Bridging Unix and Windows At NASA 293
slashdotess writes "Information Week reports: "About a year ago, Patrick McCartney, a Johnson Center project manager, created a Linux desktop environment that could also run government-mandated Microsoft apps. This let his team of 30 engineers continue to program in a Unixlike environment and create Word documents and Outlook E-mail all on the same PC. This mixed-use scenario is slowly taking hold, encouraged by a growing number of applications for running Linux on PC desktops." Score another one for Linux on the Desktop."
OS X... (Score:2, Troll)
Ben
Re:OS X... (Score:2, Interesting)
OS X sysadmin costs less. hardware easier to maint (Score:2)
I've seen this phenomena too many times. a site has a zillion pc techs and 1 mac tech. rather than conclude the obvioust that PCs need higher levels of support they usually vote to go to a single PC platform, and the poor single mac tech is outvoted.
Re:OS X... (Score:4, Insightful)
Bear in mind that the "government-mandated Microsoft apps" are not just Word/Office.
Re:OS X... (Score:3, Interesting)
Better multimedia performance?
A simpler GUI?
Proprietary crap masquerading as open source?
This is NASA. These are scientists and mathematicians and people that are smarter than the average visual basic programmer that think that the success of the computer is by slapping on as much meaningless cruft as possible! People that have been using mainframes for years. Scientists.
What does the average mac advocate usually present as the case for the mac since the release of OS X? "It's Unix! Really! We think so! We never use the terminal because we've got crap like iTunes and iMovie and iChat and iBlow! These are innovative apps that aren't at all like winamp, xmms, windows media player, gqmpeg, the numerous windows apps that get bundled with hardware (ulead), broadcast 2k, or any of the players like mplayer, xine, videolan, etc. These are innovative! They've got skins! Just like all those others, but it's got Quartz and displaypdf. We don't know what it does, but damn, does it sound cool! Don't you want to be cool? I've got a TiBook. I'm cool. Some teenage girl on allergy meds says I'm cool. Isn't that what computing is about?"
Ok, so I've gone way overboard into the land of flamebait. But still, why are all the people that claimed any technical merit a year or so ago now collectively creaming their jeans over eyecandy and pretending it to be the greatest contribution to the advancement of technology ever?
My problem with OS X is that it presents so little to the core while trying to slap on a pretty facade. They failed on both accounts. I find aqua to be pretty darn ugly, and beneath the whitewash, nothing that would make me shell out the money to move away from LinuxPPC on the same hardware.
-transiit
Re:OS X... (Score:2, Interesting)
That's kind of strange because my terminal is about always open, often in an SSH to one of my *BSD boxen. You want to know what was the selling point for a Mac for me? It was (and still is) OS X, I don't have to use the mess that Windows is, but I don't have the hassle of managing a Linux system. (I prefer BSD anyway) I may not be a typical Mac OS X user, and you will never hear me say "it comes bundled with flashy apps" because I hate that, you'll never hear me say a Mac is faster because it's not. I couldn't care less about "displayPDF", and I know only about displayPDF because I read it on slashdot: I guess the "standard" Mac user doesn't know and doesn't care.
No, you're right. Your comment was flamebait. If you don't like Macs, buy yourself a Dell with bloated XP and shut up. Besides, you claim to run LinuxPPC. Okay, that is very 31337, I have reserved a 5 Gig partition for it on my iBook. Yet strangely enough I am very satisfied with what OS X offers. LinuxPPC... I'll think about it when my iBook cannot cope OS XI, or I could just stick with OS X 10.1.5 as I do now.
Re:OS X... (Score:2, Insightful)
First, you've already shot yourself down by talking about how great OS X is, without stating a single thing that makes you stick with it...even if you do claim to agree that much of the flash isn't very useful.
Second, you've confirmed my assertion that the console/terminal (and thus the layer that most closely resembles unix) is largely unused by stating that you mostly use it to shell into another box.
Third, this was never about windows. I don't use it either.
Fourth, you pull the standard bsd bullshit of "managing linux is hard". I'll give the BSD's credit that they may have a lead on security over linux. (What's that motto? OpenBSD: less than a year without a remote root exploit?) However, the BSD's also cripple themselves by maintaining an "avoid the GPL" mindset and would rather maintain their own userland. I, on the other hand, enjoy what the GNU versions provide. I also won't budge on the utility of Debian's "apt" or Gentoo's "emerge". Even as a diehard slackware user, I'll still give apt the overall thumbs-up when it comes to maintaining a large number of machines.
Finally, you say the apple hardware is slower, that you hate the apps os x bundles, and yet you still paid more. Congratulations. You have achieved a higher level of consumerism.
-transiit
Re:OS X... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are happy with Linux, fine. Some of us are happier with OS X. Accept it.
The way you react it sounds like you are threatened by OS X. Hopefully that isn't the case - Linux needs people willing to extend it beyond just bitching about the other operating systems out there.
By the way, I use the terminal for a large amount of my work - I'm a Java developer. Java on OS X is better integrated than on any other OS. The development environment (Project Builder) is superb. The fact that I have all the usual Unix utilities is great. The machine just works - I don't need to mess with configuration unless I want to. And I like the iApps - I run iCal, I run iTunes, I sync with iSync, and I've used iMovie on occasions to put together some home videos.
Perhaps the apps don't appeal to you. That's fine. But you can hardly call them crap - they are far superior than the offerings on Linux. Hey, I used to develop on Linux. I've been a Unix developer for over 10 years - I moved on to something I find superior. Deal with it.
You really need to calm down and realise that not everyone thinks like you. Some people are going to find they work better on OS X.
Re:OS X... (Score:2)
Too many times have I seen obvious bullshit such as "I used Linux for 5 years, and I used to hack in the kernel, but then I saw the icons on Mac OS X and it is so much better for development and now all I need my computer for is iMovie"
Or "I used to use solaris, but now I've got OS X and it's so much better for everything!", from the same people that used to post nothing but pro-Beos comments.
