- Site menu:
- Latest Discussions
- Latest Newswire
- Archives
- Submit Story
- Story HOWTO
- Syndicate
- E-mail Alerts
The Biggest Blunder: Or why Red Hat and Novell just left the door wide open to Ubuntu
Well, we know now where both Red Hat and Novell stand as far as desktop Linux is concerned. Novell feels that it will be five more years before the desktop is a viable space for Linux. And Red Hat just doesn't seem to find any relevance in the desktop at this time. Now it's not that these two technology companies can't make decisions that they feel are in keeping with their mission or core business objectives; it's the cold hard fact that their absence from any active desktop initiative will spell problems down the road. Like him or not, Mark Shuttleworth is one shrewd businessman. Of course, you do not sell your company for $500 million and not have at least a modicum of business savvy. Over the last few years Shuttleworth has been incrementally putting the pieces of a global infrastructure/empire in place. The developers, the support services, and the whole Ubuntu ecosystem. With every release Shuttleworth eliminates barrier after barrier to Linux on the desktop. The excuses of “no driver support” or “hard-to-configure X server” are things of the past. Even restricted drivers are a click away. While Novell and Red Hat seem content, at the moment, to remain in the enterprise space, Canonical is “attacking” both desktop and server niches and this could spell trouble—big trouble—for Red Hat and Novell down the road. Here's why. The time is ripe for a Linux distribution to come to the fore and champion Linux on the desktop. I think we all can agree that, like it or not, Ubuntu has assumed this role. Now, as Ubuntu gets to be more popular on the desktop, a standard will emerge using Ubuntu as a metric. We already see other vendors such as Dell offering Ubuntu on the desktop. Add to this a server push that is scheduled to begin next month and you have a potential one-two combination that is hard to beat. By becoming a de facto standard on the desktop, Ubuntu can assert its role as a server OS much more easily. After all, it only makes sense that you use a desktop/server combo from the same company for best performance, right? And with Canonical recently announcing that major vendors such as HP, Dell, Sun, and IBM certifying their hardware to run Ubuntu server, it's easy to see how Canonical could easily offer end-to-end solutions with the developer and support infrastructure to back it up. By remaining on the sidelines where the desktop is concerned, Red Hat and Novell may have just passed up an opportunity of a lifetime. And by the time they realize what they've done, it may be too late. Ubuntu will have become entrenched as an end-to-end solution in every sector of industry. It should be interesting as the whole scenario plays out, but if I were a betting man, I would be looking hard at Canonical and putting my chips on their end of the table. |
Comments (79)
Ubuntu desktop
Yes sir. I am and will continue to deploy Ubuntu Server in my workplace because Ubuntu has the best Linux desktop out there. Since in the future I will want good integration between desktop and server, I see no reason to deploy RedHat or SUSE servers.
In my data center we run Red Hat (and a lot of CentOS) but all of our desktops and laptops are Ubuntu. The integration level is just fine, since it's all Linux. No big deal. The benefit of consolidation onto a single Linux distribution would primarily be in IT staff training (why is it apt on one and yum on the other, /etc/rc.d/rc.local on one and /etc/rc.local on the other, etc.).
In the end, though, Red Hat is one of those companies that a lot of people dislike simply because they are successful and a leader. I think they've earned their place in the industry and, similar to Google, do not deserve to be treated as "the next Microsoft." We'll see what happens. If Ubuntu takes the market share lead, will people other than helios begin to hate Canonical too?
In the end, though, Red Hat is one of those companies that a lot of people dislike simply because they are successful and a leader. I think they've earned their place in the industry and, similar to Google, do not deserve to be treated as "the next Microsoft." We'll see what happens. If Ubuntu takes the market share lead, will people other than helios begin to hate Canonical too?
> Red Hat is one of those companies that a lot of people dislike simply because they are successful and a leader.
Personally, I love Red Hat as a company. I even own Red Hat stock (though only 15 shares).
That said, I believe their abandoning the desktop market was a serious long term mistake (long term being 10-20 years). In the short term (5-10 years), it was a sound business decision, and I don't plan on selling my Red Hat shares any time soon; but a market is not only measured by profits, it's also measured by market and mind share, and those tend to show the way profits will go in the future. By dropping the desktop from their plans, Red Hat has cost themselves market penetration and mind share, and given Canonical an opening they've been more than willing to use.
