Remote desktop vs. remote display [LWN.net]

Remote desktop vs. remote display

Posted Feb 25, 2013 23:03 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313)
In reply to: Remote desktop vs. remote display by Cyberax
Parent article: LCA: The ways of Wayland

I am not doing this from the point of view of 'my company has kernel hackers...' first off, you don't have any idea what my company is, let alone what they do or don't do.

But I am saying that I have seen companies do this. I and my friends have had contracts to support small companies running Linux, and we can do wonders remotely without a lot of effort.

You have also shouted down a person who runs their entire company on Linux.

You are "I'm speaking from a (bitter) personal experience of actual
migrations". guess what, we are also speaking from personal experience of actual companies.

Yes, migration is harder than starting with Linux, by that logic we need to give up doing anything. By definition, we aren't going to be the first, default experience in any new space we start moving into.

But--- We weren't first in the mobile space, in the server space, or in the embedded space. In all of those spaces we faced similar problems with entrenched market leaders, but in all of those spaces Linux is becoming dominant.

By your exact same logic, Apple faces a hopeless task and should just go out of business, but they are actually gaining market share in the desktop/business environment. This actually helps Linux in these same environments because it does break the mindset that the windows way is the only way to do things.

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Remote desktop vs. remote display

Posted Feb 26, 2013 0:03 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

>But I am saying that I have seen companies do this. I and my friends have had contracts to support small companies running Linux, and we can do wonders remotely without a lot of effort.
So can Windows admins. Remoting works just fine for Windows (using RDP, TeamViewer, Gotomypc, RAdmin and a plethora of other technologies).

> You have also shouted down a person who runs their entire company on Linux.
I also run my entire company on Linux (and now also on Mac OS X). Not a big deal if you know what you're doing.

You don't seem to get it, but Windows doesn't actually require anybody who knows what they're doing. You can get acceptable results by using barely trained monkeys (aka MCSEs). Microsoft spend literally tens of billions of dollars to make it work good enough.

> But--- We weren't first in the mobile space, in the server space, or in the embedded space. In all of those spaces we faced similar problems with entrenched market leaders, but in all of those spaces Linux is becoming dominant.
Embedded devices usually do a single well-defined function and are designed by specialists who know what they're doing. Server side is actually similar - Linux wins in specialized markets (like webhosting) and in markets where qualified professionals are available (like Google infrastructure). But Windows servers rule the small-to-medium business market.

> By your exact same logic, Apple faces a hopeless task and should just go out of business, but they are actually gaining market share in the desktop/business environment. This actually helps Linux in these same environments because it does break the mindset that the windows way is the only way to do things.
Apple has its own small niche on desktop. They are content to remain in it. Their main growth engine is iDevices where they quite famously win because they try to keep things simple for end-users, even they don't have as much features and flexibility as competitors.

Remote desktop vs. remote display

Posted Feb 26, 2013 10:39 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

But--- We weren't first in the server space,

Yes, we were. Linux replaced UNIX in server space, not Windows. It's [relatively] easy to switch from UNIX to Linux and [relatively] hard to switch from UNIX to Windows. Microsoft has much, much, MUCH better success with server then Linux has with desktop.

in the embedded space

Yes, we were first there, too. Before Linux embedded space was filled with homebrew solutions thus when they outgrew that stage Linux was an easy choice. The fact that most embedded space developers know how to alter config files and most embedded space users only deal with creations which don't expose configs cinched the deal.

in the mobile space,

Linux only managed to carve out some niche in mobile space when bunch of companies threw all that "our way or the highway" attitude and offered integration with Windows, MacOS, etc.