[KLUG Members] Lindows

[Tony Gettig]

Adam Williams wrote:
>>I was at a conference for K-12 technology folks this past week and one 
>>of the sessions was on Lindows.
> 
> 
> Excellent, at least Open Source got a mention.

Open Source got a LOT of mentions, both at presentations and in casual 
conversation.

> 
>>Anyways, the interaction in the room was great with a lot of good 
>>questions and answers. The presenter had tried Mandrake, Red Hat, and 
>>other distros, but from an "end user" perspective, was most impressed 
>>with Lindows.
> 
> 
> Was he being serious?  May glances at Lindows have using resulting in a
> case of spontaneous wincing.

He was very serious and given his scenario, it might just work. I work 
for a much larger district, so there will be different challenges. For a 
fat client, it doesn't seem too bad.

...

> 
> Does it actually come with usable software this time?  OO, Gnucash,
> etc...  Last time it seemed you needed to pay the click-n-run game to
> get anything resembling a workable box.  Ximian & Red Carpet can do that
> for free.

It comes with OO, not sure about others. I need to check that out closer.

...

>>My biggest beef with Lindows is the cost. It looks like you can install 
>>and run it without buying the "Click-n-Run" thing, but it's nearly 
>>usable without it.
> 
> Nice to hear.

Actually, what I meant to type was "it's nearly un-usable without it". 
Sorry, bad spot for a typo. In production, I don't see how it would be 
very useful without a subscription. :(

>> But then again, for businesses (in my case, school 
>>districts) that can't seem to understand the word "free" and feel 
>>compelled to somehow buy a software license, they apparently have very 
>>attractive pricing for K-12. One gentleman in the room bought a site (or 
>>district?) license for $500 for one year. That is, he can install 
>>Lindows on as many PC's as he wants for that price. I am going to look 
>>into the details of this as I understand the pricing may have gotten 
>>better over the summer. Again, I think this is nutty, but if an 
>>attractive price will satisfy bean counters who think if it's free it 
>>can't be good, then great!
> 
> 
> Red Carpet enterprise offers the same sort of site license thing, I've
> never checked the pricing, I'm just an Express customer ($99 per annum).

I'm waiting to see if that is something we can possibly add to our SLA 
with Novell next year.

Which reminds me, I talked to a Novell engineer and tossed out my 
prediction that all the user desktop prefs on a Ximian desktop would 
eventually be stored in the directory and he just smiled and did not 
disagree. He didn't confirm it either, but it seemed like I might have 
hit on something...

And it seems they have an internal program at Novell called "cold 
turkey" where employees can switch to a Linux desltop "cold turkey". 
This particular engineer had done such. Even some of the top brass at 
Novell are switching. That was interesting to hear.

>>Yes, I would agree with many that say there are security issues with 
>>Lindows, such as being able to have no root password, but I think it can 
>>probably be secured for an enterprise by a knowledgeable administrator type.
> 
> 
> I think all you have to do is create a user account and it starts to
> operate "normally"

I'm not so sure. For instance, the OO prefs still pointed to /root/My 
Documents for the "tony" user I created. AND I seemed to have at least 
read rights to it...

>>Side note: a lot of school districts in Michigan are Novell shops. I 
>>mentioned that Novell was presenting 10/21 at KLUG and gave the website 
>>url. There seemed to be quite a bit of interest! 
> 
> 
> Excellent.
> 
> 
>>One gentleman asked if 
>>the event could be videotaped (he's up near Mt. Pleasant).
> 
> 
> Hmmm, I can ask Novell.  Sometimes corporations are funny about such
> things.

I think I'll just forward him Ralph's excellent meeting summary notes. :)

>>Overall, I caught a LOT of positive Linux talk at this conference. Very 
>>encouraging indeed! And Lindows seems to have somewhat of a future in at 
>>least a few school districts in Michigan.
> 
> 
> Wow, thats so different from the impression we get from the outside
> looking in.  

I talked to an admin type from the UP and it appears that M$ is the 
exception up there. K12-LTSP in the labs, Linux in the classroom, and he 
gives Red Hat CD's to kids to take home so they can install it. But when 
you have diddly for a budget, and things are going to get tighter yet 
this school year, Linux makes great sense.

> 
> 
>>Tony "nevermind jigdo, just get me the iso" Gettig
> 
> 
> I don't even know what a jigdo is.

It is debian's method for distributing iso images. I finally got all 7 
downloaded tonight. Whew!

Tony