Personally, I love Red Hat as a company. I even own Red Hat stock (though only 15 shares).
That said, I believe their abandoning the desktop market was a serious long term mistake (long term being 10-20 years). In the short term (5-10 years), it was a sound business decision, and I don't plan on selling my Red Hat shares any time soon; but a market is not only measured by profits, it's also measured by market and mind share, and those tend to show the way profits will go in the future. By dropping the desktop from their plans, Red Hat has cost themselves market penetration and mind share, and given Canonical an opening they've been more than willing to use.
@jdixon:
As a counterpoint to that, the Linux/Unix desktop will progress, with or without Red Hat. They could leave the desktop market in the short term, and enter it later, like five years from now.
And five years from now, who knows what kind of shake-out will have happened in Linux?
As a counterpoint to that, the Linux/Unix desktop will progress, with or without Red Hat. They could leave the desktop market in the short term, and enter it later, like five years from now.
And five years from now, who knows what kind of shake-out will have happened in Linux?
> They could leave the desktop market in the short term, and enter it later, like five years from now.
I believe that's exactly what they're thinking. I'm just not sure they'll be successful at doing so.
I believe that's exactly what they're thinking. I'm just not sure they'll be successful at doing so.
It wouldn't kill Red Hat to release their "Global Desktop" product. They don't have to spend much; they can just put it out there. A Red Hat-branded product with the ability to play all the multimedia out there would generate a lot of interest. It would be great -- and cheap -- PR for Red Hat.
> They could leave the desktop market in the short term, and enter it later, like five years from now.
The real question is whether there is much of a desktop market. SuSE is doing all right with SLED, so there's something there, but how much?
Let us remember:
A market is determined by how many people are willing to pay, not by how many people are willing to take you up on a freebie.
The real question is whether there is much of a desktop market. SuSE is doing all right with SLED, so there's something there, but how much?
Let us remember:
A market is determined by how many people are willing to pay, not by how many people are willing to take you up on a freebie.
> ...so there's something there, but how much?
And is it cost effective to pursue it, or would the money be better used elsewhere within the company?
As previously noted, there are tradeoffs either way.
And is it cost effective to pursue it, or would the money be better used elsewhere within the company?
As previously noted, there are tradeoffs either way.
Foobar - I want you to specifically site anywhere I've stated that I hate Ubuntu or it's mothership. I do not personally care for Ubuntu. I do believe it is over-hyped...I think there are better distros for the New Linux User. However, If the buntu's are the road to mainstream Linux adaptation, I can hang with that and be supportive of it. I've recently stated just that. I simply find it interesting that with the largest community in all LinuxLand, they haven't responded to the LINdependence invitations, however I do believe the local LoCo may get involved. Hate is a strong word my friend...use it only when you believe it is representative of a tool or motive for destruction. I am far from feeling any such negativity toward Ubuntu.
Don't publish things as a matter of permanent record that cannot be substantiated. If you want to say that you perceive me as hating Ubuntu et al, that's fine...there is a thin line between semantic opinion and a complete untruth.
h
Don't publish things as a matter of permanent record that cannot be substantiated. If you want to say that you perceive me as hating Ubuntu et al, that's fine...there is a thin line between semantic opinion and a complete untruth.
h
Helios, this is where you are wrong, isn't it obvious that you have to have a love or hate relationship with ubuntu, so if you don't sing it's praises then you obviously hate it. We live in a binary world, there can only be two options.[/irony]
I'm interested in where IgT gets the idea the h is a PCLOS zealot (posted on h's blog)...we all know he's now a Mandriva zealot!! ;0)
That's from a comment here: http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/04/linux-users-will-rescu...
WTF? Oy...Ubuntu zealots!! ;-p
h, you make some interesting enemies.
Quoting: Red Hat and Novell are not the nascent desktop Linux industry. Canonical is. The Linux desktop belongs to Ubuntu. I know you are a PCLinuxOS zealot and therefore you hate Ubuntu, but pretending they do not exist only works within this blog article; it doesn't work in the real world.