'The Best System for the Job' is indeed a noble goal, but I find a distinct lack of statement as to what's really all that great about OS X. Before you get into how 'pretty' it is, let me immediately exclude things that really don't apply for many developers: icons. consistency in look and feel. any of the "i-" apps. anti-aliasing.
When I'm coding, I tend to have several xterms open with my text editor of choice (joe), manpages, and top. That's about it, so all I really need of a GUI is to leave me plenty of screen real estate. So tell me, what can OS X do better for me?
-transiit
Here ya go... (Score:2)
$999 with 6-hour battery life.
Switch away.
Re:OS X... (Score:2)
Re:OS X... (Score:2)
OpenSSH vulnerability. Posted June 26.
The 7 years slogan no longer stands.
Re:OS X... (Score:2)
I actually do not think this is the case. FreeBSD ships with gcc and supports dozens of GPL userland applications through packages, ports and a Linux compatability module. gcc is the default compiler under many BSD systems. Linux also includes a fair number of BSD-licensed userland utilities with most distributions.
So I'm not seeing an "avoid the GPL" mindset (and I've spent the last half hour actively looking for evidence of it.) There are advantages to having all of the core system under the same license, a sentiment also expressed by RMS in regards to non-GPL parts of the Linux kernel.
Re:OS X... (Score:2)
Please, Please, never, ever, say that again.
You don't code HTML. There is no coding there.
Re:OS X... (Score:2)
Apple sells hardware to a broad base of consumers. Although they may advertise the Unix angle to the geek community to attract developers, that's the last thing they ought to do to generate sales elsewhere. The Unix toolset is, and will always remain, of little interest and use to the mainstream computer user.
Re:OS X... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or run XWin-32, eXceed, or even VNC on ordinary PCs and share a large Unix machine? This is by far the best way to do things; rather than putting a Unix workstation on each desk, buy one much more powerful machine and share it among 30 people. For interactive use, from the machine's perspective, all users have a lot of idle time, whether between keypresses, or while reading what's on screen, etc. By sharing one powerful machine, everyone gets far more peak performance than a workstation can give them, for example for a compile, while getting the same processing power when averaged throughout the day because it's unlikely that all 30 users would want peak performance at the same time.
In such an environment, you just want the PC to run Word and Outlook, and be an X terminal for everything else. What they've done at NASA gives them no real advantage.
Re:OS X... (Score:2)
Just want to chime in on something here;
If you folks haven't tried the Cygwin XWindow server you really need to give it a shot. I use it at home running xdmcp on my linux box (tucked away down in the basement) and can use Linux from any of my kids machines or my wireless laptop. It's incredibly useful - I would imagine even more so in an office setting.
Re:OS X... (Score:2)
Sure, MacOSX looks great in a demo and feels great the first 2 hours you use it. But after that time all the nifty animations just get in your way and slow you down. But that of course is just my opinion. Yes I did try Jaguar.
Re:OS X... (Score:2)
NASA and the Mac (Score:3, Funny)
Re:OS X... (Score:2)
Re:OS X... (Score:2)
Advice of Unix geeks trying out a mac (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The Mouse.
Go buy a 3 button USB mouse. Make sure you get an optical mouse with a wheel. Buy the most expensive one you can. Heriditary mac users prefer a 1 button mouse, but you wont.
2. The Terminal.
Open
3. File system journaling
Open the terminal.app and type
sudo diskutil enableJournal
Just do it. This can be undone and you can change how you want it later.
4. The Compiler
Regardless of what compiler you prefer, you need the native compiler and libs. Go to
http://developer.lanl.gov and register for free. Enter the site and select the downloads option. Scroll through the list till you find "developer tools", download and install it.
5. Installing GNU ports part 1.
Goto http://sourceforge.com and find the latest stable release of "fink" for mac os X. download and install it. There will be some questions to answer, just choose the defaults except if offered, ask it to get updates from CVS.
6. Install X-windows part 1
If you have 5 hours to you can wait, type in the terminal
fink install xfree86-rootless
this is preferred as it gets the latest release of a fast changing package.
If you are in a hurry you can install the binary.
Type
sudo dselect
Quick intro to dselect: after some preliminaries you are offered the chance to choose packages from a list. Use the down-arrow key to move down and find xfree86-rootless.
Press the + key to select it. You will be offered "conflict resolution": accept the defaults by pressing return. Then return again to exit the selection. DO NOT GET GREEDY and select other packages yet. Finish the installation.
7. Installing X-windows part 2: the window manager
You may prefer fvwm2 or some other window manager but take my advice and try out oroborus first. Oroborus does things the mac way, and later you will be glad you did even if its not familiar at first. Oroborus deliberately eschews many popular features, letting the OS provide those services. For example, if you want virtual screens you DO NOT want them as part of the windows manager! You want them as part of Aqua so that they apply to both aqua and to x-windows. Likewise you want the Dock to manage minimizing windows not the window manager.
Go to http://apple.com click the OSX tab, then the downloads tab and find oroborus.
Note: the oroborus that comes with Fink/dselect is not quite the same thing.
8. Installing GNU ports part 2.
Use dselect or fink to install a few packages. Fink has about 2000 packages available including your favorite parts of kde and gnome. To see what's avalaible type
fink list | more
just for practice try installing gv (ghost view) and xemacs.
Remember, dselect will install binaries (fast), and fink will install source (slow), generally dselect is a good idea. Once a month type "fink update-all" or update packages in dselect.
9. Text editor
Goto http://www.barebones.com and get a free copy of bbedit "lite". I recommend buying the full version, especially to geeks. Note that you can save files in unix/mac/PC formats which have different end of line characters. Despite the name, on a mac you should normally use unix format. Mac mode is mainly for historic reasons but gums up unix commands. Even if this (amazingly) does not turn out to be your preferred editor, you should install it anyhow so that it is there for guests.
