Desktop platforms Toolkit

Story: Microsoft stands firm in the 'great Linux debate'

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It is possible to buy laptops and PCs here in Germany now without an OS installed. You can't buy them at MediaMarkt and the like (equivalent to Dixons/PC World group), but you can buy them mail-order from PC specialists. The problem is, unless the hardware fails, you are on your own when Windows or Linux won't install properly - or you use the paid support lines from MS or your Linux vendor.

I have a mixed network: a Linux based firewall PCs running SuSE 9, Windows XP Pro and Windows 2000. I am pretty open to both camps. I use the SuSE as a print/file server and as a development platform for Web tools (Apache, PERL etc.) and I use Windows as a development platform for Visual Studio with some of my customers.

I am becoming less and less enchanted with Microsoft's vision at the moment. Especially when it comes to e-mail. If somebody can't say it in plain text, it probably isn't worth listening to... Why does it need HTML and embedded scripts?

But Linux isn't the perfect answer either. Its main problem at the moment is that the Linux market is fragmented. There isn't a standard distribution, it is getting closer. If I get myself certified, I get certified on SuSE or Red Hat, *not* Linux. It isn't so straight forward to switch between the different distributions. Some of the config files are standardised, but some vary. Reading an Administration guide to Linux there are caveats such as "If you are using distribution 1, the the file is /etc/xyz/xyz.conf, if you are using distrubtion 2, then it is /etc/servers/xyz/xyz.conf, and if you are using distribution 3, then the package is not loaded during the OS set-up and you will need to download it and manually install it and the config file will be under"/usr/xyz/xyz.conf."

The different distributions also have different formats for some of their config information.

Until this is standardised into a common whole, Linux will always be at a disadvantage. Unfortunately, this is one of the differentiating factors between the different distributions...

People are used to the Microsoft way of plug-in and go, with Linux, there is still a lot of configuration that needs to be done manually without a pretty graphical front-end (it is improving with each new release from the major distributions and third-party GUI config tools are available if you know where to find them and how to install them).

Linux as a server platform makes sense, depending on what services you need to run. As a desktop platform, it is great for the technically aware user or the company who has a fixed configuration for their users with custom software. But for the Joe Public, who doesn't know his SSL from his elbow, it needs more work.

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