - just to give you a flavor of how bad it is, on the list of windows programs under the start menu is JUST symnphony - no choice of loading just the word or excel mimic
when you starti it, you get several seconds of a license splash screen, then a choice of new word/powerpoitn/excell, then a slooow wait after you choose one
Graphic (chart) in excel clone very limited....

Thats about as far as I got; decided it was a dog and bailed: and the final proof, Lotus symphony doesn't give you an uninstall option - you have to do the set program access and defaults thing

Re:eweek and WSJ articles.

[rufus t firefly]

EWeek also has an interesting write up with more technical details.

And for the terminally lazy, here's the link.

The cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

I really think that Linux could give a very tough blow to other products by mixing cloud computing with the thin-client model.
Most organizations today have most of their apps running as web applications, and with all the great RIA technologies out there, is just a matter of time when desktop applications are a thing of the past.
Still, you need very special apps like Project, Visio that, well, can be (hardly) made using these new technologies, so for those who need them, you already have a complete OS running there.

Re:What mod points?

[nschubach]

Can you be sure of that? Maybe he has a valid account that never replies to the same topics and posts insightful comments then uses that account to mod himself up...

You'd never know it. For all you know, twitter and those other accounts are burning up your mod points on his posts so you can't use them on truly deserving posts.

You'd have to spend an extreme amount of time on the meta-moderate page hoping to get a twitter story to "unmod" it. That is, if you even see a twitter post that gets modded up. You'd have to open each one and look for the author.

There are so many different scenarios that could be playing out and you'd have no clue without being able to see the IP trail.

Obviously Slashdot doesn't care about it as much as you do because they haven't started filtering the number of accounts permitted by IP. They wouldn't do that because of firewall banning concerns. Even if they did, there are anonymous relays all over the web that they could use if they REALLY wanted to.

So really, is it worth burning mod points/posts/time on something you aren't sure about and has such a little impact to your life?

no need to loose the images or click for the print

[scientus]

adblock + autopagerize

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/8551

This is clearly

[sagematt]

The Year of the Linux (Virtual) Desktop!

Re:This is clearly

[Anonymous Coward]

Or Virtually the Year of the Linux Desktop.

It's all in how you word it. :)

fail

[Anonymous Coward]

If it helps to destroy Apple and their fanboys, I will just support that. Apple fanboys are the evil enemies of humankind.

And those that are mere reactionaries to the fanboys, such as yourself, are even more pathetic. Wait, what of those who are reactionary to the reactionaries to the fanboys? Oh shi...

I use Notes 8 and Symphony every day

[gelfling]

It's ALMOST there but not quite. They have killed all the bugs in Eclipse yet. Symphony can't handle embedded objects in PPT files right. It's a little clunky still. Also Notes 8 while it looks cooler than 7 is still pretty damn fragile. It crashes a lot more than older versions. It's also rather slower.

Re:Everyone is reporting it.

[bluefoxlucid]

Retraining costs and new IT infrastructure costs. Infrastructure includes human support training (i.e. IT Guys that have to support new software). In the long run it's supposed to be a win; however, in the short term and long term, there are very real costs, many more in the short run.

Re:no need to loose the images or click for the pr

[ericrost]

Autopagerize doesn't seem to work on the two websites I tried it on. Nice thought though.

Clarification...bad editing...

[Kadin2048]

I accidentally chopped out some fairly important information there while editing ... let me clarify:

On the client side, I think I'd probably give an edge to Outlook 2003 over Notes 7; the latter was so filled with cruft and unstable, one of the first things you had to add to any computer using it was a little utility that killed all the zombie processes the thing created when it crashed (without it, you'd have to reboot the whole machine before being able to restart Notes!). Outlook, in contrast, has the usual range of obnoxiously Microsoftian, we-know-best behaviors that ignore decades of Internet practice (strange stripping or inserting of LFs from plaintext, stupid quoting behavior, proprietary 'rich text' message format, to name just a few), but all in all it's not a terrible MUA provided you set it up right. I've used worse, anyway.

I'd also like to point out that I haven't used the latest version of Notes, so my comments are limited to versions 7 and previous. I've heard that the latest versions are much improved from a UI standpoint, particularly for users who don't do anything with the "Notes platform" besides use it for email and calendaring, and is actually based of all things on Eclipse (yes, the IDE), but I've not gotten an opportunity to play with it.

Re:Clarification...bad editing...

