As long as they use something that is widely known and easy to use, be it NSIS, InstallShield or MSI, it works for me. I prefer MSIs, due to how customizable they are, and how well they integrate with windows. MSIs are particularly powerful in an AD environment where you can distribute them to certain users and groups through group policy. I think that's cool. Of course, I also love linux's approach of centralized management, although it doesn't work as well for large-scale, AD-like systems.

Depends on the AD network..

I work with some tasks as LAN admin on a portion of this AD based WAN where I see how Ubuntu has definitively become the premier solution and people bother me a lot to also install it on their personal laptops.

Enough to say that during daytime a bit above 6000 machines are online at the same intranet structure and people are growing fed up of virus/security terror and Vista hogging that prefer a complete solution provided by Ubuntu for free.

It has style, can run windows tidy in a box and OpenOffice opens both the office 2003 and office 2007 files without the need to buy any additional licenses.

Ubuntu supports AD users without need to work exclusively from a Windows XP pro machine authenticated to the domain which is sort of cool as well.

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Don't really see much need for MSI functionality but Ubuntu is on a very popular rise here since people are getting much more demanding about working with both quality and style without need to buy new corporate licenses or even worry about prices since there is no need to get bleeding edge new hardware.

Had an occasional issue with sound drivers on somewhat rare hardware but I think that an admin does need to keep learning to see how these things are solved as life moves forward. I find the previous commentary that one needs to forget 20 years of Windows to learn Linux quite wrong unless you want to voluntarily limit yourself regarding what a computer can do.

I'm talking about grown people who want it because it's looks good (Compiz, etc) and works even better for their office and simple home tasks, nowhere interested in most cases about gaming. (grown up stuff I guess..)

I first used Slackware. I then tried Ubuntu and Fedora, since Slackware had no package repository worth mentioning. In Slackware, I don't use KDE so I leave out KDE packages. First I compile a new kernel, the nVidia driver will complain about the differences in the version of GCC used and not install otherwise, then I install GNOME from GSB or Dropline, then the video driver, then configure X to the correct resolutions and refresh rates.

You'd think Ubuntu or Fedora would make this easier on my laptop.. nope. For some reason those included kernels have problems with APIC, if it isn't disabled using noapic it would randomly freeze during setup, freeze during boot or if it made it past that there would be no video at the log in screen. But noapic caused problems with not being able to use USB. There were yet more kernel parameters to get the USB fixed while keeping APIC disabled, but those then caused all power management to stop working, which means no processor scaling, LCD dimming, or battery monitoring. I can fix the APIC problem and have full functionality by compiling a kernel from vanilla sources, but I am no better off than with Slackware: compile kernel, manually install nVidia driver, configure X.

Other than that, they're all generally unstable. There are still random freezes out of nowhere, some caused by the pcspkr module when an event triggers the system speaker.. the system speaker! It goes into an infinite loop beep of death and the system has to be reset. I'm not the only one with the pcspkr problem.

Also, I still prefer the "Windows way" of installing software. I get to say what gets installed, WHERE it gets installed, every library/dependency is generally included with the software, or whether or not I want shortcuts or which sub components I want. Even Windows versions of open source software are more customizable than their Linux counter-parts. I can update software immediately as it's available, instead of scanning social sites making a BFD about how a new version of "X" is FINALLY on repository "Y". Don't get me started on compiling.. ./configure may state missing dependencies that when attempting to track down and compile said dependencies may state yet the need for further dependencies.

I'd rather buy Vista than switch to Linux.

This post has been edited by redxii: Aug 6 2008, 06:15 PM

That clearly makes you the exception then. I have yet to see a single Linux box as a desktop, anywhere, in any corporate network, ever. I find it pretty hard to believe that even...

People want Ubuntu because Compiz Fusion is shiny. But that's where the love story ends. They'll eventually be fed up of s**t not working (unless they're part of that 1% with well supported devices).