What will it take for you to realize this? Do we have to put the Ubuntu logo on the side panel of a race car?
That's from a comment here: http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/04/linux-users-will-rescu...
WTF? Oy...Ubuntu zealots!! ;-p
h, you make some interesting enemies.
I use Mandriva Linux on all my desktops and Mandriva on my server. I do so because I'm most familiar with the tools Mandriva supply that make my life easier.
Let me give you a case in point, and to the betterment of all, I will strive to keep it short. Yeah, like that's gonna friggin' happen.
A friend of mine needed a new computer, I mentioned that zareason had some reasonable machines and she purchased one. Being more of a KDE guy than gnome, I had them install KDE instead of the default gnome.
Nightmare begins. Now I support many, many users by phone, email and in person. Of course, the first thing I did was have her update her computer. She also mentioned that she could only find konqueror as a browser. Note to 'buntus...break down and install firefox as default...it was not installed.
I neglected to recall that Kubuntu doesn't use Synaptic but adept. Fine. I had her open Adept and type in firefox in the search box. It showed up as installed...this is by phone so I could not see. I had her open a console (she uses a dos prompt as part of her job) and we tried to open it. Command not found. Cool. We did apt-get update. One word appeared: Done. I had her do kwrite /etc/apt/sources.list and hit enter.
Folks, there was some stupid BS to the tune of "Installer commented source out due to failure to authenticate...bla bla bla on every friggin' repository line. she had never booted her computer. Why would they all be commented out?
So, I had her go back to adept and open it in hopes of finding a GUI in order to update/add/remove repositories. She looked for 5 minutes and we could not find it. Fine again. I had her reopen sources.list and we began removing and uncommenting repository lines. Now this is not a stupid person, she's just in uncharted waters. she did and repeated back to me just exactly like I told her. sudo apt-get update gave error lines on several repositories.
Now you want to chide me for not genuflecting at the alter of Ubuntu/Kubuntu? In the first place, Adept is a good tool but way too complex for a new user. Prior to ANY work on sources.list, every time she would try to install a piece of software via apt-get it would say something to the effect of: "firefox does not have an install candidate It is mentioned elsewhere in teh...bla bla bla."
So, I told her I would research it and call her back. Big surprise here...this has been a complained about issue since 2005. . There is absolutely no reason at all that a new user should have to alter her sources.list before she even knows how to spell Linux. This is ridiculous. I am bringing her an install disk for Mandriva tomorrow and we can go from there. I use Mepis and have had Kubuntu on a few machines and I personally had no issues with it, but obviously she did as did a few dozen others. This problem has been reported as recently as 7.10. It is inexcusable that a new user should have to jump through these hoops to install Firefox and Synaptic. Two programs that in my opinion, should be there when the doors open. Ya think?
Anyway...for those that mistake my angry rant for "hatred", that would be your problem, not mine. All I am doing here is illustrating my earlier comment that Ubuntu is far from a new user friendly distro.
h
A friend of mine needed a new computer, I mentioned that zareason had some reasonable machines and she purchased one. Being more of a KDE guy than gnome, I had them install KDE instead of the default gnome.
Nightmare begins. Now I support many, many users by phone, email and in person. Of course, the first thing I did was have her update her computer. She also mentioned that she could only find konqueror as a browser. Note to 'buntus...break down and install firefox as default...it was not installed.
I neglected to recall that Kubuntu doesn't use Synaptic but adept. Fine. I had her open Adept and type in firefox in the search box. It showed up as installed...this is by phone so I could not see. I had her open a console (she uses a dos prompt as part of her job) and we tried to open it. Command not found. Cool. We did apt-get update. One word appeared: Done. I had her do kwrite /etc/apt/sources.list and hit enter.
Folks, there was some stupid BS to the tune of "Installer commented source out due to failure to authenticate...bla bla bla on every friggin' repository line. she had never booted her computer. Why would they all be commented out?
So, I had her go back to adept and open it in hopes of finding a GUI in order to update/add/remove repositories. She looked for 5 minutes and we could not find it. Fine again. I had her reopen sources.list and we began removing and uncommenting repository lines. Now this is not a stupid person, she's just in uncharted waters. she did and repeated back to me just exactly like I told her. sudo apt-get update gave error lines on several repositories.
