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CNN's anti-FUD on Linux experience
PowrSurge writes "CNN as a nice article on Linux's Desktop experience not being the Windows experience. It's worth reading. " It's Nick Petreley writing, which explains the fact that they actually have a clue as to what theya re talking about. But it's always a good thing to explain in a mainstream audience why networked computing is good, and why X is good.
When all the MIS guys read about this and realize that Linux IS the Zero cost way to do centralized thin client computing, Microsoft will be in really deep shit in the corporate world.
/windows/system32, registry, etc. That's just too messy. A powerful Unix server with Linux clients is definitely the wave of the future in corporate environments.
Yes, the X-Windows technology has been around for a long time, but it hard to justify paying $1000 for a SCO or Solaris to replace a $50 Win9x just for running X-Windows. With Linux for free, that's a different story.
Of course there is Hummingbird Xceed for Windows, but that is a very expensive solution as well.
Sure, MS has its own thin client technology, but because all MS OS are designed to be single user, FAT client OS, all the application are hobbled
by things like installing into
ST
One other thing that most people seem to be glazing over is the remote admin ability that X gives you. How many stupid implimenations of remote admin do all of the NT products have. If you need a graphical admin program that runs local to the server you are screwed on NT. You have to have a console on it. To remote admin a Linux box, even graphicaly, you don't need to be at the console. This Was apples biggest screw up. They reinvented the wheel (X11) for OSX and they didn't make it networkable. All of there great GUI config tools have gone to waste if you want to admin remotely.
As for using clients off of a server its a great idea. How many of you actualy use the full processing power of your PIII? Think about it. As I am reading web pages the machien is practicaly idle. And the comment about the minimum linux box being a celeron is a joke. I happily ran a P166 until this winter. I only upgraded because I wanted faster compiles. I still use my P-75 Libretto all the time. If I am near a network I plug in and run netscape off of my desktop because it is much faster. I don't need a powerhouse on the road but its nice to get speed when I get home. I think NFS mounted home directories are better if you have the power on the local machine. This brings up another wonderful UNIXism. The concept of the home directory is so multi user that its not even funny. Because of home directories I can simply mount my home directory and run netscape... viola! all of my settings. Netscape was designed to run with the concept of home directories.
>If you want to have dumb terminals, so be it. In that case Linux on the client is a complete waste of time and resources.
No it isn't. It has a much tinier footprint than most. There are several micro-linux installations
that can give a working X window System off two floppies, let alone a small harddrive - linux is excellent for cheap just-a-little-smarter-than-completely-braindead X termminals.
In theory it could be burned into a few eproms, too.
A standard linux distribution contains a world of tools, much more than anything you get from MS, but if you cut away all that, the core system is really quite small ( smaller than WinCE (wince))
A smaller footprint that isn't hopeless is
QNX, can go off one floppy (with its own GUI), linux two floppies, with X. Not bad all the same, though.
Our university department signed that fscking "all servers will be NT, all clients MS" deal with mickeysoft, "popular" in britain, so I routinely carry around a few floppies to reboot the clients into a decent OS, and login to my personal server to get some work done. I'm trying to fight their teaching undergrads the MS-drool way, since when they're final-year undergrads or postgrads, they'll have to use a UNIX anyway. Unfortunately, money talks much louder than me.
And MS's plan is obviously to control the youth of today, the professionals of tomorrow. Tossers.
The author's solution, of always running the clients on one machine and using X windows to put the display on where-ever he's logged in, seems sub-optimal to me. I'd much rather run the clients locally, and use NFS mounted /home and /var/spool/mail so that my documents and mail are on any machine I'm on. Since you spend a lot more time editing without saving, I think my solution is considerably faster, too.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
CNN does what Linus, Alan, and Eric have failed to do.
Linus had a perfect opportunity to tell about all of the wonderful ways Linux is different, ie better, than windows. The unbelievable benifits that are a result of true multitasking.
I haven't heard this often enough, I hope we will sell the world that Linux is different than microsoft windows, better People want different, they have stuck with the junk from Redmond too long. We need to advocate the ways we are better. We don't need to tell people "Windows Sucks" because everyone already knows that.
We should tell them that we don't need threads, we have true multitasking. We don't need a stupid "Task Manager," we have ps. Almost all of the functionality of NT is more complicated than UNIX. We have a superior product let's let it win on its own merits
If you want to go completely server-centric, you build client boxen with that sort of power (I might go to 32 MB RAM today--RAM is cheap). Invest heavily in the video card and the monitor. All that processing power you don't need on the desktop can become usable video real estate.
This sort of a setup requires heavy server resources and heavy network resources.
The alternative is to let the desktop boxen work as "cycle servers". They use NFS to mount the major disks and home directories. In this case, you want to get the processor just behind the bleeding edge, where the cost per MIPS drops off. I'm running an AMD K6-2/350 at home and it is rarely the limiting factor. I am usually limited by the speed of my hard drives. This will save some network bandwidth, and some server-side processing resources. However, those NFS-mounted drives must be fast and redundant. Consider RAID (when your desktop drive fails, you go down; when an NFS drive fails, the operation goes down), and feed your NFS servers RAM like mad--properly configured, the most popular files will be cached into memory without spinning the drives.
Finally, two of the overlooked advantages to Linux on the corporate desktop: your desktop follows you. The first good thing is that you can access your desktop, or just your files, from any computer on the network. This is incredibly helpful when you're working on a problem at someone else's cubicle. Files aren't secure because they're on your hard drive, they're secure because they're in your account and need your password to access.
The other half of this advantage is reduced downtime. Since the desktop boxen are fungible, the IS team can have a few in the back room ready to go. If your hardware fails, for any reason, they come by and swap boxes (just as if your phone fries itself). You are happily computing again inside of fifteen minutes, and the IS team gets to diagnose and fix the broken box without time pressure.
--The basis of all love is respect
My problem with Windows isn't the point-and-drool interface, or even the huge pricetag. My problem is the fact that it goes down like a moose on rollerskates. I want my stuff to work. If it can't work, I want it to fail predictably.
The more Linux looks like Windows without blowing up like Windows, the easier a sell it will be on the desktop. I don't think that it's a requirement, but it would be a big help.
Linux, by virtue of X11, can put on a variety of faces. You or I can macdink around with the UI until we have it optimal for us. Most people don't want to macdink with it. They want it out of the box to work reasonably well. This is where selling boxes with Linux installed and GNOME or KDE installed as the "starting screen" can turn into a big win.
--The basis of all love is respect