[NighthawkFoo]

Notes 8 is quite a lot better than prior versions. I've been using Notes since version 5, and it's made great strides in usability since then. Most things are where you'd expect them to be, and the software works about how you'd expect it to work.

Moderators, please note

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a sockpuppet account of a well-known troll. Please do not reward things like these or these.

See this as well.

Almost

[RulerOf]

But it's VDI, as opposed to DI.

Sounds kinda dirty.

Re:Whoa Indeed.

[khellendros1984]

Then there are the years of mindless "advocacy" that bring everyone on Slashdot down by association and hurt FOSS more than anything Microsoft could do

Hmmm....that's an interesting idea. Twitter could actually be the ultimate Microsoft astroturfer, keeping the people on the brink of switching from seeing the *good* side of the Linux-using community.

Re:Linux desktops with proprietary apps! Sign me u

[Albert Sandberg]

"It's proprietary and only Micosoft can support it" is very rare indeed. Go look in the Yellow Pages and you'll find hundreds of companies prepared to support Windows. Obviously they're a bit stuck if you hit a problem that's caused by a bug which cannot easily be worked around, but these are seldom enough that it's not really a big problem.

Well you see, the answer for that bug is "you need to reinstall", but people are getting more informed, and sees alternatives which doesn't need to be reinstalled that often, especially not for the reasons you need to reinstall windows.

It's called Roaming Profile....

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows has had this for a long time, it's called a Roaming Profile.

Note to moderators

[Anonymous Coward]

Both "Erris" and "freenix" (who replied to ChesireFerk) are sockpuppet accounts of the same notorious troll. Please do not reward people who try to game the moderation system pretending to be multiple people manufacturing consent.

Re:one small step for a company

[shutdown -p now]

Except that this includes IBM Lotus Symphony, which is not OSS. And maybe some other non-free things as well.

Re:Linux desktops with proprietary apps! Sign me u

[jimicus]

Well you see, the answer for that bug is "you need to reinstall", but people are getting more informed, and sees alternatives which doesn't need to be reinstalled that often, especially not for the reasons you need to reinstall windows.

Partly because it's starting to become obvious that "you need to reinstall" actually means "I haven't a damn clue so I'm going to recommend something that's not necessarily very practical in the hope that you'll hangup, say "sod that, we'll work around" and I'll never have to deal with the problem again."

For the WIN!

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux, for the win! No dos here, so get outta the area Homer Simpson. Springfield Nuclear's getting tux'd up! BOOOOO YA!

A Big Nail In the Coffin

[b4upoo]

I've always felt that about the time IBM released its own version of Linux we would feel Microsoft crashing and burning without mercy. IBM has the resources to do some really wild things with Linux.

Re:one small step for a company

[Ash Vince]

But at least IBM will provide OSS developers with the info they need to inter operate with Lotus. Do you see MS doing the same thing with regards to exchange?

Re:one small step for a company

[shutdown -p now]

Actually yes, MS had released specs for a lot of their proprietary formats in the last two years under their "Open Specification Promise" (e.g. full docs for Office binary file formats and CIFS). Exchange is not on the list yet, but that list grows pretty fast, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it there eventually.

Matt k.

[nulled]

The fact that we are even posting about this, ALL OVER THIS WEB, this IBM/Ubuntu deal, is AMAZING. IBM is no company to laugh about. After all they have been in the computing business well before Microsoft or most any if any at all IT company has. IBM may be expessive, but no more so that MS, and IBM has massive support resources and obviously a warm feeling to sooth corp chair's and CEO and CIO's about the longevity of deploying a Linux Desktop.

The saving will be MASSIVE. Here is why.

1) Open Office FREE (savings of untold amounts)

2) Web servers, ftp, app servers, centralize management tools... all of this is open source. puppetD from http://reductivelabs.com/

3) free mail, Postfix, Dovecot and MySQL (no more exchange licenses)

4) Free Dev tools for ISVs, Eclipse, KDev and GTK tool kits. NO MORE MS Visual Studio License Frees!

5) Free firewalls, NO MORE viruses, and malware worries.

6) Class A security, like tls, ssl3, SSH and GPG GPG, the list goes on and on. 7) AND BEST OF ALL.. NO MORE WINDOWS Licenses! Use Ubuntu (Desktop) and Redhat/Ubuntu for servers... guess what? ALL FREE

If corps are worried about retraining or certs, many MANY MANY Open Source companies have such training, REDHAT is one, OpenLogic another... and anyone with 1/2 a brain in the use of Open Source can get FREE support on the mailing lists.