Now you want to chide me for not genuflecting at the alter of Ubuntu/Kubuntu? In the first place, Adept is a good tool but way too complex for a new user. Prior to ANY work on sources.list, every time she would try to install a piece of software via apt-get it would say something to the effect of: "firefox does not have an install candidate It is mentioned elsewhere in teh...bla bla bla."
So, I told her I would research it and call her back. Big surprise here...this has been a complained about issue since 2005. . There is absolutely no reason at all that a new user should have to alter her sources.list before she even knows how to spell Linux. This is ridiculous. I am bringing her an install disk for Mandriva tomorrow and we can go from there. I use Mepis and have had Kubuntu on a few machines and I personally had no issues with it, but obviously she did as did a few dozen others. This problem has been reported as recently as 7.10. It is inexcusable that a new user should have to jump through these hoops to install Firefox and Synaptic. Two programs that in my opinion, should be there when the doors open. Ya think?
Anyway...for those that mistake my angry rant for "hatred", that would be your problem, not mine. All I am doing here is illustrating my earlier comment that Ubuntu is far from a new user friendly distro.
h
Ubuntu sometimes reminds me of a poorly trained dog. Sometimes it's the sweetest, cutest thing in the whole world, and other times it tries to rip your arms off.
Ubuntu will be better after it has graduated from obedience school.
I am saying this as an ubuntu user.
My favorite thing is that randomly when I wake up my laptop it gets lost on login. I type in my password and it just sits there waiting for....I don't know what, but it never logs in, I can't restart x windows, I can't login to another terminal, my only choice is a hard shutdown.
I think I am going to try Mandriva this summer to see how that works with my laptop.
Ubuntu will be better after it has graduated from obedience school.
I am saying this as an ubuntu user.
My favorite thing is that randomly when I wake up my laptop it gets lost on login. I type in my password and it just sits there waiting for....I don't know what, but it never logs in, I can't restart x windows, I can't login to another terminal, my only choice is a hard shutdown.
I think I am going to try Mandriva this summer to see how that works with my laptop.
Helios,
It sounds like your main issue was Kubuntu (kde) not Ubuntu (gnome). As a matter of policy I install Ubuntu first and then install the kubuntu-desktop package which draws in all the basic kde stuff. This way I have both kde and gnome. I find it easier to administer from gnome (Ubuntu) because all the easy to use default apps you were mentioning are there.
The basic structural problem is that Canonical only employs one kde deve (Riddell) while they have several gnome focussed devs. Thus the gnome desktop is most always better polished and free of irritating bugs.
I have upgraded 4 machines now to 8.04 over the last week. Problem free in the main except my main box which has two soundcards one of which doesn't work and takes first slot in alsa. 8.04 has switched to the pulseaudio sever and it is still rough around the edges. It took me a day or so to figure out all the sound issues.....
It sounds like your main issue was Kubuntu (kde) not Ubuntu (gnome). As a matter of policy I install Ubuntu first and then install the kubuntu-desktop package which draws in all the basic kde stuff. This way I have both kde and gnome. I find it easier to administer from gnome (Ubuntu) because all the easy to use default apps you were mentioning are there.
The basic structural problem is that Canonical only employs one kde deve (Riddell) while they have several gnome focussed devs. Thus the gnome desktop is most always better polished and free of irritating bugs.
I have upgraded 4 machines now to 8.04 over the last week. Problem free in the main except my main box which has two soundcards one of which doesn't work and takes first slot in alsa. 8.04 has switched to the pulseaudio sever and it is still rough around the edges. It took me a day or so to figure out all the sound issues.....
Montezuma - that is a superb idea, and as a Linux User, I sincerely want to use and recommend the buntu's. Illustrations such as above are indicative of the enormously frustrating problems we have. And yes...I am going to take the lick for this. I should have gotten it done via gnome and included the kde libs as I went, but would that have solved the hell we went through in getting her at least a firefox browser installed? We couldn't update/install software by any means. Now I will be the first to admit that if I was hands-on that machine, I could have figured out what was wrong and more than likely, being she was a brand new user, it was probably a problem BKAC. Still, I administrate 90 percent of my support via phone and if I can't get the main browser of Mainstream Linux to install, well Houston, we have a problem.