10. Mounting network disks
You can mount NFS disks by creating a file that looks just like the usual
In the finder window, select go>servers. In the text field type
nfs://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/hostpath
Where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the ip address or domain name of the host with the disk, and
To mount windows network disks we use
smb://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/path
Be nice and unmount your disks (throw them in the trash) before disconnecting from the net.
11. using X windows across the network.
All the usual stuff (like xhosts and DISPLAY) works as expected. However you do need to activate oroborus (which will fire up X-windows) since its not on by default. However, before you do this let me suggest an alternative you may find better. Goto http://apple.com and on the osx downloads page locate VNCdimension (or VNCthing) and install this application. On the X windows client, run vncserver. And on the mac attatch to it using VNC dimension. On anything but the fastest network connection you will find this smoother and faster than using x-windows. Plus its more secure and even runs through firewalls. At present much of X-windows on the mac is not graphics accelerated, but VNC dimension which runs in aqua is.
12. Shortcuts worth knowing about
On your unix machine to run netscape you type
on a mac you type
open
to open the file browser at the current working directory type
open . (note the period)
to open a web page type
open http://macosxhints.com
13. Pitfalls
There are few pitfalls in the file system you need to know about early on.
First be careful with cp,mv,rsync, and tar. For 99.9% of the time they work as expected. But a lot of mac applications and mac documents store info in something called the "resource fork" of a file. Unix files only have a single data fork. Mac files have a data and a resource fork. The data fork is the same as what you would see on the unix system. The resource fork can contain almost anything, but usually contains unimportant meta-information about the file itself like what app created it, and so on. But sometimes it contains crucial information (e.g quicken).
When you do a unix cp or mv or tar all you get are the data forks. The rule of thumb is this: if your file can be used by a unix program then dont worry about the resource fork. Most modern mac apps do not use the resource fork but older ones do.
Second, mac filenames are case-insensitive but case preserving. Thus ReadME and readme are the same file.
Third, unfortunately, for backwards compatibility there are two different kinds of soft links on a mac. One is the usual unix soft link and the other is the "alias" function of the OS. The OS is smart enough to recognize the unix links and treat them as file aliases in the GUI. But the reverse is not true. Generally you are better off using the unix soft links.
Fourth, macs have three layers of file permissions where unix has one. Macs have the usual unix permissions. Plus there is an ability to lock a file against changes or deletion, and finally there is the ability to lock a file against modification even by root. generally you wont ever need either of the latter two, but you may someday find a file you cant seem to delete! just in case, the normal file lock is accessed via "get info"
Fifth, fstab, exports, shadowpassword, passwd, and most unix configs don't work the way you expect. Use the admin tools to alter netinfo configuration data. (see root below)
14. Thinking mac-like.
First off you never need to touch the other mouse buttons outside of x-windows. Second, try to adopt apple applications where they exist to replace you current favorites. For example, use the mail.app instead of pine or Eudora. Sure these have nice features, but long term apple apps will stay more tightly integrated: for example, mail.app links to addressbook which links to iCal. Third, Chill-out dude. Macs force you to do things a certain ways with warning dialog boxes or focus-on-click windows. These are not worse than other ways, and long term you will come to see the benefits from the cross-application uniformity of operations. Unmount disks, especially network disks, by tossing them in the trash. (you may want to add an eject button to the finder menu)
15. Viruses, Worms, holes, etc...
Regularly use the software update feature. Bugs get patched quickly. Historically, the only security holes you must stay on top of are Microsoft Internet Explorer holes, Microsoft Entourage/outlook holes, and Microsoft macro viruses. Don't bother worrying about anything else till you worry about these. Many people use Chimera for this reason.
16. Root
If you read just one book try "mac OS X for unix geeks", most other books aren't for you because they are trying to explain unix to mac-heads. Avoid using root when you can use an admin tool or sudo instead. Apple has not fully document root admin, so stick with tools. Except don't ever play with netinfo manager or niload until you have a lot of experience, as there is no faster way to make your mac unbootable.
17. Goodies
There are virtual window managers at mac OSX downloads.
Try out Watson at http://www.karelia.com/watson/
Microsoft office X is a great program even if it is made by Microsoft.
Scientific plotting: You may like Igor from wavemtrics.com since it has both command line and menu driven interface. Fink comes with R, Octave and Gnu-plot. Mathematicians may prefer mathematica.
If you have a powerbook, put the dock on the left and make it small.
Turn off autostart on OS 9.0
Discover iTunes.
Consider a mac.com account
Read http://macosxhints.com
Re:Advice of Unix geeks trying out a mac (Score:2)
you have to install all packages from source from now, and compile fink, and use cvs-selfupdate.
Lea
Re:OS X... (Score:3, Insightful)
At which point, microsoft will immediately make some undocumented change to hte APIs that will break it all.
Even if this were not the case, running MS apps on Linux still gives money to MS and puts your data in their closed formats. MS apps on Linux (or any other freee OS) is a non-starter in my book - I'd much prefer to see the brains spent on WINE used in native apps instead.
Score another for Linux? Not. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Score another for Linux? Not. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Score another for Linux? Not. (Score:2)
Using crossover is easier than convincing all of your software vendors to port products.
Re:Score another for Linux? Not. (Score:5, Insightful)
So while you make a good point, it doesn't seem to be Nasa that you need to make your argument to. The problem sounds like it's upstream somewhere, and that itself is a huge problem: why is the federal government forcing its employees to use the software of a tried, convicted, and... well completely unpunished abusive monopoly? Don't take your aggression out on the people that came up with this hack, point it at their bosses & their bosses' bosses, who told them that this is what they have to do.
