[GRLUG] Perceptions: Is Linux a suitable desktop platform?

[Professor Inuyasha]

Mike, you forget about VirtualBox, it's freeware too

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 8:19 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 1:20 PM, Adam Tauno Williams
> <awilliam at whitemice.org> wrote:
>> On Sat, 2008-10-04 at 17:38 -0400, Tim Schmidt wrote:
>>> On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 1:33 PM, David Pembrook <david at pembrook.net> wrote:
>>> > An interesting article on perceptions about Linux. The author polled
>>> > both pro-Linux and pro-Microsoft people and compared their arguments
>>> > http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT9186091276.html
>>> I've never found these articles relevant.  Linux has been in use as a
>>> 'suitable desktop platform' since Linus started hacking on it in 1991.
>>>  If some people don't think it's 'ready', that's their loss.  The rest
>>> of us have been, and will continue to innovate, improve, and have fun.
>>
>> It is nice to see one of these articles from a credible source;  there
>> are an entire sea of these articles by miscellaneous nobodies.
>> Terpstra certainly has made real contributions to FOSS, so his opinion
>> has weight.   The real flaw in all these articles is what being a
>> "suitable desktop platform" means.  Being a suitable home desktop, a
>> suitable SOHO desktop, or a suitable desktop in a publicly traded
>> fortune 100 enterprise - these are really different kinds of things.
>> This article picks the "business desktop" which narrows it down nicely.
>>
>> I've been using LINUX as by primary desktop since the release of Word
>> Perfect for Linux (fall 94?).  I used it only for e-mail and development
>> before that,  a stable word processor was the last hurdle.
>>
>> The articles does float to the surface some good points that usually
>> don't appear in similar articles:
>>
>> * "Also, it seems obvious to me that with Win4Lin and VMWare one has to
>> pay for this software as well as pay for the MS Windows license – so why
>> not just run MS Windows on the users' PC? Why does this fact escape the
>> Pro-Linux opinions?"
>>
>> So true, this is the most bogus card in the LINUX advocacy playbook.
>
> VMWare Server and VMWare Player are free for commercial use.  While I
> haven't looked into it recently, I hear that qemu has virtualization
> support now, too. (As opposed to strictly emulation.)
>
>> * "One can use VNC to support BOTH Linux and MS Windows network clients
>> Linux software is easier to keep up to date"
>>
>> Has anyone managed to get VNC to run as a service in Vista?  The
>> performance of a VNC vs. RDP over a WAN is also beyond any comparison;
>> RDP runs circles around VNC.
>
> You *can't* run VNC as a service on Vista; Vista's security model
> disallows services that interact with the desktop.  The solution is to
> run the VNC server as part of the user's session.
>
> I'll give you that RDP is faster per quality, but it has its
> limitations, too.  I got hamstrung when RDP wouldn't run at 24 bpp,
> which I needed when I had to work from home. (Can't tell you why
> without brushing against my NDA.)
>
>>
>> As for updates;  Win32 is much easier to manager.  Install the [free]
>> WSUS service on a server.  It automatically downloads updates and lets
>> you approve or decline specific updates,  report on machines that
>> haven't updated, etc...  There is no equivalent AFAIK for LINUX for any
>> distribution.
>
> That surprises me.  It's conceptually trivial to design something like
> that around Apt, perhaps a bit more difficult around dpkg.  I would be
> surprised if nobody's done it already.
>
> --
> :wq
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-- 
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Professor Inuyasha