This is a good idea though and I had done this in the past with other distros such as Dream Linux. With the enormous and hugely talented pool of Buntu Users, it sure would make it handy to be able to recommend it without a second thought...Unfortunately, until "little" things like this are fixed, I cannot do it.
Ken
This is a good idea though and I had done this in the past with other distros such as Dream Linux. With the enormous and hugely talented pool of Buntu Users, it sure would make it handy to be able to recommend it without a second thought...Unfortunately, until "little" things like this are fixed, I cannot do it.
Ken
boomer. Now you know that I try the past few years to remain fairly agnostic when it comes to distros...I do try and I actually run two different ones on my production machines. I do have to say though that since the first 2008 release, this distro has improved by large numbers. I especially enjoy the fact that I can send a new user to easyurpmi.org and walk them through a repository update/upgrade with a few mouse clicks. That in itself is worth the price of any admission. What I find fascinating is that the offshoots of Mandriva all seem to corrupt or weaken as the system ages, causing some fairly serious problems. Not so with the 2008 release(s) and I am obviously impressed...however when I look at the progress of some other distros I watch such as Elive...Dude...you really have to check out what they've done with the thing. It's E17 and it sparkles with a brilliance I've yet seen in any distro.
but then again, I have done far from try them all.
h
but then again, I have done far from try them all.
h
It's more like they left the door open to Mint in my opinion. ;)
Wrong.
41 earlier comments in the full thread.
You think Canonical makes money out of the Dell deal via support? Is there any support built-in to the purchase?
> Is there any support built-in to the purchase?
No. Support is an optional add-on. Thirty days of "starter support" is $65, one year of "basic support" is $125, and one year of "standard support" is $275. I assume that money goes to Canonical.
No. Support is an optional add-on. Thirty days of "starter support" is $65, one year of "basic support" is $125, and one year of "standard support" is $275. I assume that money goes to Canonical.
Quoting: Is there any support built-in to the purchase?
Nope. There is the opportunity to purchase it, however, though they likely don't. I think they really do want that elusive "mind share" at the moment, but they were probably more than a little disappointed that Dell decided not to start preinstalling the server version, that could have been a nice chunk of change. It still wouldn't have been guaranteed money (need a Red Hat server? Order a certified Red Hat server and then buy it with no OS, install CentOS!) but they would have sold quite a bit.
Quoting:Order a certified Red Hat server and then buy it with no OS, install CentOS!)
It's nice that they will sell with no OS. Maybe they could start doing the same thing with desktops ...
They do, just not on the low-end consumer models.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/precn_n?c...
EDIT: You know, these are comparable (hypothetically, at least) to Macs, being high-end Linux machines not marketed towards Joe User at all (Macs are marketed a lot at Joseph User, his well-to-do cousin).
http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/precn_n?c...
EDIT: You know, these are comparable (hypothetically, at least) to Macs, being high-end Linux machines not marketed towards Joe User at all (Macs are marketed a lot at Joseph User, his well-to-do cousin).
Quoting: PROCESSOR Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5405 (2.00GHz,2X6M L2,1333) edit 2ND PROCESSOR Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5405 (2.00GHz,2X6M L2,1333) edit OPERATING SYSTEM Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS v5 for EM64T 64bit system w/ 1 YR RHN, w/ Media edit VIDEO CARD Dual 256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Quad Monitor DVI Capable edit CHASSIS CONFIGURATION AND 1394 Mini-Tower Chassis Configuration edit MEMORY 2GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (2 DIMMS) edit OPTICAL DRIVE 16XDVD AND 16XDVD+/-RW, Data Only edit RAID CONFIGURATION C2 All SATA drives, Non-RAID, 2 drive total configuration edit HARD DRIVE 250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst Cache™ edit 2ND HARD DRIVE 250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst Cache™ edit MONITOR Free Free 19 inch E198FPW Flat Panel edit SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION No Resource DVD edit My Accessories KEYBOARD USB Entry Quietkey, No Hot Keys edit MOUSE Dell USB 2-Button Mechanical Mouse with Scroll edit FLOPPY & MEDIA READER No Floppy Drive edit SPEAKERS No Speaker option edit My Services & Warranties WARRANTY & SERVICE 3 Year Limited Hardware Warranty with Next Business Day On-Site Service edit ACCIDENTAL DAMAGE SERVICE 3 Year CompleteCare Accidental Damage Protection edit ON-SITE SYSTEM SETUP No Onsite System Setup edit
For $2331, not really bad at all.
