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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.'"
one small step for OSS...
because for some strange reason, we're not allowed to use the word "Windows" anymore due to the DMCA...
And this is better than virtualizing $LINUXDISTRO + OpenOffice.org how?
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.
Developers: We can use your help.
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!
My Babylon
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?
The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments. - Nietzche
It has finally arrived! Hallelujah!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
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.
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...
-- dnl
Lotus SmartSuite is STILL languishing. Shame.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
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.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
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.
o/~ Join us now and share the software
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.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Meh. Not real fond of "thin clients", terminals, etc.
Single point of failure. 'Nuff said?
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).
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
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.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
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.
Microsoft and Free world coming together.
839*929
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.
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.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
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.
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.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
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.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
enjoy it while it lasts. :)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
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?
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)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
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
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.
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.
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.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
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.
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.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Which is the unholy offspring of OpenOffice.org 1.1.x and Lotus Notes. Which are both lean, lightweight, and easy to use~
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
Guys. That was twitter. And it *wasn't* a troll post. Please mod accordingly.
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
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....
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.
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)
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
EWeek also has an interesting write up with more technical details.
And for the terminally lazy, here's the link.
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
For Project I use OpenProj from Projity. I use Thunderbird for all of my mail - calendar working with Exchange via WebDAV.
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
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?
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
adblock + autopagerize
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/8551
The Year of the Linux (Virtual) Desktop!
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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...
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.
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.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Autopagerize doesn't seem to work on the two websites I tried it on. Nice thought though.
My Babylon
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.
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.
I accidentally chopped out some fairly important information there while editing ... let me clarify:
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.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
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.
- Vincit qui patitur.
But it's VDI, as opposed to DI.
Sounds kinda dirty.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
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.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
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.
Windows is not the answer.
Windows is the question.
The answer is "NO."
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"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.
What do you use for viewing visio files?
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
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.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
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.
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
Except that this includes IBM Lotus Symphony, which is not OSS. And maybe some other non-free things as well.
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."
Such a framework already exists - it's called Qt.
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.
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?
I dont read
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.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
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.
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.
.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.
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
3)
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
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
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.
http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2
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)
/. 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.
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
http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2
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.
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.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
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?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
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.
Too lazy to type ^H when they make mistakes...
February 9th, 2009 8:55pm: Slashdot becomes self-aware.
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.
Put identity in the browser.
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.
/homes? Where's the benefit?
How is this better than application servers? Or even thin clients with remote
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?
Put identity in the browser.
Marketing bullshit takes smarts. They may have simply convinced you they're doing magic, when it's repackaged crap.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
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.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
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.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I do apologize about the typo...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
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.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
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.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Be specific please.
There are well understood techniques as well as data centre configurations to ensure you have the redundancy you need.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
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.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... 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.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Too lazy to eat?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
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.
Put identity in the browser.
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.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
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.
"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 ?
davecb5620@gmail.com
"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 ?
davecb5620@gmail.com
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.
I read the headline too quickly and read "Microsoft launches a free Linux desktop".
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
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.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
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.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
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.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.