Remote desktop vs. remote display
Remote desktop vs. remote display
Posted Feb 25, 2013 21:37 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313)In reply to: Remote desktop vs. remote display by Cyberax
Parent article: LCA: The ways of Wayland
Yes, many companies dig themselves a hole that makes it hard to change, but companies do this with webservers as well, and yet somehow they manage to make the 'horrible' switch from IE to Apache when they get large enough (not all companies switch, but those that don't serve as good object lessons to others as why they should switch)
Posted Feb 25, 2013 22:48 UTC (Mon)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (19 responses)
Having separate 'low level' admins is not really an option with Linux because these admins won't be able to do anything complicated. And doing back-and-forth between two departments leads only to frustration and pain. It's much easier for businesses to pay a couple of thousands dollars and get a Windows Server.
Guys, I'm speaking from a (bitter) personal experience of actual migrations. You're offering me basically anecdotes in the form of: "But my organization works fine! See, our employees are kernel developers and compile their own desktops from individual molecules using 3D-printers! So this workflow can definitely work for all Mom&Pop companies with 2 employees!"
Posted Feb 25, 2013 23:03 UTC (Mon)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (2 responses)
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
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.
Posted Feb 26, 2013 0:03 UTC (Tue)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link]
> You have also shouted down a person who runs their entire company on Linux.
> 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.
Posted Feb 26, 2013 10:39 UTC (Tue)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link]
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. 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. 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.
Posted Feb 25, 2013 23:49 UTC (Mon)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (15 responses)
You're only offering anecdotes claiming the contrary. That other people seem to succeed where you apparently don't could just as well be an indication that those people may be more competent at what they do, including dealing with problems.
I'm not doing this as my main day job (various colleagues of mine do), but in my experience supporting non-technical Linux users, actual reality is nowhere near as bleak as you make it seem.
Posted Feb 26, 2013 0:17 UTC (Tue)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (14 responses)
Microsoft offers complete solutions - not perfect, by any measure but still /complete/. Linux needs something that at least is just as good, and right now it doesn't seem possible on classic desktops.
> I'm not doing this as my main day job (various colleagues of mine do), but in my experience supporting non-technical Linux users, actual reality is nowhere near as bleak as you make it seem.
Posted Feb 26, 2013 1:39 UTC (Tue)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (13 responses)
You keep saying »it doesn't seem possible« when you should really be saying »I didn't manage to make it work«. Other people do manage that.
Who said anything about a migration? I support various people who started out on Linux. One person »migrated« from Mac OS 9 to Linux (where going to Windows would also have required expert assistance). With the one person I support who actually used Windows (XP) to begin with, the »migration« essentially amounted to copying a bunch of Office documents across to the new (Linux) computer and a couple of hours of »training«, i.e., about the same as one would have had to spend going from Windows XP to a new machine running Windows 7. All of these people are regular non-technical users (certainly not geeks in any way, shape, or form) who expect their computers to »just work« but even so they need very little hand-holding and they are perfectly happy with their Linux desktops.
Posted Feb 26, 2013 5:28 UTC (Tue)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (12 responses)
But that's exactly my point - an average admin/user CAN NOT do things that are possible with COTS software on Windows (or even with the built-in Windows functionality).
Have you ever wondered why Linux's traffic stats on popular website hover near 1% of the total? That's why.
> Who said anything about a migration? I support various people who started out on Linux.
Posted Feb 26, 2013 7:40 UTC (Tue)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (11 responses)
So? An average Linux admin/user can do loads of things with the content of a typical Linux distribution that are not possible (or, at least, not possible for people who are not Windows experts way above MCSE level and/or without very considerable expense) with Windows. That doesn't prove anything either way.
So what? It's still a large number of bodies. (On the other hand, there are way more people in the world who have never used Windows than there are people who have.)
Posted Feb 26, 2013 15:35 UTC (Tue)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (10 responses)
> So what? It's still a large number of bodies.
