[ale] Linspire chairman thinks desktop Linux is futile

[Jeff Lightner]

The main problem is shops that primarily use Windows for the desktop
have, not surprisingly, Windows admins who have little or no clue about
Linux and don't really want to learn.   

Unless an organization is willing to dump not only existing technology
but existing admins (or do significant retraining of the latter) the
hurdles to switching are fairly large.   Add to this the veiled threat
that M$ has about doing "corporate audit" when you start talking to them
about why you don't need their support any more and even management that
would like to switch has a tendency to decide not to bother.

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
krwatson at cc.gatech.edu
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 9:18 AM
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: [ale] Linspire chairman thinks desktop Linux is futile

Linspire chairman thinks desktop Linux is futile
http://www.techspot.com/news/30729-linspire-chairman-thinks-desktop-linu
x-is-futile.html

http://tinyurl.com/6syato


I think his belief a bit pessimistic but I have recently run into a
significant problem with Linux as a desktop. We have a very mixed
environment and we have been trying to move from a home grown multi
operating system (Windows AD/Sun OS all of them, about 4 versions of Red
Hat Linux/Mac OS X) authorization/authentication system to something a
little more manageable. There is considerable pressure to use the campus
Microsoft Active Directory to solve the problem.

At first we thought it would be no problem. Joining a Linux box to
Windows Active Directory is a known process so how hard could it be.
Well for one it doesn't work. I realize "them be fight'n words" so let
me elaborate before the tar a feathering begins.


After many, many, many long bouts of hacking, trial and error, googling
(can you believe that's a word), and pulling out what little hair I have
left. We have come to the conclusion that there is no easy way, if any,
to join a Linux box to a Windows domain and then automatically mounting
the user's home directory (NFS or CIFS). I'm aware of using local
password and group files but we're trying to avoid the management
nightmare we already have with keeping them up to date on several
thousand machines. PAM_mount holds promise but so far no joy.

I realize I've left out an enormous amount of detail on what we have
tried so let me assure you we haven't given up and we may yet pull it
off. I can say from the googling we have done that once we figure it out
there are a lot of people that want to know how to do it.

So all of this got me thinking, to date moving Linux to the desktop has
been done mostly by a full frontal assault. The results haven't been all
that impressive. Mac's on the other hand have done much better. Why?
Well it turns out Mac's are real close to being able to transparently
substitute for a Windows desktop in an Active Directory. If we could
figure out how to drop a Linux box in place of Windows on a users
desktop without the Windows administrator noticing the difference
(within reason as there is no registry on a Linux box for instance) we
could win by attrition.

The time is right too. Vista has really gotten a bee in everybody's
bonnet. There has been massive resistance to Vista. I'm using a 4 Year
old system to type this and it runs just fine (3.2GHz processor, 3GB of
RAM) but due to the graphics card it can't run Vista without an upgrade.
My system is an anomaly as most machines aren't this nice and would
require out right replacement to run Vista.

The reaction has been interesting but no one has actually codified it.
It cost a lot of money to upgrade or replace the hardware, buy all new
Vista licenses, design a new desktop build, upgrade the software and
peripherals that aren't compatible, and there is a very significant cost
in deploying all this and training the users. So why not wait until you
have to replace the hardware due to age or failure and then buy a new
system that will run Vista until then XP is just fine than you very
much. At least that appears to be the sentiment. This is also reflected
in people buying new systems with a downgrade to XP so they are like
everyone else who isn't upgrading.

I'll admit the analysis is a bit over simplistic (they didn't like XP
for similar reasons) but the resistance to move is undeniable and there
is some serious animosity towards Microsoft at the moment.

Microsoft isn't standing still for this. They are applying pressure by
taking XP off the market. This opens the door for Linux. It will run
fine with no need to replace or upgrade the hardware. It eliminates the
cost of the operating system. You still have to design a desktop,
replace some incompatible applications and peripherals, deploy it, and
train, but it puts the control on when you move to a new operating
system back in your hands.

Once we have everyone using Linux on the desktop it will lead to the
inevitable question "Why do we need Windows Active Directory, can't we
just use LDAP"? Why yes we can.

All this to say the time is right take the desktop now all I have to do
is get a Linux box to cooperate.

Keith

--

Keith R. Watson                        Georgia Institute of Technology
Systems Support Specialist IV          College of Computing
keith.watson at cc.gatech.edu             801 Atlantic Drive NW
(404) 385-7401                         Atlanta, GA  30332-0280


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