My God, I run a few .coms and make some money, all running Linux. I refer to online open comminuty for help from time to time, as well as, offer consulting FREE in return for the support they gave me.

3)

Re:Matt k.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh god if you sucked any harder you'd probably be up to Bulbourethral gland by now.

Re:Everyone is reporting it.

[Locutus]

I've seen where one option is to have Ubuntu installed on the desktop and IBM apps fed from a server but wondered where the backward compatibility was. In one article, it was said that the Win4Lin people were involved but still nothing about legacy Windows. I figure it is in there somewhere. The world can't live on Ubuntu, Notes, and Lotus Symphony/OOo alone. Yet. 8-}

LoB

IBM-Compatible PC

[Tibor the Hun]

Well, I don't care about anyone else, but I'm super glad I've invested in all the software that requires an IBM-Compatible PC with at least 233MHz and a Sound-Blaster (tm)-compatible sound card.

Re:eweek and WSJ articles.

[Ihmhi]

How can you be "terminally lazy"? Too apathetic to dial 911 while you're bleeding on the kitchen floor? Don't want to go to the hospital to get your chemo?

watch out for the trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

http://slashdot.org/~SockDisclosure/journal/214377

Twitter troll, mod down

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

Re:eweek and WSJ articles.

[RockWolf]

Too lazy to type ^H when they make mistakes...

Re:one small step for a company

[Daengbo]

Ummm, you mean the "promise" ... er, requirement ... that they fought against the EU over for four years until they were fined over a billion dollars?

I don't give them much credit for that. It's all the EU's doing.

Re:Everyone is reporting it.

[Daengbo]

I don't really get the whole "virtualized desktop for each user" part of the deal. From what I've read in two of the reports, They'll be using something similar to Win4Lin (same company, even) to host these images as virtual machines pushed to standard Ubuntu installs.

How is this better than application servers? Or even thin clients with remote /homes? Where's the benefit?

I would think that I could use either netboot or an X-only installation to connect to a terminal server and get the same deal with less work and lower cost.

IBM's smart. I'm obviously not understanding part of the deal. What is it that I'm not getting?

Re:Everyone is reporting it.

[bluefoxlucid]

Marketing bullshit takes smarts. They may have simply convinced you they're doing magic, when it's repackaged crap.

Lower cost?

[jotaeleemeese]

I am sure Ubuntu is not charging the same MS demand for a desktop and its associated software....

As for server software, well, MS is not driving the Internet.

Re:Lower cost?

[Daengbo]

but you can do a netboot thin-client for Ubuntu, forward X for the entire desktop, or just forward certain apps over X. I don't understand what virtualizing 1000 desktops would give me.

I don't know what you are smoking

[jotaeleemeese]

Many internal applications are not web based.

In many instances the only MS software you need is Windows, Office and if you are a masochist SharePoint.

Re:I don't know what you are smoking

[Richard_at_work]

I do apologise, I wasn't aware that my perception of my own companies desktop environment was so wrong - obviously you know more about it than I do!

In an ideal world, LoB applications will closely follow the current 'best practices' or ideas - in this case, web applications. We are not in an ideal world, we are in a world where I work for a 25 year old company who have had internal software development done from day one. Any company of age will have lots of 'hidden' LoB applications that sit quietly on someone or others desktop doing their job, never needing to be rewritten because they do it so well - and they certainly wont get rewritten just because the current best practice has changed.

That is the reality. That is the reality most companies of age live in. That is the reality most of Slashdot seems to gloss over.

Your statement may be true if you include the word 'new' in there, but in a company that has legacy systems it most certainly is not true.

Also, you seem fixated on Microsoft software - there are other vendors out there, and the lack of an alternative on a different platform is just as limiting as any MS software we 'need'. To put it bluntly - I would say that for a large proportion of businesses, MS software is not the issue with migrating to different platforms, while legacy systems most certainly are.

Thats the reality.

Many applications are now web based!

[jotaeleemeese]

I do apologize about the typo...

A printer.

[jotaeleemeese]

Or a central machine running Windows to which I connect remotely from my Ubuntu home machine via a VPN.

By doing this I save my company a full set of licenses of commercial software that would be otherwise cluttering the innards of my poor laptop.