> For $2331, not really bad at all.
Yeah, but I think I'd rather have an 4G Eee for $399. :)
Yeah, but I think I'd rather have an 4G Eee for $399. :)
Quoting: Yeah, but I think I'd rather have an 4G Eee for $399. :)
LOL, perhaps...but then we're really talking two different market segments. Apple doesn't try to touch that low-end segment, you have to sell too many units to make a good profit. I think some hardware vendor needs to attack the high end with a quality product. The Dell N series might be that, but they don't market it at all.
> ...but then we're really talking two different market segments.
Only one of which I'm capable of participating in. :(
Only one of which I'm capable of participating in. :(
Quoting: Only one of which I'm capable of participating in. :(
Don't feel too alone...I ran through the configurator, I didn't hit "Add to cart". :)
lol...I can't count how many times I've done that...find a nice server box..config it to the max just to see what it would cost...dream...
Quoting: config it to the max just to see what it would cost...dream...
And then go to Newegg, price it from components, and realize that a $4,000 box can be built for $1800...and then dream about that one too...gotta love it!!
Buy the Dell servers of yesteryear at pacificgeek.com ...
I like the MacPro http://www.apple.com/macpro/ but at $25,000 their most expensive model is a tad too pricy... Then again, I bet Debian would fly on eight 3.2 Ghz cores with 32 GiB of RAM :-)
We recently were solicited by a mid-sized real estate company here in Austin to work up a migration plan for them. I spent a couple of hours touring their facility, sitting at their machines, inspecting their server needs (minimal at best) and talking with the employees. There were two major challenges in my observation there. One, they use an online database called MLS (Multi-Listing System or something such). It only will allow IE into it's inner sanctum. Once I demonstrated to the Office Manager the inherent insecurity of IE, he was outraged that he was forced to use such a vehicle to get to where he needed to go. We did a simple test. I hooked an old machine running xp (sp2) with an suspect power supply up and got it online. It had Norton 2004 on it with the other usual suspects of MS protection. I downloaded firefox then began the demonstration.
Note - Do NOT do this if you are running windows...you will damage your software system!
I opened Firefox and navigated to astalavista.box.sk. You who are in the know, realize there are a zillion java scripts running on this page and about a quarter of them are malicious. We spent about 3 minutes navigating some of the less offensive links on the page and then closed Firefox. We then opened IE (6) and performed an identical pattern of navigation. Almost immediately, the machine was brought to its knees with popups, spyware and messenger windows. Control alt delete wouldn't even bring up the dialog to show or kill the processes running. We had to do a hard shutdown of the system. On reboot, the IE browser had been hijacked to some prOn page and no amount of configuration would change it.
The guy was flabbergasted by this. Until we seal the deal on the migration, Firefox is used by all except for the MLS transactions.
To my great pleasure, I found a project called open MLS that when adopted by the real estate business, will end this IE only non sense...not to mention the fees associated with annual usage.
Now after all of that, to my point. After analyzing his system completely, we settled on Mandriva for his system. I mentioned two challenges. The second challenge was his print/fax/copy infrastructure. His entire office ran on Ricoh reproduction equipment and Mandriva surprisingly has worked with Ricoh to create an entire Linux Solution for their equipment. Challenge two was only a challenge until I found this out. Once the Manager realized his stuff would work with Linux, he was extremely happy. So...now we're just negotiating dollar amounts.
The fact that Mandriva would run his reproduction equipment OOTB when no other distro would do so is an indicator of just how serious Mandriva is about the desktop for business and Userland. I'm sold...and the different configuration schemas? Not a problem once I showed the user the difference between system configs and environment configs. He understood that without any problem.
h
Note - Do NOT do this if you are running windows...you will damage your software system!