Posted Feb 26, 2013 16:01 UTC (Tue)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (9 responses)
You bet they will, if you use them to do stuff in half an hour that takes the Excel pushers half a day. Compare dskoll's experience thinking »out of the box«.
I had a great summer way back when I was a university student when I was the single Unix person in a Windows shop. They hired me for four weeks to come up with a program that would collect and aggregate router statistics via SNMP. It took me about four days to write the program in Tcl/Tk (including a GUI), and I basically spent the rest of the time testing and documenting it, doing other sundry stuff and reading Usenet news. Suddenly a lot of the people there became quite interested in Unix.
Posted Feb 26, 2013 16:48 UTC (Tue)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (8 responses)
For the most real businesses out there tasks that can be automated make a fairly small part of the workload. Having a better infrastructure - like storing documents in SVN or SharePoint instead of mailing them back-and-forth, gives SOME improvement but it almost never is decisive.
> Compare dskoll's experience thinking »out of the box«.
And they're right, you know. Do you care about the color of your stapler? What would you say if tomorrow somebody comes and says:
- Hey, we have this new paper-folding system that can replace your staplers! It can cut down on number of workplace injuries and speed up your document flow.
Posted Feb 26, 2013 18:25 UTC (Tue)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (7 responses)
It must be great to live in a dream world where you can claim what you want and are always right.
In the world I inhabit, many people are deeply interested in making their business more efficient – especially in the current economic climate where cost-cutting is all the rage. For our customers, using Linux more is a very viable option in this context, and my company and its siblings next door are doing very well helping them along this path (in various different ways).
You can insist until you're blue in the face that what we are doing every day is actually impossible, but money talks, so we shall simply have to agree to disagree.
Posted Feb 26, 2013 19:23 UTC (Tue)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (6 responses)
Probably. That's the world you live in, right? Yes, money talks and the plural of anecdote is not data. I just don't sure why we should agree to disagree. It's pretty clear by now that Linux is a failure on desktop: it's market share was kept basically the same in the last decade while MacOS grew from couple of percents to 7% worldwide and to above 20% is some countries (namely US). That's hard facts, when you ignore them you really look silly. Now, when we go from well-established facts to the possible explanations for these facts things become blurry. You may claim that the problems with config files don't matter — fine, we can agree to disagree. If you have another explanation for the Linux's failure. Do you have such an explanation? Just please keep in mind that for such explanation to be plausible it should work for Linux only, not for MacOS (which slowly but steadily grows especially in affluent countries and high price of the hardware nicely explains why it's a failure in poor countries). I'm just not sure why desktop discussions are so different. When Microsoft posted the infamous Mindcraft's Benchmark results Linux community responded in entirely sane way: first it become angry (because it mistakenly believed that back then Linux was clearly superior to Windows) иге then, after some time, it found the relevant problems and fixed them. Somehow "desktop story" is entirely different: when confronted with facts and possible explanations Linux enthusiasts claim that all the evidence which shows that Linux sucks on desktop is riddled, then they claim that everything is fine and we just need to continue do what we did for the last ten years and when confronted with facts that this strategy does not work they explain how that don't matter because 1% "it's still a large number of bodies". Why it's so hard to talk about these things rationally?
Posted Feb 26, 2013 19:59 UTC (Tue)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (5 responses)
Search me. It is patently obvious what the Linux community would have to do to make Linux more interesting on the desktop. Unfortunately the strategy in question is unlikely to fly with the people who would most have to cooperate to implement it, so it isn't going to happen unless a major miracle occurs first.
However, this does by no means imply (like Cyberax seems to believe) that Linux is completely useless on the desktop. There are fine Linux-based desktop systems which are great for non-technical (and especially for technical) users to get actual work done. It's just that these systems are not particularly popular, because the vast majority of users buys computers with a pre-installed operating system that, while inferior to Linux in various respects and superior in others, appears to serve these users well enough so they do not necessarily feel the need to install Linux instead.
