Problems Linux Enthusiasts Refuse to Address

[Liam Proven]

On 5 April 2011 18:24, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5 April 2011 18:16, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> So, price was actually enough at that time - we didn't win the
>> desktop, but we gave it a damn good shake. What other thing could
>> Linux do ridiculously better to beat Windows?
> [...]
>> People don't seem to realise just how good Wine is these days. The
>> apps that don't Just Work tend to be (a) large (b) recent. But the
>> thing keeping someone on Windows is more often that Just One App that
>> they can't do without - and that app will usually work flawlessly in
>> Wine. YMMV, of course, but it's *always* worth a try.
>
>
> It occurs to me that a frontal assault on their mainstay might be fun.
>
> Businesses still run on XP. Approximately no-one has moved to Vista or
> 7. Even on new machines, which MS credits as shipped copies of 7,
> downgrading to XP is de rigeur.
>
> They also run on MS Office. Your desktop in most offices will be XP
> with MS Office. Many will give you Firefox as well, due to user
> clamour for something that works.
>
> Office, Outlook and Firefox on XP = standard business desktop for the
> past several years.
>
> So the suggestion is: how can Linux be a better upgrade from XP than 7 is?
>
> This is trickier than it looks. LibreOffice is slightly nicer to use
> than OpenOffice, but has a long way to go. MS Office is really very
> usable indeed, for all its instability and bugginess, and experienced
> MS Office users tend to *hate* OOo. Serious usability and
> compatibility work will be needed to knock over the incumbent here.
>
> Outlook and Excel are the two applications that need drop-in
> replacements that are better in some important way. The reason for
> these two is that they are apps actually used by the people who sign
> the cheques, not bought by them and inflicted on minions. They need
> disruptive replacements that do better on more than price in some
> important way.
>
> (We would *ideally* need a drop-in replacement for Outlook (that will
> work flawlessly with Exchange) *and* a drop-in replacement for
> Exchange (that will work flawlessly with Outlook). Many companies have
> dashed themselves to death against those two rocks in the last decade;
> if we can work around this replacement, it would be good to do so.)
>
> Anything I've missed?

Nope. But I can't see how Linux can ever out-MS MS.

My proposal would be this:

* a radical rethink of Ubuntu Server
... coupled with...
* a new edition and install mode of Ubuntu-the-client.

On the server:

Linux is a brilliant server. However, you need to be a Unix geek to
make it work. Ubuntu Server is as bad as any at this.

3 distros have attacked this:

SME Server (CentOS-based) is a good try. It's simple, stupidly easy to
get installed, does everything a small office needs out of the box.
Cons: no groupware; no modularity; no support for multiple servers.

ClearOS (ex ClarkConnect, also CentOS) adds modularity and flexibility
but it's a *lot* fiddlier and is kinda sorta semi-commercial.

Zentyal (Ubuntu-based) is somewhere in between, but it's also kinda
sorta a bit commercial and some of its functions just plain Don't
Work.

Oh, and all want to be a firewall, which is foolish.

What I think they should try is to either adopt Zentyal or do
something like it. An Ubuntu-desktop-style, one-click dead-easy
install server, aimed at small workgroups of /Windows/ servers.

That's the wedge to try to get Ubuntu into (small) businesses.

The other offering is a WUBI type install that goes on the local hard
disk of a Windows PC, leaving Windows in place, but is a live-CD-like
cache of an image kept on the server, effectively making all the PCs
into thin clients that self-update every boot. Maintenance-free, or as
much as possible, and easy to revert to vanilla Windows boxes at a
click. Develop a central management console for them - usable from a
browser under Windows, which is key - so that the admin can push apps
out to all the users with a couple of clicks. No repartitioning,
reformatting or anything else. User IDs ideally would be picked up
from the underlying install and/or authenticated against a Windows
server. Functionality to pull out email messages, contacts, diaries
and shared files from a Windows box or server would also be a very
good move.

Basically, a tool to make it dead easy to upgrade a roomful of
obsolescent Windows boxes to current, centrally-managed, Linux-based
thin clients, which run way quicker than the same hardware did under
Windows.

With the option to run any essential line-of-business Windows apps
under WINE. The desktop probably needs to be either vaguely
Windows-like or really /really/ simple and idiot-proof. Even more
simplified than the Netbook launcher.

It's all pretty doable, I reckon. Nothing in there is entirely new -
it's just using existing tools in a new way. Even Exchange clients and
things for the data migration are out there, I believe.

-- 
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
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