OOo might be free, but from a usability standpoint, or if you look at the speed, or features past the very basics (e.g. pivot tables) then you realize it's really only worth their asking price (also, it'll open the documents, but typically mangle the formatting) Besides, OOo and such aren't even even a reason to use Linux in the first place, as it runs on any platform.

Your only savings here, is the Windows licenses themselves (which you'd already have on a corporate network anyways, so nothing saved there even), which you're STILL paying for, but in the form of time wasted instead (unless your time is worth nothing, that is).

As for "security terror", I'm not even sure what you're saying. That's a TOTAL non-issue in a corporate environment (assuming you have competent admins). As for home users, if they go out of their way to: not patch their box, use IE, run as an admin, click on everything blindly and opening those weird attachments (like freepr0n.jpg.exe) from total strangers in their email and all that... Seriously, you can't even blame Windows for those things. That'd be like blaming the car manufacturer when you get an accident when you're not doing any maintenance on your car (no brakes left), driving above the speed limits and disregarding any road signs.

I've been there. It's all nice (the eye candy anyways), until a distro upgrade screws things up, or that you tire of hardware not working, or tire of being stuck with sub-par imitations of windows apps, or apps you want but just can't run.

redxii: I think that sums it up pretty good. That scenario looks a LOT more realistic. An awful LOT of work to just try to get the basic stuff working, crashes and all that.

This post has been edited by crahak: Aug 7 2008, 03:45 AM

Well, what if you already HAVE the computer? Is it a crime to expect it to WORK? I for one wouldn't buy a new machine just to run Linux. For me Linux on desktops = mini distros, nothing more. A way of speeding up slower hardware that doesn't need to do many tasks.



The 32-bit version is more compatible indeed, however it's slow as poop. You'll know when you switch to 64-bit. Btw, 64-bit will work just fine on 2GB RAM...

Honestly, what features in Vista do you actually use?

This post has been edited by Th3_uN1Qu3: Aug 7 2008, 05:28 AM

I guess you believe it because thats what you like to hear. I mean after all, the name of this community is "Microsoft Software Forum Network".



That crashing and noapic thing sounds more like f***d up hardware/BIOS. Since, as we agreed before, the vendors dont care about linux, especially if you buy low-cost they just dont have the time to 'waste'. And in some magazines when they test laptops/notebooks, most of the time linux has problems with power-management for example, the reason are broken ACPI tables that the Intel DSDT compiler will spit out because of the errors. (after all, they were one of those who created ACPI, so they should know whats right).

More like "because that's about the extent of things I've tried to get some boxes working". Honestly I've tried it, a lot, and I wanted to like it. And it does for sure have some nice things (Compiz Fusion -- eye candy, some nice repositories, etc).

Personally I don't tend to blame the hardware for crashes & power management problems, when it's a fairly common issue in Linux, and that them boxes run 100% fine under Windows. I think it's just yet another excuse, and it doesn't solve the problem, nor makes Linux more usable product as a desktop OS on the said boxes...

BTW, I'm not a a linux hater either, I still use it for a lot of things (actually I'm currently running vmshrink on a Linux VM/appliance). I just gave up on using it as a desktop OS.

This post has been edited by crahak: Aug 7 2008, 05:56 AM

It wasn't an overnight change. Took nearly 2 years to gain a reputation and reasons to promote this shift.

First started with a light learning process to install, teach and motivate users to use Firefox instead of Internet explorer. Since we use a http proxy to get online, the advice was using firefox configured with proxy to get on the internet and keep using IE for intranet navigation.

At the time we also started recommending or installing other alternatives to the common office tools:

Adobe Acrobat Reader --> FoxIt PDF reader (free, smaller and faster to start up)
WinRAR / WinZIP --> TugZip (free, no nags)
Nero Burning ROM --> ImgBurn / CDburnerXP (free, smaller sized)

Shift to OpenOffice proved much more difficult as OpenOffice at the time was no match for MS Office in terms of usuability so users kept using Microsoft Office 2003.