Re:More MS bashing for fark's sake?! (Score:2)
In any case, if you want good and/or patient support, perhaps you should pay for it rather than using others' valuable free time on public IRC channels, if the free support isn't living up to your expectations.
Also, you haven't any proof that these are actual developers who have harassed you or caused whatever bad experiences you had. It could just as easily have been some 13-year-old jumping into an IRC channel for some fun, acting all l33t, pissing you off to the point of frustration, and then getting kicked later when an op shows up.
Crossover plugins (Score:5, Informative)
Bottom line: They didn't do anything special.
Re:Crossover plugins (Score:2)
That sums up alright. When I saw the line About a year ago, Patrick McCartney, a Johnson Center project manager, created a Linux desktop environment... I couldn't believe it for a moment. Single person, that too a manager, creating an environment. Phew! sounded some work!
Re:Crossover plugins (Score:2)
Creating the illusion of something happening. (Score:2)
Re:Creating the illusion of something happening. (Score:2)
So are you saying that Linux is vaporware? I'm talking about the illusion of the acceptance of the technology.
Re:Creating the illusion of something happening. (Score:2)
Leave the FUD, vapor, and marketing-by-'illusion' to the corporate droids. No need for it here.
Re:Crossover plugins (Score:2)
The fact that an office in a bureaucracy like Nasa is taking steps to streamline IT costs and create a more efficient PC environment is something special.
A minor correction (Score:2)
How much progress is this really? (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO, you will find that, in scientific and academic establishments, un*x and Linux are used a lot, because that's what they have been working with for a long time, and that's where the programming languages are free. If the academics could have their way, a lot of universities would be running Linux already on all their desktop PCs. What? They are? Well, that'll be due to the fact that Linux is now more than passable as an OS for your everyday user.
There's a difference, though, between university students and academics running Linux, and your average office secretary running Linux. It's a difference which I think will still take a long time to erode.
Re:How much progress is this really? (Score:2)
Systems that were previously running Solaris were going to be converted to mswindows,development had even started to take place to convert them. However with Linux now seeing growth; windows is being dropped as servers and Linux is taking its place. While this has caused problems with delay it is all for the better.
Progress on the Inside (Score:2)
As someone else pointed out - a group moving from another Unix platform to Linux is a group not moving to Windows. I know that there are other Unix environments even within the Directorate that McCartney works that moved from HP/UX and Solaris to WinNT / 2K. Despite the engineer's preferences. Cheap hardware is a strong draw for management. Linux provides a link between the preferred Unix (or unix-like) environment and commodity hardware pricing.
It might also be worth mentioning that the more Linux is used, the more the JSC / NASA environment becomes used to seeing Linux. And once they're familiar with it, they're much more likely to accept it as a solution. Old biases against "freeware" fade. And "Microsoft" is no longer the knee-jerk response to any form of IT question.
Finally, you have to consider the internal politics within JSC's IT environment. JSC was, at the direction of CIO Jack Garman, heavily Microsoft centric. The great exodus of Mac workstations [houstonspacesociety.org] was due to this policy. As was the slow shift away from Unix to WinNT. Today, JSC is still widely Microsoft centric. The "requirement" mentioned has more to do with the need to handle certain Microsoft protocols and data formats for day-to-day office automation than specific policy. The fact that Linux solutions are being implemented shows that the old single-vendor mentality is no longer the guiding force within JSC. And that's a win for Linux... and everyone else. Except, perhaps, Microsoft.
Re:How much progress is this really? (Score:2)
Indeed. Linux is at least as big a threat to Sun as it is to Microsoft. Probably a lot more.
Re:How much progress is this really? (Score:2)
Couldn't you already do this (Score:3, Informative)
Is this just an example of it's implementation or have they added something new?
There Using Crossover Office (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There Using Crossover Office (Score:2)
I tough that Sun was still in court to force MS to include Java. Is the case already over?
Re:There Using Crossover Office (Score:2)
I'm a satisfied Plugin customer, so I tried Crossover Office when they announced Visio capability. I had to ask for my money back, as it was only able to install Visio after several manual steps and an unofficial upgrade, and then was unable to display complex diagrams properly or edit simple diagrams without crashing.
VMWare with Win98 and Visio2000 as the only apps in it is fast, responsive, and troublefree. I mount my home directory via a private samba server and use host-only networking so Windows can't see the Internet -- so no patching, no worries, no problems. It may cost more in terms of licensing and RAM than Crossover, but the value is there.
my home setup (Score:2)
VPC with XP on OSX was just unacceptable for windows coding and gaming, henc my current setup. I like the UNIXness and Macness but I have to (well, had to) do Windows programming.
See...... (Score:5, Funny)
Hybrids (Score:2, Insightful)
Incedently, Star Wars AOTC was half done on Windows and half on Linux Machines. ILM ended up shifting completely from Windows to Linux.
I've made a beginning by installing my Windows fonts on Linux. Makes life MUCH easier.
They kept the worst demons... (Score:5, Insightful)
Open Office is a great office environment that meets all my needs and I have yet to meet someone that genuinely *NEEDS* anything that Word has, that OO does not (I have met some that claim they do but it always turns out that they really mean that once in the past 2 years they once had a situation that would have been easier with Word). I use Evolution instead of Outlook and it is even as good at eye candy. It does every thing and more that I was using Outlook for. The only think Outlook does better is spread virii.
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:3, Interesting)
Well the asinine installation program that for some god unknown reason needs to 'configure' itself everytime you look at it the wrong way or some other user logs onto the computer helps keep me employed... =) (yes, blah we just made a custom
FOR GODS SAKE WHY WHY WHY DOES MSOFFICE NEED TO FSCKING CONFIGURE ITSELF? WHY CAN"T IT JUST BE INSTALLED LIKE EVERY OTHER FSCKING APPLICATION? WHY GOD WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY WHY?
