[ale] Linspire chairman thinks desktop Linux is futile

[James Taylor]

Why not use eDirectory instead of AD?  It will run on just about any platform you want to use, and it is a much more mature and flexible environment.

There are even clients for SLED and openSUSE to provide single sign-on and home folder support to SLES-based OES2.

If you need to support AD based apps, there are even (OES2) tools available to provide that option without the need for AD.

-jt 
 
>>> <krwatson at cc.gatech.edu> 7/7/2008 09:17 AM >>> 
Linspire chairman thinks desktop Linux is futile
http://www.techspot.com/news/30729-linspire-chairman-thinks-desktop-linux-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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