------------------------

Later, with the appearance of Office 2007 and the new default standard format of DOCX, XLSX rendered panic when people who moved to the new and shiny Office version made their documents at home and carried them over to work only to be surprised with format complications.

For some reason I never got around to succeed in installing by default the addon support for Office 2003 but it was never really something to bother much about as a very important discussion took place.

If Microsoft had decided to push this new proprietary format and this would without doubt force all thousands of working hosts on our network to also support this new format it was seen as something that would bring nothing good except for a lot of hassle to make everything work again.

OpenOffice had matured a lot and presented itself as the solution to overcome this monopoly that risked documents to be hostage of a company that could change the rules as they wish. Some feeling of revolution took place and machines with Office quickly began being replaced with OpenOffice.

This time home users were invited to install OpenOffice at the personal laptops and this ensured that documents produced by open office would be perfectly readable at home and this solution came absolutely for free. (if you don't account the man time required to proceed with these changes but we'd be left stuck doing them the same for Office 2003 / 2007 compatibility)

Lots of issues and complaints that MS office .DOC documents looked fuzzy under OpenOffice but after passing the initial lazyness to create new templates that looked good under open office this was never again an issue.

Outlook replaced with thunderbird or default webmail component from the Exchange server and only the Powerpoint replacement from OpenOffice is not as good as the MS one but still good enough for simple presentations.

-----------

Final stone was throwed with the launch of Vista.

New laptop owners complained about a sluggy Vista system when compared to older OS's and asked to upgrade them to XP but for the most cases, the manufacturers don't even launch XP compatible drivers anymore.

Viruses didn't stop with the introduction of UAC as their surfing habits remained much of the same and also the widespread of USB based viruses ruined a lot of machines as AV's didn't really knew how to deal with this threat (our corporate AV is very old)

We also started upgrading servers to 8Gb machines with Quad core as default and even there Vista still seems awfully bloated and slow regarding the amount of resources provided so it gained no popularity amongst system admins and regular users here.

Ubuntu came as a natural evolution and eventually began being requested by users who already knew this OS or used Mac's at home.

Word spread quickly because these new users were quite proud to showcase their shiny new OS all "pimped up" and working much alike we've already been doing with the popular Office apps like OpenOffice and Firefox that a mass of users were now demanding to also have a better OS as replacement to the "boring" XP one which only brought them pain and hassle.

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No fuzz, there are always hardware issues but after configuring a machine I rarely saw any reason to spend any time with it as they are virtually perfect for intranet work where permissions are inforced and users aren't capable of ruining the machine with their traditional work habits (let them visit all the sites they wish or spread around windows viruses on pendisks that this no longer affects these machines)

I read a lot of posts about people who try multiple OS distributions and don't like but how many of them actually forced themselves to find solutions for their issues?

Most of these who even work as administrators quit but those who do endure and succeed get a good feeling of confidence, eventually learn much more and are able to work with both OS's which make them far more valuable as system/network administrators rather than being limited to just working with MS.

Don't know how other Windows based networks are doing their stuff but I do notice more companies moving onto similar procedures as it drastically reduces the need for acquiring commercial products (such as Windows, Office, AV's, etc) and allows to use the internal employed staff to completely control how their machines are expected to work.

While the new formats are proprietary, they've always been proprietary (from the very start), and every new version introduced a new version of it. And just like before, the new documents are a pain to use with the older versions. Seriously, it changed *nothing* at all to the big picture.

The Office licensing costs aren't low, that's for sure. As for the interface change, it sure takes time to adapt. I think it's a nicer interface in some ways, but when you've used the old one for over 10 years and that you knew precisely where everything was, yeah, it takes a while before you know where every advanced option is again.

As for your documents being hostage (might be fun trying to open them again in 20 years) that's completely true, like for any proprietary format. That's the case with most applications we use really. And OOXML (the standard) is absolute garbage, I'll be first to admit that.