Sorry. See what I mean?
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:2)
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:2)
Frankly, the most annoying part of that install procedure is one user who every month or two ends up having that "install" process start over - for no apparent reason. He just logs into the system in the morning, fires up Outlook, and bam, time to reinstall!
So then Outlook forgets the server name, so then he calls me, and I'm none too happy to be bothered with asinine problems before I've put some caffeine in me.
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/defau
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:2, Insightful)
Office has become some severe bloatware, but in it's younger years (office 95 std), it wasn't too shabby at all. Gave all the functionality that you needed plus the macro abilities which were strong enough to do things like importing an address book from excel/access and producing mass-mailers for churches and businesses alike (put anti-church sentiment elsewhere, not the topic of this thread.) I firmly believe that if you were to model an office suite from 95 and make different improvements like easier wizards and such, that would be the killer app. Word has become more of a page-layout software than the word processor it began as.
Also, far too many people rely on Access instead of a relational db, but there must be some merit there that could be improved upon for a x-platform solution. I mean, we have db4 databases, why not slap an easy to use gui on the front? (If there's such a system that exists, I'm unaware of it so please list it in a reply.)
OpenOffice is a pretty great piece of work, and hopefully it can be tweaked to fix that niche that is the business desktop. I believe that another type of Email client, however, is really going to be necessary before the masses will accept it.
Many people still say that Linux can never fill the desktop market.
I don't believe that at all, but the large-profile companies (RH, Mandrake, Caldera) need to stop stripping the common desktop tools and include a distribution that gives the user the power that they have on current Windows boxen. Aside from not having a true DirectX equiv. (would be a HUGE bonus), they need to include packages like a video media player that covers ALL formats (including QT/Real/DivX) instead of having to download 10 different packages and compile them all (IN order, otherwise you lack features.. bloody mess), and provide a viewer that is intuitive enough for "Joe Bob" to use. He can already use Win Media, so make something as easy, but can play more formats (insert obligatory mpeg-2 + ogg plug here). Also, put the mp3 libs back in! XMMS is nice, but dangit, I wanna play both mp3's AND ogg's.
Businesses are slowly accepting Linux, but it's my belief that still some things must be changed before it can hit mainstream. The power is there and the apps are coming close. We just need to tighten the reigns and pull it all together.
[NOTE] I have tried multiple times to build a new email client, but to no avail. I've never been any good at layout and past attempts prove it. However, I'm gonna still plug at it until I or someone else gets it right.
Reliability (Score:2)
It's amazing watching Windows users get their first taste of reliability ... and realise what sort of crap they've been putting up with all this time, and that they don't have to any more.
Key marketing point for Unix over Windows: A STABLE, RELIABLE DESKTOP. That doesn't fall over once a day.
Re:Reliability (Score:2)
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:5, Insightful)
Reliability has always been one thing that Microsoft could never deliver and that is something they have gained and I can agree with them all the way on this.
Really? I can't remember the last time I had Outlook or Word (2000 and XP) actually crash, and I use 'em both every day. The 2000 line of products is a huge leap over the 95 line (which I will agree were pretty crap).
Microsoft do have some unreliable products still - IIS and Exchange spring immediately to mind. But a lot of their stuff now is rock solid. I can honestly say that in the last couple of years I've had more Xemacs crashes than Word.
I know that you can try to lock them out but you never really succeed.
You can turn off VBA with a couple of clicks. Now do you want to talk about buffer overruns in sendmail and named?
I use Evolution instead of Outlook and it is even as good at eye candy. It does every thing and more that I was using Outlook for. The only think Outlook does better is spread virii.
As a straight mail client, Outlook as some competition from Open Source, but for groupware Open Source doesn't have anything to compare.
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:2)
See, this is the problem right there. It should be the other way around. You should have to turn *on* VBA with a couple of clicks. It's kind of like saying that RedHat 6.2 was secure once you turned everything off...
There's almost no reason to have this in an e-mail client at all anyway, except for viruses and spam. This feature is nothing less than a huge blinking neon sign attracting ne'er-do-wells to your front door, and Microsoft was too stupid to see that putting it up would be a hugely bad idea. Oddly enough, they keep up the good work.
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:2)
Well, remember that Outlook and Exchange were always intended to be more than just a mail client and server, they are meant to be a platform for developing groupware and workflow applications. The scripting support is there so you can send validation logic along with a form, for example.
Microsoft historically have always prioritized features over everything else, but now they are waking up to security. I agree that they are long overdue. But I guess it was just one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time - and probably was a good idea on a LAN without an Internet connection - and once customers started using it, they had to keep it.
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:2)
I was originally going to disagree with the parent, but this is more to the point. I've been using 2000 since it came out in one form or another (at home at first, now only at work), and while I am not a huge fan, it's stable enough. It does crash, but reasonably rarely (disgregarding shoddy 3D games, which you can't really blame the OS for), in any case no more often than KDE and X.
XP is another story all together. It was preinstalled on a laptop I bought recently, and I've had nothing but problems with it. Crashed several times in the month I've had it (might be an improvement for 9X users, I guess...), their wireless config utility makes wireless networking damn near unusable, and it has taken being patronizing to the levels of a fine art form... Office XP is nice though.
Anyway, it's gone now and replaced with 2K. Incidentally, the laptop isn't for myself, I personally am getting a PowerBook :)
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:2)
Why should the OS let an unhandled exception in a userland app crash the entire box? Bad design decision.
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:2)
Many of these crashes are because the games rely on device drivers for graphics speed. Because Windows uses a monolithic kernel, every driver has the ability to crash the system.
Linux has the same architecture. If it ever got to be a huge gaming platform you'd see the same problems there.
