Mandriva moves in on business Linux desktop (DesktopLinux) [LWN.net]

Mandriva moves in on business Linux desktop (DesktopLinux)

Posted Mar 12, 2007 18:49 UTC (Mon) by superstoned (subscriber, #33164)
Parent article: Mandriva moves in on business Linux desktop (DesktopLinux)

I must say this sounds like an impressive corporate desktop. Might be a
real contender to the grip Red Hat and Novell seem to have on the
corporate desktop...

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Mandriva moves in on business Linux desktop (DesktopLinux)

Posted Mar 12, 2007 20:58 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

The first one to get off their rear ends and makes a contender for Windows XP and Active Desktop integration wins.

The other day I saw somebody asking on a forum about he was given the go ahead to replace Windows and Active Directory at his work (smaller business, dozen or so desktops at most).

The requirements were central authentication with 'shared drives'. He didn't know a whole lot about Linux, just like he didn't know a whole lot about Windows (which of course didn't stop him from being able to run a Windows domain)

What do you tell him?

He thought stateless Linux sounded ok.

I told him his other options were either to fling himself into OpenLDAP and the dozens of small configurations and choices he would have to get right in order for it to work well.
or
Paying for Novell's small business offerings.

Neither were that appealing.

Is stateless Linux 'there' enough for use by a normal person in a business environment?

The centralized authnentication and directory services are pretty much the base requirement for a business desktop, even for very small companies.

Directory services.

Posted Mar 13, 2007 13:47 UTC (Tue) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

I told him his other options were either to fling himself into OpenLDAP and the dozens of small configurations and choices he would have to get right in order for it to work well.

A couple of years ago the Linux Journal ran a tutorial series on setting up OpenLDAP. It did look a bit daunting (I havent tried it in practice). But it also looked like a task where a well-designed configuration tool (a "wizard") might solve the problem at least for most small organizations. If there isn't one (is there?) it sure looks like a good opportunity for an aspiring open-source programmer.

Directory services.

Posted Mar 15, 2007 4:18 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

I did some more thing about this and it seems that SAMBA will probably be the ones that end up coming up with a usefull solution.

Their SAMBA 4 stuff should end up using Kerberos and other such things integrated to more accurately emulate Windows AD. Plus it should increase performance for Linux-to-Linux.

Now I don't like the idea of aping Microsoft and I like the idea of having seperate smaller services rather then a monolythic Samba-provided solution, but if it works then it works. And if it's easier to use then it's easier to use, and in this situation that is what is most important.

Plus the world still uses Windows and any sort of Linux deployment is going to have to take at least a couple Windows machines into account. And this is a very important considuration. So irregardless of what you are going to do you'd have to end up using Samba anyways.

So I can see Samba 4 as potionally being very good alternative for Linux for the sort of functionality that people have gotten comfortable with with Windows-based domains. Even if it's just Linux-only.

If anybody sees anything increadably ignorant in anything I said or something very wrong with my thought proccess with this I'd realy like to know.