The lack of skilled administrators is to some extent a hurdle in the way of companies adopting Linux on the desktop, HP's Linux chief technology officer, Bdale Garbee, said yesterday.
Asked whether the emergence of a large number of so-called sysadmins, who could only control a network by clicking on a graphic user interface had anything to do with the lag in Linux take-up for common tasks, Garbee, a former leader of the Debian GNU/Linux Project, agreed that it was, to some extent, a factor.
However, he said, the spread of a desktop platform largely depended on applications as well. And by that he specified that he meant native applications, not those which are made to run by means of a software bridge.
Garbee was in town to address the annual conference of the Australian UNIX and Open Systems User Group which winds up today.
He said he was happy with the direction HP was taking with regard to Linux. "Linux is a key component of our operating systems strategy and we have a very strong commitment to Linux," he said.
Garbee said the company, for which he has worked in some way or the other since 1986, would be looking to provide both desktop and laptop solutions, thus creating more options for take-up.
Asked about the fate that befell open source advocate, who was once a Linux strategist for HP and then had to quit, Garbee said he had always understood the difference between his personal take on Linux and open source, and that of any company.
He did not agree that HP was sometimes hot and sometimes cold on pushing Linux as an alternative platform with its hardware. "There may have been some confusion from a commercial standpoint," he said, stressing that HP was committed to pushing the operating system.
Garbee said there was a great deal of movement on the Linux front in countries outside North America - places like Spain, Brazil, China and Thailand. "These are places where there isn't a big installed base of PCs yet, unlike in the first world where there is a huge installed base," he said.