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:2)
Laughable that you would try to compare the billions of dollars in damage, yes billions, that MS desktop products cause as opposed to some SERVER daemons that aren't even installed on most linux desktops. His statement about viruses was correct, yours was in basketball terms a brick. Good try though, event he best MS lemming couldn't have put forth a better effort.
http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,
This post brought to you by Nimda, Codred, Bugbear,Sircam,Love bug, and Klez.
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:2)
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:2)
I could not replace Excel in my environment. You can not write a USEFUL financial application on OO. Yes, you can actually create apps on excel. BTW, locking virii out also disables those cool apps as they are mostly macro on MS (though few new macro virus get written)
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:2)
Re:They kept the worst demons... (Score:2)
The document format dance has pretty well ended though -- at least until the next version of Office is released. Office '97 and 2000 use the same formats (AFAIK) and nearly everyone has moved to them by now.
Of course, if the court ruling actually sticks and MS has to open its document formats then it's a non-issue, and we'll finally have real competition -- both in the OSS and closed source arenas. Hallelujah.
Government wasting taxpayer money (Score:2)
Re:Government ?wasting? taxpayer money (Score:3, Informative)
Computers go down at the Board of Education. People can't access budget, students grades, or profile records. Wait until the system comes back up or is restored from backup. It's just annoying since there are no REALLY necessary deadlines outside of payroll.
Computers go down at the office. Sales can't work on/give presentations to clients, customer information can't be retrieved (think ISP or Credit card processor), or quarterly reports can't be completed for stockholders/banks. This can cost a company a TON of money, clients could leave to find another place of business, etc. (Imagine needing the IRS to look up your information to make sure your extension was filed lest you be fined/go to jail.)
Keep in mind, swapping an office or group of offices takes a TON of time. Normally there are a number of in-house applications that would have to be re-written AND heavily tested before they could be implemented (think of the MEGS of VB source that would have to be ported to perl/php/java). In the gov't, MOST applications are custom-written, many by contracted companies, so the gov't doesn't necessarily have the source to it. Then there is retraining of employees to use the new office/email applications, and the meer re-install of EVERYone's machines from Win to Linux where you hope that all the needed hardware is supported (which has gotten SO much better in the past 3 years.)
It's a daunting task, and can be VERY costly in man-hours to do such a task. If nothing else, the down-time upon switching over and the performance curve while everyone learns the new applications.
I agree in the sense that I'd LOVE to see M$ no longer in the gov't offices, but I also realize what it would entail to switch everything over.
Re:Government ?wasting? taxpayer money (Score:3, Insightful)
Baloney. Schools run on tighter schedules than most businesses. Try telling a parent that you can't get out a transcript for an application deadline, or a student they can'r get the records they need for a financial aid application.
Re:Government wasting taxpayer money (Score:2, Insightful)
score one for linux? (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I think this is more a score for microsoft, being able to market their proprietary products to more people.
Mandate standards not Apps (Score:2, Insightful)
Hybrids are good for linux. (Score:3, Interesting)
Kjella
Re:Hybrids are good for linux. (Score:3, Insightful)
>exist or get ported to linux.
Exactly.
In big companies, people often spend a lot of time using a terminal emulator to access mainframe applications from their Windows desktop. Old apps don't disappear/get replaced overnight.
Score another one for Linux on the Desktop ? (Score:2, Funny)
NASA and Government Waste, and Free Software (Score:4, Insightful)
1. If NASA says GNULinux administrations costs are too high, think again---surely all these Unix gurus can administer thier own systems little support needed.
2. If NASA says that MS Office Formats are required for standard file formatted documents accross the organization, think again----surely the entire organization switching to OpenOffice.org is a much better way to ENSURE future standardization without upgrade costs.
3. IF NASA says that MS OUTLOOK is needed to standardize email ---- sticking to open and standard protocols as opposed to proprietary and costly protocols is surely the best way to standardization.
4. IF NASA management says that they liked the MS PowerPointless presentation, they probably did, and they probably believed all the points that MS made to them during the presentation. Which explains why we have a GOVERNMENT organization still running PROPRIETARY software and forcing thier users to use MICROSOFT when they don't want to!
5. If NASA made it a REQUIREMENT that ALL of its vendors communicate using OPEN and NON-PROPRIETARY FILE FORMATS as a REQUIREMENT FOR DOING BUSINESS, THEY WOULD!
6. If you told your senator what you think, than you did the right thing. If you did not, than you can blame no one but yourself when GNULinux is OUTLAWED and a copy of PALADIUM is REQUIRED to VOTE.
Get the letters out to the senators folks.
Re:NASA and Government Waste, and Free Software (Score:2)
Yes, because it's a good idea to have your people wasting time on system administration instead of doing what they need to do. And yes, this applies just as much to Windows, OS-X, or any other system -- it's why you have sysadmin groups in the first place. And, frankly, it's generally cheaper to admin Unix than NT since you need fewer people for more boxes.
IF NASA says that MS OUTLOOK is needed to standardize email ---- sticking to open and standard protocols as opposed to proprietary and costly protocols is surely the best way to standardization.
No, because you save money in time. Look, the greatest expense any large company has is not capital expenditures -- it's payroll. There is no equivalent to Outlook in the open source world. There are very few equivalents in the commercial software arena, and there's a reason that Outlook is beating them. Notes, whatever Sun is offering now, Novell -- they all require a lot more administration and hardware for little gain. Yes, you get stuck with Outlook. But the calendaring, email, tasklist, and so forth aren't as well integrated in any open source solution. I sincerely hope that changes, and soon, but until then all the people whining about Outlook are simply proving that they don't have a clue about what it does and what it offers to a medium-to-large company.
If NASA made it a REQUIREMENT that ALL of its vendors communicate using OPEN and NON-PROPRIETARY FILE FORMATS as a REQUIREMENT FOR DOING BUSINESS, THEY WOULD!
