My company is just getting underway upgrading the client. At this time it is all talk and slides, with installs and testing to come Q3 2010. Our current environment consists of WinXP on the PC desktops and Win2003 desktops served up through Citrix to thin client users. Now on to my questions.

A presentation has been put forth laying out an argument in favor of moving to Windows7. To me it is riddled with errors, simply to support a personal preference. But I'd rather get the answers then simply start a fight. So I'm looking to this Linux community for answers

He made these points to support his theory of "There is no real alternative to Windows7"

1.) "Linux has no multi lingual user interface (MUI)"
For us this would be specifically English, German, Chinese and Japanese.

2.) "Software deployment under Linux is not comparably diversified."
I've taken this to mean that the Enteo Netinstall package we currently use doesn't play well with Linux

"Blue text" is directly copied


I assume that the Enterprise level Linux desktop has matured enough to handle these points. I need your help in telling me how it has so that I can educate the decision makers (check signers).

Thank you for the help in advance,
Jason

Hi,

"There is no real alternative to Windows7"
- there are too many alternatives too name

"Linux has no multi lingual user interface (MUI)"
- not sure what this means, but I would think linux has perfectly good unicode and internationalisation support

"Software deployment under Linux is not comparably diversified."
- tell him he's dreaming...

This just sounds like a salesman trying to push MS products, if the business is interested in the possibility of using open-source, they should run a POC and see how it goes - a debate should have tangible evidence to work on

2c

Linux has multilingual user interface.

Whoever made that presentation is pretty much clueless.

Does this mean that you will be able to sell Linux in your situation? Possibly not.

PS:
Ask him or her to sign up here and let us comment on the presentation. What has the person got to lose?

If that presentation is any indication I'd say his "druthers" are at stake.

Practically though, if it were someone I had to work FOR, and that person is a windows lover, I wouldn't want to be the person that got him in the middle of this.

Luckily I don't work for this guy. I do have the attention of some that can make changes though. That is why I'm trying to come back with a viable semi-detalied alternative.

As for the Proof of concept suggestion, I have volunteered to move to suse desktop (SLES9/10 being in the datacenter) and prove it out. I will have to figure out a Citrix client, but that is another thread.

I am looking into ways to make KDE (as defacto standard) switch languages controllable by the user. However, I'm currently at a loss to find a application deployment solution (we have widget v1.1 and need to push widget v1.4 to the user). Any suggestions as to a proposal would be helpful.

.. ? .. Citrix client is available for linux, it uses motif but it works...

Well, it is probably better than Vista, which is probably what he thinks of as the 'only other option'.

I'm sure that English and German are absolutely fine, but for languages (err, Chinese isn't really a language) with optional variant character sets, RTL, and multiple input methods, are more questionable. It would be ideal to get input from native speakers of the languages concerned, if possible (Hint!).

Well, as stated, he has a point. There are more programs for the Windows platform generally, than for other platforms (whether Mac, Linux, BSD or whatever). But some things will be business-critical and some won't. Who cares that a program that you don't use is unavailable? Who cares that there isn't the variety of malware available (ok, that was a bit of a sucker punch, and intended to introduce a contradictory point)?

I don't know 'Enteo Netinstall' at all, but it sounds like some kind of enterprise app installer. If you plain don't need it because you can use the platform's inbuilt package management instead, why would this be a concern?

I know that you didn't ask this, but

• I'd regard SUSE as being one of the better options, as they have done quite a few large-scale migrations (including the desktop...RH has more-or-less given up on that, and there are some more do-it-yourself options, but that sounds problematic).
• It would be SLED not SLES (you knew that, of course, but I'm just closing it off) or openSUSE
• It won't be easy

In particular, that 'it won't be easy' has a number of parts. There are IT people with qualifications that may become obsolescent (although they may be placated with alternative training) there are end-users who will fear losing all the not-very-serious uses of 'their' computers and your colleague with the presentation will feel undermined. It only takes one of these groups with a vested interest and a bit of power or influence to make this very difficult for you. This 'change management' thing can get a bit messy, and the technical part is not usually the fulcrum that you might think, particularly if you ignore an interest group.

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If you do look into it, www.ltsp.org is the thin-client equiv.