Stephen Gran on 19 Jan 2008 16:34:56 -0800


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Re: [PLUG] One True OS


On Sat, Jan 19, 2008 at 07:25:34PM -0500, W. Chris Shank said:
> > But given that you are doing it, it seems in your best interest to
> > make your own life a little easier and use an OS that is actually
> > administerable.
> 
> Have you actually ever administered someone else's Linux desktop
> remotely. It's not the same as a Linux server. You need to "see" their
> problem, just like on Windows. See how you feel after spending a half
> day trying to get your clients new HP MFC to do network scanning in a
> way that is even begins to approach what they were able to do with
> Windows 98.

Yes I have, and I agree, it's painful to do remote desktop support for
any OS.  So, given that the pain is about the same ...

> Desktop Linux is no easier to administer than Desktop Windows. Both
> are fairly straightforward if you spend the time to get things setup
> right before it hits the users desk.

Here I disagree (kind of).  There are expensive tools for doing things
in Windows that you can do freely on Linux platforms, and you also get
the benefit of being able to customize to your particular set of
circumstances, instead of just the options the authors of Ghost thought
useful.  I agree that Windows can be made managable with a sane set up
policy and strictly enforced security policies, but from my (admittedly,
now slightly dated) experiences with it, it has always been harder to
admin than any other OS I've had to work with.  The lack of debugging
tools alone puts it at the bottom of my list of recommended choices when
considering deployments.
-- 
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|  Stephen Gran                  | Politicians should read science         |
|  steve@lobefin.net             | fiction, not westerns and detective     |
|  http://www.lobefin.net/~steve | stories.   -- Arthur C. Clarke          |
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