Not likely. NASA isn't stupid enough to make that kind of decree, nor is the DoD. Just take a look at the three biggest aerospace/military contractors - Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon. Oh heck, let's throw General Dynamics in there too. You aren't going to tell these four monsters to switch their entire computing platform -- yes, they need the business. But you also need them. If they told you to go screw yourself and your standards, who the hell are you going to get to replace them? There isn't anyone that can step in. Which is why any kind of standards like you talk about are fielded before the large defense/NASA contractors beforehand to make sure it doesn't cause too many problems. Yes, this is the real world. You may not like it, but it doesn't care about you.
Re:NASA and Government Waste, and Free Software (Score:2)
The problem with that is that all those NASA engineers are supposed to be working on aerospace stuff, not Linux stuff. That's why even technology companies have IT departments.
2. If NASA says that MS Office Formats are required for standard file formatted documents accross the organization, think again----surely the entire organization switching to OpenOffice.org is a much better way to ENSURE future standardization without upgrade costs.
At the incredibly expensive cost of converting all their existing documents to OpenOffice's format (you can't simply run them through the DOC filter, because it sucks), and retraining their clerical people to work with it. Not to mention the looming headache of interacting with other companies. I use OpenOffice myself at work to open the few DOC files that come across my desk as a progammer, and I've seen that it mangles the document beyond use just as often as it opens it in a legible format.
3. IF NASA says that MS OUTLOOK is needed to standardize email ---- sticking to open and standard protocols as opposed to proprietary and costly protocols is surely the best way to standardization.
People don't use Outlook for the email, they use it for the groupware. And open source has nothing that can hold a candle to Outlook's groupware functionality.
4. IF NASA management says that they liked the MS PowerPointless presentation, they probably did, and they probably believed all the points that MS made to them during the presentation. Which explains why we have a GOVERNMENT organization still running PROPRIETARY software and forcing thier users to use MICROSOFT when they don't want to!
And the Government also drives automobiles built on proprietary technologies by General Motors and Ford. And they also fly fighter jets built on proprietary technologies by Lockheed Martin and Boeing. What's your point? There's no historical precedent that states that everything the Government uses needs to be in the public domain, or that every piece of data the Government works with needs to be open to public inspection. (In fact, I'm sure the people at Area 51 or Cheyenne Mountain would strongly disagree on that point.)
5. If NASA made it a REQUIREMENT that ALL of its vendors communicate using OPEN and NON-PROPRIETARY FILE FORMATS as a REQUIREMENT FOR DOING BUSINESS, THEY WOULD!
I'm sure NASA picks its battles, and I don't think using one word processor over another is worth throwing down the gauntlet over. Users simply do not care whether it's Office or OpenOffice. Go ahead and imagine that in words with alternate capitalization if that helps.
6. If you told your senator what you think, than you did the right thing. If you did not, than you can blame no one but yourself when GNULinux is OUTLAWED and a copy of PALADIUM is REQUIRED to VOTE.
Slippery slope theory and pure FUD. You're stretching for things to rant about by this point, apparently.
Windows Terminal Services on OS X (Score:2)
Now I use my iBook for all MS Office tasks, web programming is done in BBEdit and HTML layouts in Dreamweaver MX. Whenever I need to do something on a SQL Server or configuration of IIS I can use the Remote Desktop Client and use terminal services to do whatever I need to do.
I also tried XP on Virtual PC 6 but found it horribly slow on the iBook. Terminal server will do for now until we phase out IIS and SQL Server and bring up php and MySQL.
Slowly does it (Score:2, Insightful)
Now if only... (Score:5, Funny)
Linux kills Unix Vendors (Score:2, Interesting)
The Johnson Center has also been able to replace a $1.6 million SGI Inc. mainframe server with a cluster of 12 PCs running Red Hat Linux for developing simulation software. The PCs were a $25,000 investment, less than half the cost of annual maintenance on the SGI server.
1.6 Million with a 50,000 dollar a year maintenance fee and yetOSX: The swiss army knife of OSs (Score:2, Insightful)
Thought I'd chip in with my experience under OS X.
I'm currently using it to drive applications which were originally written for UNIX, Mac, and Windows. I use excel for mac, OSX mail client, iTunes, etc... For all my pretty boring day-to-day stuff.
If I need to do something which I used to do on my linux box, I just fire up the same application. XFree86 is just an apt-get away thanks to fink. So... I run lyx, latex, xchat, etc this way. I just launch apps from apple's terminal because it has superb integration with the surrounding OS. The XFree86 applications integrate fairly seamlessly with the surrounding UI, including minimising to the dock, etc.
For the very very few applications which I require a windows machine for, I run virtual PC with Win2K. I use my CAD package (Protel DXP) this way.
Furthermore, I can use rdesktop to access remote terminal servers if I wish.
I run all this on a Titanium Powerbook (1GHz).
Honestly, its the most painless computer I've ever used. I've got everything set up in about a tenth the time I would with a Linux box. Apple has done a great job of a scaleable OS. If you're a power user, it has the back-end there to allow you to do all the same stuff you would on a linux box... If you're like my mother (to whom I had to point out the power button several times), it also works very well (I've given her my old computer and she's thrilled!).
I paid a lot for this thing, but its definitely been worth it. Apple just makes a better product.
Have fun!
Dave.
Evolution is NOT the answer (Score:5, Informative)
A little background here first, I use Linux on my desktop, laptop, servers, to run my business, for video editing, etc. I've been pretty much a Linux only user since about 1995. I installed one of the first slackware versions sometime in 1993 or so. Suffice to say I know Linux very well.
Anyone who says Ximian Evolution is an answer for Outlook is sorely mistaken. These are people who obviously saw some screenshots and said wow, native Linux app and it looks just as good as Outlook. Or these are people who fired it up once or twice, sent a couple of emails and never really used the app on a continous basis.