I opened Firefox and navigated to astalavista.box.sk. You who are in the know, realize there are a zillion java scripts running on this page and about a quarter of them are malicious. We spent about 3 minutes navigating some of the less offensive links on the page and then closed Firefox. We then opened IE (6) and performed an identical pattern of navigation. Almost immediately, the machine was brought to its knees with popups, spyware and messenger windows. Control alt delete wouldn't even bring up the dialog to show or kill the processes running. We had to do a hard shutdown of the system. On reboot, the IE browser had been hijacked to some prOn page and no amount of configuration would change it.
The guy was flabbergasted by this. Until we seal the deal on the migration, Firefox is used by all except for the MLS transactions.
To my great pleasure, I found a project called open MLS that when adopted by the real estate business, will end this IE only non sense...not to mention the fees associated with annual usage.
Now after all of that, to my point. After analyzing his system completely, we settled on Mandriva for his system. I mentioned two challenges. The second challenge was his print/fax/copy infrastructure. His entire office ran on Ricoh reproduction equipment and Mandriva surprisingly has worked with Ricoh to create an entire Linux Solution for their equipment. Challenge two was only a challenge until I found this out. Once the Manager realized his stuff would work with Linux, he was extremely happy. So...now we're just negotiating dollar amounts.
The fact that Mandriva would run his reproduction equipment OOTB when no other distro would do so is an indicator of just how serious Mandriva is about the desktop for business and Userland. I'm sold...and the different configuration schemas? Not a problem once I showed the user the difference between system configs and environment configs. He understood that without any problem.
h
Cool stuff. I am also impressed with Mandriva, I am using the PP 2008.1 right now on my work laptop (thankfully I am able to leave Windows, which I dual boot with, behind for today).
If for some reason you can't dump the IE any time soon, you can always put in a proxy server with Dansguardian, configure IE to use that and then blacklist everything except the work website. Does IEs4Linux work with the site? That will help out more, because then the viruses, etc, won't run on the workstations at all anyway. IE on Linux is far safer than IE on Windows, when you're able to use it. The company I work for uses ConnectWise as their ERP, it's a .NOT application and requires IE for the web interface. It works very well on Linux with IE, however.
If for some reason you can't dump the IE any time soon, you can always put in a proxy server with Dansguardian, configure IE to use that and then blacklist everything except the work website. Does IEs4Linux work with the site? That will help out more, because then the viruses, etc, won't run on the workstations at all anyway. IE on Linux is far safer than IE on Windows, when you're able to use it. The company I work for uses ConnectWise as their ERP, it's a .NOT application and requires IE for the web interface. It works very well on Linux with IE, however.
I've never tried Mandriva. Now I think I will.
Steve I've been using Mandriva since they were Mandrake (full time since 2002), I've seen them do some pretty shit things with Mandrake 2005/10.2 (or there abouts) - About then I started looking at other distros, then 2006.0 came out, and every release since then has been better than last. 2008.1 I,in my opinion, is streets ahead of anything else.
Yes, IE4linux works great on Mandriva 08.1 That will be our solution for this migration. I neglected to mention that above. I want to skip the proxy stuff if I can in the event I have to remotely administrate their system...it just adds another layer of complexity I don't need. It works without a hitch with MLS...thankfully. I have moved two of my production machines to Mandriva because of their super stability and the other runs Mepis...I abuse most installs with software I test and never remove...Mandriva and Mepis have handled my abusive nature without so much as a glitch. I also run Mandriva on my Laptop...I've turned it into a "demo" machine for new user ohh's and ahhh's. The offshoots of Mandriva haven't fared as well for me stability-wise...they eventually corrupt and fail unfortunately but for the average user, they work well too. I don't know too many people that pile on the amount of software I do and forget about it.
h
h
ken, when you've finished this job, would you like to let the Mandriva folks know how this all went, if you haven't already.
Post a comment
A free account is needed to post. Write your comment here first: your text is kept in this browser while you sign up or log in, and is waiting for you when you come back.
Your message:Markdown: **bold**, *italic*, [text](https://link), - lists, > quotes, $x^2$ for math. Formatting help
Sign up and post (it is free) or Log in and post
|
|