Fine. Which percentage of people *need* Photoshop?

[jotaeleemeese]

10%? OK, then can have it, for all the others is Ubuntu and I saved lots of money.

Honestly, enough excuses, people not considering alternatives to Windows are perpetrating a dereliction of duty on their jobs.

Which single point of failure?

[jotaeleemeese]

Be specific please.

There are well understood techniques as well as data centre configurations to ensure you have the redundancy you need.

Why do users need an external drive?

[jotaeleemeese]

Sorry, this is no longer the 80s or 90s.

An external drive of any kind is a security risk, users don't need them since all the information should be transferred via your internal network, a user does not require a copy of your data, they should have means of accessing remote desktops where they can manipulate the data they need without actually having a local copy.

Why would a user need custom software? And if they do, what is stopping you to install it for them so it shows up on their client when they login? Have you heard about profiles, or virtual machines for example?

To a great degree home users are using a dumb remote terminal already, it is called web browser.

Re:Why do users need an external drive?

[oodaloop]

An example we ran into was a program called Analyst's Notebook, a link analysis and visualization program. The license is $3k for each terminal and we can not get an enterprise license from its distributor, i2. They couldn't make it available for each terminal without paying the license fee, so those of us who needed it had a thick client.

Also, we routinely got CDs from training, conferences, etc that we needed at work. So we would have to hunt down a communal thick client (before we finally got our own for AN) and load the material. I was a mobile trainer, so I had to also routinely burn CDs with training material. It is not feasible to send multiple CDs of information by email across the country or even across a command. And with so many networks, all of them laden with security features, sending from one network to another is not trivially easy, or even possible sometimes.

We also had some programs that were extremely graphics and/or processor intensive, and the thin clients just couldn't hack it.

And that "dumb remote terminal" is MY terminal, or "personal computer" if you will. I can install what I want, upgrade it, dual-boot it, whatever. The thin clients are closer to the mainframes of the 70s, where everyone asks a central computer to do some work. It's like a giant step backward, IMHO. The only people who think they're a good idea are those writing the checks. The users hate them with a passion.

Give me one situation...

[jotaeleemeese]

... only one in which you require an external drive of any kind.

Somebody else if not myself will show you why it is unnecessary and to be considered risky.

Re:Give me one situation...

[jimicus]

... only one in which you require an external drive of any kind.

Somebody else if not myself will show you why it is unnecessary and to be considered risky.

There's a huge difference between "require" and "would like".

In a large business, pretty much everyone's computer needs except possibly those at the very top are dealt with on a "require" basis. External drives certainly don't come under that category, and there's a lot to be said for disabling them.

In a smaller business (which, I would point out, are responsible for most of the jobs in the developed world), people don't tend to specialise so much and therefore setting up their computer to be extremely specialised in use is a very bad idea.

Re:eweek and WSJ articles.

[lawpoop]

Too lazy to eat?

Re:Everyone is reporting it.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many advantages.
The virtual desktop is "yours". It can be built starting with a standard template. Any changes to your desktop are in addition to the standard template. Meaning, if you have a template that is 10GB and 20 users, you can now have 20 desktops, your total space may only be 30GB total. Your virtual desktop is portable, you can view and use it from within the office, remotely through an SSL gateway, maybe even on your cell phone. VMWare is coming mature with a method that lets you "checkout" that virtual desktop and use it while remote, it can even timeout and stop working after a defined period (think contractors, and temp employees). Think of availability. Your virtual desktop can be hosted at any internet connected facility. If your building goes down, if your were using any type of DRS, you still have your desktop. Applications updates are a breeze, no longer will you have to deploy updates to thousands of desktops, you maintain the template. You push applications (or virtual packaged applications) to the users.
For the business, you can use thick clients or thin clients and connect to this desktop through them. No longer will an employees have to be given a specifically configured laptop or desktop designed by your desktop engineers with all the software they need. They can have just about ANY laptop or desktop and connect to a virtual desktop that has everything they need. And like stated earlier, that common desktop can be maintained and updated easily by just a few engineers/admins.

The part you are not getting is when you have hundreds of users, it is NOT easy to maintain 100's of desktops, well it can be but the sun and moon have to align correctly to make it easy. Virtual desktops allows a company to maintain a common virtual desktop setup with just about any hardware the user has and allows them to connect and use that virtual desktop from just about anywhere at any time. All updates are done on the backend without having to reach out physically or through the network to maintain them.