Well I can tell you I use Evolution every single day, and I have since pre 1.0. I would be embarrased for myself or anyone who tried to pass off Evolution as being more stable (or feature packed) than MS Outlook. Evolution crashes constantly, and I usually find myself killing and restarting it at least 5 times a day, every day (combining the at home and at work restarts).
For email, Mozilla is still light years ahead in stability and speed, as well as having more features that I need and use daily.
I am currently using the Evolution 1.2.1, fresh from Ximian.com and although it is better than 1.2, it still is riddled with bugs and everyday crashes. The biggest fix in 1.2.1 is that LDAP finally works, but it still has a bug.
Topping the list of bugs for me is:
- Pressing Send/Receive button at any time for any reason will certainly hang the application. It will not receive any mail on it's own after that.
- LDAP support can not seem to remember that my LDAP server is anonmyous. It only remembers passwords, not non-passwords or the lack of a password. Prompts me everytime for an LDAP password and there is none!
- Can not search recursively in IMAP folders. Mozilla has done this since a really long time ago. In my year 2000 folder I have another 12 folders, one for each month. In Evolution I have to search each one since there is no recursive search. Mozilla does this by default.
- Good luck getting a working calendar server for Evolution other than MS Exchange server.
- Slow, slow, slow for what I use it for most, Email.
- Pre 1.2.1 versions did not even have working LDAP. I did a tcpdump and found the app was not even doing a bind to the LDAP server, it was simply trying to do the search without a bound handle to the server. I reported the bug and it was fixed in 1.2.1. Makes me wonder how it ever worked for any developer in the first place.
Don't get me wrong, I will continue to use Evolution, crossing my fingers that it will get better (it will), but for people who compare such a young, crash-ridden application to high quality commercial offerings just shows overzealous ignorance.--Aaron
Re: Evolution is NOT the answer (Score:2)
Re:Evolution is NOT the answer (Score:2)
Just a little background: My desktop OS is Redhat 8. I dual boot into XP on extremely rare occasions. Mainly when I'm at LAN parties. The other 98% of my PC usage is linux. My Evolution usage is simply as a pop3 email client. I have a few filters set up to keep my inbox clear from the mailing lists I'm on. I use the tasks and calendar a fair bit, and I have about 21 contacts. Mostly just friends that I keep in touch with on a fairly infrequent basis, so having something remember their phone #s and addresses for me is helpful.
I must agree with you that Evolution is no outlook replacement. It doesn't have the backend that outlook has. (Not just Exchange, but the services configuration where you can use local mail stores, or exchange mail stores, or pop3 and imap mailboxes.) Keep in mind though, that outlook was not the first iteration of Microsoft's groupware client. I still remember the original Exchange client. Also, you should note that Outlook/Exchange is not the best groupware out there by far. I remember using Netscape's groupware solution a while back, and it kicked the shit out of Outlook by a long shot. Simply the ability to look at someone elses calendar without them specifically giving you permissions to do so was a life saver. You could even create events on your calendar requesting the presence of others, and they would recieve notifications that they were requested at an event, and they could mark whether they would or would not be able to attend, or if they were undecided. Events could even require resources, like conference rooms, projectors, and other material items of which you only had a limited number. On top of that, the whole thing ran off Netscape's LDAP directory server, so you could easily query against it with in-house custom applications. And yes, it still had a web access frontend available, just like Exchange. (And the client only needed to be installed once, and never had to configure itself again for new users, unlike outlook.)
I believe what we really need is not an Outlook clone, but rather a brand new groupware system that takes the best of each existing system. All it needs is a solid backend and a stable client (absolutely a windows version and a web version, preferably a native linux version as well). I know that is a lot to ask, but features are just features, not requirements. Make it simple. Make it just work at first, then add replication and the other bells and whistles.
I knew NASA had budget problems (Score:2)
Re:Why outlook? (Score:2)
Re:Why outlook? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why outlook? (Score:2)
Because Outlook is used for other things besides sending and receiving e-mail. If my boss sends me a meeting invitation, and I click Accept, I get a reminder popup 15 minutes before the meeting. I want other people on my team to be able to see certain e-mails, so I set up a rule to filter them into a folder with a few clicks of the mouse (the rule is stored server-side, not client-side, so it works when I'm offline), then I share that folder so each member of my team has access to it - maybe read-only access, maybe full read/write, depending on what I need - but they can't access the rest of my mail at all.
There are other ways of doing these things, and there are plenty of features in Outlook that I never use, but this stuff only works if everybody is doing it the same way, so you have to standardize on something, and Outlook is the existing standard. Managers love it. Try training a manager to set up appointments with something other than Outlook. They won't be happy.
Re:Why outlook? And office? (Score:2)
You are wrong, sort of. For the home user there are equivalents. However, there are some major functions of both apps that businesses feel they can not give up. The funny thing is, I work in such a business and I have yet to see those features used. Sometimes I think if we would just modify the KDE menu's K to a "start button" then everybody would be able to use Linux.
Right....like if I replaced the yoke in an airplane with a steering wheel, we would all be pilots.
Re:No hacking required (Score:2)
It's so slow that it can barely run CDE
Re:Use Linux-only (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember, most users are no more interested in their computers than they are in their televisions. They just want them to do what they want them to do in the way they're used to doing that.
Re:Use Linux-only (Score:2)
I wish my television did what I want it to...
Total Cost of Switching Often Ignored (Score:2)
Because of the gap in understanding between management and its IT staff (sustained, in many cases, I think, by mutual disdain for the other's profession), management often buys into new software that provides little or no improvemen.
How long has there been a gov. mandate? (Score:2)
Most importantly, considering the court-recognized status of MS, shouldn't Federal dollars not be spent in supporting a monopoly?
So the I in CIO is (Score:2)
Ignorant?
Imbecile?
Indefensible?
In Microsoft's pocket?