Desktop platforms Toolkit

Story: Longhorn and the Linux long-game

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For everyone's arguements the facts still stand for themselves. You may purchase Server 2003 w/ 50 user licenses for around $650.00. Alternatively you may purchase Redhat Linux for around $39.99 which can be configured many different ways, and possesses unlimited user licensing.

Here's another fact, if you do an upgrade install of ANY OS and you neglect to backup you files and software until after upgrading. Then you're practically begging for trouble there junior.

How about this hubbub about thin client deployment? For fast client deployment the best way is to install your clients through a network. Speedy deployment relies equally on hardware as it does on software. For example; if your network consists of using 802.11b wireless you have a total throughput of 54Mbps and a range of 30 feet before requiring a repeater. Now regardless of what client type you're deploying, you will not deploy faster using 802.11b than someone using 100BaseTX Ethernet using CAT 5 cable; 100BaseTX has a throughput of 100Mbps as well as a range of 100 meters before requiring a repeater.
As for the software portion of this rapid deployment hubbub. Why would you want to do fresh installs on every box in your business? Especially when you have applications such as Norton Ghost (or even better, a free open source equivilent) with which you can create a ghost image of an install, then deploy that image through your network thus deploying your clients in 10 minutes or less. Heck even using a LiveCD version of Linux will install even faster (less than 20 minutes) on the initial machine that you create your deployment image on.

Security is also another issue here, Longhorn has been stated to be more secure than Linux. Now if this were true would there already be pirated copies of Longhorn available in Maylasia? Furthermore, you may or may not know this but if you pay close attention to your Windows box via a third party firewall. There are applications that are inside of the Windows OS that continually attempt to access the Internet. These apps are attempting to contact an outside party (much in the same way as spyware) for God knows what reason... Longhorn as well as Windows Genuine Authentification (WGA) will make this spying process even more pronounced. Linux OSs don't have embedded applications that do that.

Bottom line here is look into the actual facts folks. Linux saves total cost of ownership, and is just as good if not superior to Windows.

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