Citrix is nice for accessing remote applications, a physical desktop is nice while in the office, virtual desktops combine the two giving a single familir desktop with all the advantages of using virtualization (DR, redundancy, consolidated space, management, backups etc...)

Virtualization for desktops is not just a buzz word, there are many cases where this is a true advantage.

I can not speak for IBM's offering because I have only been testing Citrix Xenapp (which we have just about ruled out) and VMWare's offerings of desktop virtualization which just got a facelift this week with View3.
http://www.vmware.com/products/view/

Re:Everyone is reporting it.

[Daengbo]

OK. I think I understand you, but I don't think you get what I am comparing it to. I'll try to cover your point one by one so that you can point out where I'm wrong:

1. Pooling of disk space: I can remotely log a user into X on a server (one 10GB image, in your example) from a blank machine using netboot, and use /home to store changes. The result is the same, probably uses fewer resources than virtualizing 100 desktops, and will use less disk space overall. Changes are stored in my home and can be used wherever I log in from. I can VNC from the road if I want to.
2. Remote hosting and data security: I get the remote hosting thing, but I doubt any companies are going to go for it. They scream about having e-mail hosted. I can't imagine trying to convince them to put the whole machine image somewhere else.
3. Thick or Thin client: As I said, X, VNC, and X over SSH offer all these benefits. Why use a VM?
4. Managing 100s-1000s: I get this, too. I just don't see how it varies from thin clients and application servers, which are a known and trusted technology. What I've read also implies that this system will require a full, custom installation of Ubuntu on every desktop, as well, which means that you're back to managing individual machines.

Basically, we're looking at all the benefits of a standard Unix deployment here. We've got centralized backups and administration / management. We've got choice of protocols to use. We've got disk pooling. People are acting like SunRays didn't offer all these features ten years ago.

Oh, I get it. I'm sure virtualization of desktops offers some benefits. I've just never heard them actually mentioned.

Total Failure

[Anonymous Coward]

If the theory is correct, then it's just another failure for Microsoft. It takes a special kind of special to successfully put 14 accounts through the karma grinder and achieve absolutely nothing other than to become another joke meme on Slashdot.

big IBM shop ?

[rs232]

"I just left a company which was a big IBM shop .. I think on all future job interviews, I'll ask straighaway if the place is an IBM shop and if they say yes I'll thank them for their time"

What was the name of this IBM shop and the software that didn't work ?

X Windows emulator ?

[rs232]

"The manufacturing software ran on X Windows and so these machines needed an X Windows emulator. Cost wise we would replace 2 licenses with one license and machines would work much better because the X Windows emulator and NT was taking all system resources"

What was the name of this 'manufacturing software' and 'X Windows emulator'? Why the need for an emulator if they moved to Linux? How did they get the 'manufacturing software' to run before moving to Linux. What was the name of the Linux distro they moved to ?

Re:X Windows emulator ?

[UnknowingFool]

The manufacturing software was developed internally. That was part of the craziness of the system. They needed X Windows to run the software but they bought Windows NT machines. If they used Linux, they wouldn't need an emulator. They never moved to Linux while I was there.

Re:one small step for a company

[shutdown -p now]

I didn't give them credit for it. I merely pointed out that they keep releasing specs under the OSP, including stuff that had for a long time been considered the "sacred cow" (such as MSOffice file formats - as I recall, the EU didn't ask for those in particular). So it would make sense to expect Exchange protocols released sooner or later.

Re:That's right.

[Anonymous Coward]

M$ pays me to nuke billions of dollars in advertising and bullshit by submitting stories like these.

You mean to say that you, alone, are more powerful than Waggener Edstrom and Crispin Porter + Bogusky combined!?

Almost had a heart attack

[Yfrwlf]

I read the headline too quickly and read "Microsoft launches a free Linux desktop".

Re:eweek and WSJ articles.

[jonadab]

I suppose "terminally lazy" could mean too lazy to eat. I've know of someone to be too _tired_ to eat, and that's kind of scary. Fortunately in that case it was temporary. (She'd been sick...)

Theoretically, if certain actions weren't involuntary (breathing, voiding the bladder when that becomes urgently necessary) it might be possible to die if you were too lazy to do them.

Actually, over the long term, just being too lazy to move around or get out of bed could lead, at least in theory, to terminal bedsores.