The problem with this situation is that it is self-perpetuating as long as Microsoft essentially owns the PC manufacturers, who also don't want to jeopardise their Windows discounts (and preinstalled-junkware kickbacks) by pushing other OSes too hard. After all, even though it would be perfectly possible to market pre-installed Linux systems, selling Windows PCs is most of their business. This is unfortunate but not a reason to give up on desktop Linux altogether. I've been using Linux on my desktop for 20 years now and I don't intend to stop anytime soon.
Posted Feb 27, 2013 2:50 UTC (Wed)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (4 responses)
However, I'm claiming that Linux is a failure in the _general_ 'classic' desktop market for a variety of reasons. These reasons are certainly disputable but the failure is evident in the marketshare. You can argue until you're blue in the face, but that won't budge 1% share of Linux desktop at all.
From my personal experience - desktop Linux lacks an ecosystem around it (from third-party developers to cheap sysadmins).
>The problem with this situation is that it is self-perpetuating as long as Microsoft essentially owns the PC manufacturers.
Posted Feb 27, 2013 6:50 UTC (Wed)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (2 responses)
Possibly, but it certainly doesn't imply Windows is the better desktop OS.
I agree with you about the lack of an ecosystem, but on the other hand, even at 1% market-share, Linux does seem to be able to sustain itself on the desktop (and has done so for a couple of decades). It would sure be nice if it was more popular in the general community, but as I said this is unlikely to happen for a variety of (mostly fairly obvious) reasons.
Posted Feb 27, 2013 7:02 UTC (Wed)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (1 responses)
I actually agree with them - Linux in early 2000-s was nothing but embarrassingly clumsy for general users. It started to get somewhat usable only close to the second part of the last decade.
>I agree with you about the lack of an ecosystem, but on the other hand, even at 1% market-share, Linux does seem to be able to sustain itself on the desktop (and has done so for a couple of decades).
Posted Feb 27, 2013 7:43 UTC (Wed)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link]
I don't think people walk into a computer store in Russia (or for that matter anywhere else) and the sales clerk asks them »Do you want Windows on your computer or Linux?«. People aren't actively asking for Windows in favour of Linux (or. in the 1990s, OS/2). For the most part people are unlikely to be aware that there even is an operating system apart from Windows, and that would include many computer salespeople. So the popularity of Windows is less due to its overwhelming technical superiority and ecosystem, but mostly due to the fact that it is the default assumption. This in turn stems from the fact that Windows used to be pretty much the only game in town in the early 1990s, and that Microsoft used that time well to cement its predominance. You can be pretty sure that (a) Russian computer stores wouldn't bother with Windows if Windows hadn't already been popular in the US, the Far East and western/central Europe (which is where most of the celebrated »ecosystem« was), and (b) Windows wouldn't stay as popular as it is if Microsoft were to really crack down on piracy (Ballmer famously said about the Chinese that »if they must steal an operating system, let them steal ours«).
Also, Windows does for most people roughly what they expect, including the crashes and virus infections, which many people have learned to accept as facts of life (sort of like getting the flu – a nuisance but normally not the end of the world) – hence looking for alternatives to Windows isn't something that figures big in most people's minds.
The demise of desktop Linux has been predicted for so long that I'm not unduly worried. People have been saying that Unix would disappear long before Linux even came out, and see where we are now.
Posted Feb 27, 2013 9:19 UTC (Wed)
by BlueLightning (subscriber, #38978)
[Link]
Not really. At that time Linux was vastly less capable and polished than it is now.
Posted Feb 25, 2013 23:30 UTC (Mon)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link] (1 responses)
I assume you mean "IIS to Apache"? Using IE as a web server would be…special.
Posted Feb 25, 2013 23:43 UTC (Mon)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link]
...evil grin...
Remote desktop vs. remote display
No they can not. They quickly get bogged down in minutiae (like broken fax machines or non-working VoIP), get disgusted and then quit their job.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
migrations". guess what, we are also speaking from personal experience of actual companies.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
So can Windows admins. Remoting works just fine for Windows (using RDP, TeamViewer, Gotomypc, RAdmin and a plethora of other technologies).
