[ale] Fully functional desktop [Was: Greetings and introduction]

[Greg Freemyer]

On 4/18/06, Jim Popovitch <jimpop at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- James Sumners <james.sumners at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't want to scare you off, but I have to make this observation. It
> > sounds to me like you are looking for some magic distribution that is
> > going to "let" you do everything you did in Windows exactly the same
> > as you did with that operating system. I have seen this sort of
> > mentality among my personal friends and watched it fail. When people
> > talk about the "Linux desktop" they are, most typically, not talking
> > about the same sort of "desktop" most Windows geeks are familiar with;
> > that being a business system that excels at playing games and various
> > other "home" applications (e.g. iPod management). No, the "Linux
> > desktop" is one where work is accomplished. Casual surfing, writing
> > papers, developing programs, etc. There are a select few big name
> > games that have Linux ports (UT2004, Quake 3/4, Doom 3, etc.), but for
> > the most part it isn't a gaming platform like Windows.
>
> I don't want to start a flame war.... but not all work is simply vi'ing
> files and writing papers.  Musicians need *advanced* software.  Application
> developers need *advanced* (cough, non-java, cough) GUI design, debugging,
> and testing tools.  Finally, the same people that work all day on word
> processing applications appreciate things like Weather Bug, CNN Pipeline, Cisco
> IP Communicator, GPRS via Bluetooth, Skype w/ Bluetooth headsets, iPass, Google
> Earth, Delta Flight Schedules, QuickTime videos, WPA2, etc.  Oh, and those same
> people appreciate the way Microsoft Windows File Association really works with
> installed applications, whereas with most Linux distros it is just a *complete*
> pain to maintain even with lots of finger crossing.  What Linux lacks is
> massive application vendor support... mostly due to all the different ways that
> things are done between Linux desktops and distros.
>
> Don't get me wrong, I love Linux.  I just still (in 2006) haven't seen a Linux
> desktop that even comes close to the flexibility of what Microsoft produces.
> You can make all sorts of claims about your environment being different and how
> you don't need application xyz, but in the end the lack of massive worldwide
> adoption speaks for itself.  I work for IBM, arguable one of the worlds leading
> Linux supporters.  Yet IBM's own internal corporate Linux desktop distro (based
> on RHE4) is still a long way from being what Windows 3.1.1 was.  Sorry if I
> strike a nerve, I am just giving you opinions based on years of professional
> *developement* and "on the road, in the field" experience with *both* OS'es.
>
> If I need to setup a server I use Linux.  If I need a usable desktop I use XP.
> I would love to go back to a Linux Desktop, but not if it still takes away
> nights and weekends to make useable.
>
> -Jim P.

I still use XP as my desktop at work as well.  I then use FreeNX to
give me a Linux desktop on a test server.

I went to the IBM/Intel/Red Hat presentation last week.

I now want to redo my desktop computer as an Intel/AMD cpu with the
new VT technology.

Then have SUSE 10.1 (coming shortly) as my host OS, Xen as the
hypervisor and run 2 guest OSes: SUSE and XP.

I have not seen any benchmarks for this kind of setup, but it seems
Xen is very efficient and should only introduce a couple percent
overhead for the SUSE guest and an acceptable amount of delay into the
XP operations.

What I don't know is what, if any, desktop computers support this yet.
 Per the presentation the computer would need a VT enabled chip and a
BIOS with the appropriate support.

Greg
--
Greg Freemyer
The Norcross Group
Forensics for the 21st Century