[KLUG Members] Lindows

[Adam Williams]

>> It has a fair listing of open source software that comes with the
>> system.  Good or bad, they do not use the click to run stuff that you
>> have to pay for.  In my classroom I recommend Lycoris for anyone that
>> is looking to "get started" with Linux as a newbie with no
>> experience.  
>Maybe for a home user, or like you say, to "get started". But in a corporate
>world, is Lycoris up to the challenge? I can see managing 6,000+ desktops with
>Ximian Red Carpet, but I've not heard of Lycoris before. In a corporate world,
>Red Hat and Suse seem pretty safe bets for manageability and vendor support.

AFAIK, there is still nothing like even "authconfig" on any distros other 
than RedHat or SuSe (Debian is talking about making one,  but I sense 
religious fervor about a couple niggling issues might hang that up for 
awhile).  Of course, once you make a "master" PC you never need to run 
something like authconfig again (hopefull), but it does serve as an 
indicator of where each distro's focus is.  And Red Carpet offers things 
like autopull, etc... where you can just select updates and WHAM do 
everybody (assuming of course that the desktops are turned on, which is 
always a problem).

>In the context of the Lindows discussion, I'm curious to see how their
>Click-n-Run might work on a larger scale for workstation management. Instead of
>reimaging a PC, if our frontline people can pop a CD in, reinstall the OS
>completely in 8 minutes, then go to an "aisle" to get the standard software,
>that might be cool for a lab. I also want to see how auto updating works (if at
>all). 

Sounds like you want kudzu.  Create a "master" install, boot the CD, the 
clients build themselves, using the selected packages etc... with no 
intervention.