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.
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.
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
But--- We weren't first in the server space,
in the embedded space
in the mobile space,
Remote desktop vs. remote display
I'm speaking from a (bitter) personal experience of actual migrations. You're offering me basically anecdotes in the form of: "But my organization works fine!
Remote desktop vs. remote display
Again, if you have non-technical Linux users then it means that somebody has already done all the groundwork for the migration.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
Linux needs something that at least is just as good, and right now it doesn't seem possible on classic desktops.
If you have non-technical Linux users then it means that somebody has already done all the groundwork for the migration.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
Yep. Maybe a team of genetically engineered kernel hackers (with transplanted genes from GNOME and KDE developers) might be able to find all the required software, easily writing missing pieces in kernel-level Haskell.
That's vanishingly small number - less than 0.1% of total world desktop users.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
an average admin/user CAN NOT do things that are possible with COTS software on Windows (or even with the built-in Windows functionality).
That's vanishingly small number - less than 0.1% of total world desktop users.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
Irrelevant. By definition, these things are not used in organizations with Microsoft Windows-based workflows, so they won't affect the migration.
Linux already has problems with third-party software. And it will only get worse with this attitude. After all, why would Adobe port their stuff if only 1% of the market would be able to use it? It's much better to simply cater to the remaining 99%, especially if Linux support is so much more complicated.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
By definition, these things are not used in organizations with Microsoft Windows-based workflows, so they won't affect the migration.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
No you won't, and that's the fact.
I'm explaining for the umpteenth time: it doesn't matter. Windows infrastructure works acceptably so for most users and most businesses DO NOT care about their IT as long as it gets stuff done.
- Great, how much does it cost?
- It's just $10000, but you'll be able to recoup the cost in a couple of years.
- Well, OK. A bit steep but if you say so...
- Also, you'll need a specially trained paper-folding specialist. We can provide you one for /just/ $20000 a year.
- Hm, let me think about it. Any other issues?
- Well, our paper folders are not compatible with some printed text. You also need to write everything using special pencils. But don't worry, we also provide you with pre-filled forms that cover all possible cases that everyone could conceivably need!
- So, let me recoup this, your stapler-less solution can save me a couple thousands dollars per year _tops_, requires a specially trained officer and can not be used to replace our workflow?
- Correct!
- I believe, the door is that way.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
No you won't, and that's the fact.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
It must be great to live in a dream world where you can claim what you want and are always right.
You can insist until you're blue in the face that what we are doing every day is actually impossible, but money talks, so we shall simply have to agree to disagree.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
Why it's so hard to talk about these things rationally?
Remote desktop vs. remote display
I never said that. Linux desktop can be used in niche markets, sometimes it can be used to a great effect. That's self-evident.
Microsoft never owned computer producers in Russia (or xUSSR). Yet in 90-s and early 2000-s the most popular OS in Russia was pirated Windows (sometimes installed right in the computer shops), even though Linux was readily available. Speaks volumes.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
Yet in 90-s and early 2000-s the most popular OS in Russia was pirated Windows (sometimes installed right in the computer shops), even though Linux was readily available. Speaks volumes.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
It kinda does. People choose Windows overwhelmingly, even though alternatives (BTW, it included OS/2 as well) were readily available.
At this rate and attitude? Might be not for long. And the biggest 'threat' might be actually from Google.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
People choose Windows overwhelmingly, even though alternatives (BTW, it included OS/2 as well) were readily available.
At this rate and attitude? Might be not for long.
Microsoft never owned computer producers in Russia (or xUSSR). Yet in 90-s and early 2000-s the most popular OS in Russia was pirated Windows (sometimes installed right in the computer shops), even though Linux was readily available. Speaks volumes.
Remote desktop vs. remote display
Remote desktop vs. remote display
Remote desktop vs. remote display