David Christian | 
June 9th, 2009 | 2:15 pm| 
More conflation of #SaaS , #cloud computing and on demand ( e.g. #ec2 ) computing. http://bit.ly/rSxKq
June
9
Sensible advice on how to approach #cloud security http://bit.ly/AztMS
June
4
If you use #windows and #firefox, you should read this: http://bit.ly/Sorbk and do this: http://bit.ly/CNq0G
May
28
Interesting overview of NASA’s cloud computing infrastructure. Interesting that the chose Eucalyptus as their Virtual Machine management front end for Xen. I’ve been trying to make time to evaluate Eucalyptus.
Overall sound choices, although I’m biased towards Java over Python.
May
27
Freedom Dynamics has published a study on “Linux on the Desktop“.
Read the whole report.
I always like studies that comport themselves well with my own experience.
The major points which I took away:
- The main driver for driver for Linux desktop adoption is cost savings.
- Development and IT Operations staff are the primary targets of Linux Desktop adoption.
- Linux desktop adoption is not for everyone, particular users with specialized requirements (advance spreadsheet utilization, graphic arts).
- Transactional users represent a primary target of only 40% of the organizations sampled.
For Linux to be cost effective anywhere it must be preceded, by technical staff and help desk staff adoption. In my experience it takes most competent Windows oriented staff 6-12 months before they comfortable with Linux and more importantly problem solving in Linux. Training counts, but real experiences matter more. Thus, to realize savings in non-Development, non-IT Operations areas, any serious roll-out must be preceded by the Help Desk and those who back-up the Help Desk by at least a year.
The biggest surprise of the study, at least for me, is the lack of more serious targeting of transactional users. This is the obvious Linux desktop target audience, at least for me. The only rational reason for this is that there must be a lot more legacy applications out there that have not been web enabled or recast as new applications front-ended by Service Oriented Architecture applications. Of course, I’ve seen a lot of internal web applications that have never been tested on non-Internet Explorer browsers and that fail gloriously under Firefox.
I’ve spent time with various Linux desktops as my primary desktop (SuSE, Ubuntu) and I had two big problems with them. The desktop was not particularly ’snappy’. Ubuntu 9.04 has solved a lot of problems in this area. The second issue, particularly as a part-time road warrior, was that connecting onto hotel wireless networks can be a dicey proposition with Linux. I don’t blame this on Linux, rather I blame it on poorly coded/implemented infrastructure choices, but none the less it is a reality.
Which leads me to how I organize myself. Normally I have a Windows Laptop (currently Vista, perhaps the worst thought out operating system I have ever used) and a Linux desktop, for network management. When I am on the road, I also tend to carry a USB stick with a bootable Linux installed on it, just in case I have to do advanced network management from there and pray that I can connect using it.
Attempting to deploy Linux to advanced Excel users or PhotoShop users is a fruitless experience. OpenOffice Calc and Gimp simply do not cut it for these users. Personally I avoid word processors whenever I can, but when forced to, because I’m writing a complex document, OpenOffice does not have 100% compatibility with Word. Again I don’t blame this OpenOffice, but rather Microsoft, but again, it is a fact of life. When I need to run Windows applications on the Linux Desktop, I have found Wine usually covers about 90% of my needs.
Which leads me to the belief I’ve had ever since I had an OS/2 laptop.
Use the right tools for the job.
Development and IT Operations staff benefit from the use of Linux on the Desktop. The organization benefits by deploying Linux desktops to transactional users. Everybody else may benefit by sticking with Windows, and that’s OK.
May
27
A really nice tutorial for creating chroot Jails for non-trusted users who require file system access via ssh/scp/sftp on linux systems. It includes a well commented script.
May
27
May
27
New blog: Ubuntu to Support Google Android Apps #ubuntu http://bit.ly/mM1GK
May
27
New blog: Ubuntu to Support Google Android Apps #ubuntu http://bit.ly/mM1GK
