[NCLUG] Debian Question

DJ Eshelman djsbignews at gmail.com
Mon Jan 7 14:18:50 MST 2008


"Because the mainstream users don't care about the OS, they
care about the applications, and Microsoft has those locked up. "

I think that nailed the point I've been trying to think of how to make
myself.  I agree with you on that.
I tried to fight the linux desktop battle at a medium-sized company a few
years back, and the thing we quickly realized was that anything we'd be
saving on licensing costs would be overwhelemed by helpdesk costs by people
with the 'how do I?' questions.

I have to say that personally I don't run a Linux desktop either - I've
tried a few times and it just doesn't make sense for what I do.

But I have some 8 hard-box and about 5 more VM Linux 'machines' running
various distros that I wouldn't trust to a Windows server if you put a gun
to my head... okay, maybe I would if the gun was actually loaded, but I
digress.

I personally feel like a desktop operating system has been an afterthought.
Personally, I get more done using interfaces, be it X-windows or, in my
case, nearly everything I need to do is easier thru Webmin or cPanel.  But
that's on servers that I can't have down if some rogue X app decides to lock
up one of my processors.  Like Sean said- different needs served by the same
kernel.  It's beautiful.

And if you ever want to see an ultra-efficient and quick booting OS, have a
look at the Red-Hat based VMWare ESX server.  They just released an embedded
version that is kind enough to boot diskless if you just want to use a SAN
instead of local disks.

I haven't really REALLY sat down and used OSX as a real user would- the
first time I tried I got frustrated and just opened up a terminal...  glad I
could do that, but it didn't make me want to rush out and get a Mac, either.

Much as I hate Microsoft, they're not going anywhere- and I think a "fine,
but this works better for my needs" attitude is what the Linux community
really needs more than anything else.

-DJ



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