[ale] Linspire chairman thinks desktop Linux is futile

[krwatson at cc.gatech.edu]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of James
> Taylor
> Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 09:37
> To: ale at ale.org
> Subject: Re: [ale] Linspire chairman thinks desktop Linux is futile
>
> 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
>

This is not an option as we don't own the campus level Active Directory and we have little to no influence over its existence or use. It was implemented to support Windows services that require a Windows Active Directory. Since it has accounts for everyone on campus and can be used to manage authentication/authorization and home directory mounting for Windows systems there is now pressure to do the same with all other operating systems as well. We were able to get Macs to work out of the box but not Linux (so far anyway).

My point is that if this problem were solvable there is little to no barrier to using a Linux desktop invisibly in a Windows Active Directory world therefore allowing Linux to take the desktop by attrition. Currently that is just not possible without throwing out all of Windows Active Directory and its attendant services which is not politically or practically feasible.

That being said I'm going to look at eDirectory to see if there is anything that can help solve our problem.

Thanks,
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