But I think OOo is still missing an awful lot of features (most apps are pretty bad compared to Office 2003 IMO), not to mention it's "missing" some apps altogether (e.g. OneNote, Outlook, etc). It's going to be a long while before it has everything we need unfortunately.


Seriously, if Vista is slow on that, then you're certainly doing something wrong. It's just as fast as XP on a dual core with 2GB.

As for XP being "boring" yeah. A 7 year old OS is kinda stale in the eye candy department. And that's probably my biggest issue with Vista. It REALLY failed to deliver something anywhere near what Compiz Fusion does, even on a $100 vid card. Aero & Aero Glass is a sad joke. Where's my viewports? (no need to mention virtuawin or such buggy garbage) Where's all the wicked nice things like the Expo plugin? The zoom? The various shifters (ring, shift, etc -- Flip3D sucks)? etc. Vista TOTALLY failed to bring in a desktop environment anywhere near as good as Linux's, and it also failed to deliver eye candy (Aero Glass? meh. The only special thing about it is it's semi-transparent glass that looks quite awful)

What I would like personally, is Vista + Compiz Fusion, but unfortunately that'll never happen.

Linux is a great desktop environment, but not being stable on a lot of boxes, not supporting a fair amount of hardware, and not running Windows apps for which there are no equivalents, it's not really an option for a lot of people as a desktop OS.

@ Nuno Brito: I like Ubuntu. However it would be too slow for my laptop in sig. You'd say a 933MHz PIII and 512MB RAM would be enough, well, it should, but with the s***ty memory bandwidth of that ALi chipset, no.

Also, i'm a gamer, and even the simple games that my laptop can run (i mainly use it for internet and watching movies, but i do play a little something or other), have tons of issues under Wine. Some adventure games get fixed by installing the M$ Core Fonts, but...
Take something as simple as Ricochet Infinity which has no trouble running under windoze even on really old computers. In Wine, Ricochet's mouse cursor, and the ball, leave flickering trails. Now which one of the thousand blinking balls is the real one??? It's this kind of "casual" games that are played by just about everybody who has a computer. They should be supported by Wine on any kind of hardware that is able to run it under windoze.



Yes, but Office 97 documents still open in Office 2003. And if you don't use very advanced functions of Office, OOo does fine. It's been doing a fine job for me in the last two years.



Here you have your problem. With 8GB RAM and a quad core, do you consider it "normal" for Vista to be the same speed as XP on a computer with 4x less RAM and a cheap dual? I DON'T.



Sadly i have to agree with all you said here.

This post has been edited by Th3_uN1Qu3: Aug 7 2008, 07:26 AM

Actually, that's probably the break-even point in a lot of cases. I find XP runs a LOT quicker than say, Ubuntu on 256MB of RAM (especially noticeable in VMs).


You misinterpreted what I said. I said Vista runs as fast as XP on a dual core with 2GB. And I can't see it being any slower than XP on a monster box like that.

and you know what a lot of people blame if any version of Windows BSODs?
1.) it's third-party software/driver whatever.
2.) Hardware issues (memory, hdd, you name it)

So why is it an excuse when it comes to linux?

In windows' case, the drivers are always made by the OEM, not so in Linux's case. And it's sold specifically for use with Windows (that "for windows" logo on the box), with drivers for Windows on the CD that you can also get from their website (usually no Linux drivers on either). ATI never promised me that my card would work under any minority OS ever, so when it doesn't, can I really blame them? If they fail to deliver on their promises (of having Windows working fine with their stuff), then it certainly is their fault. Plus, in Windows' case, you can almost always get an updated & working (non-crashing) version of their drivers (because if they didn't have any, they'd quickly be out of business). Whereas on Linux, if the set of drivers don't work with your vid card or such, you're pretty much SOL.

Also, Microsoft (whoever is making the OS) is also doing a lot of work towards