Will Novell's Desktop Linux Catch On?

Laura writes "Novell says its newly released Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10(SLED) can replace Windows for the average office worker. But will enterprises embrace a widespread migration from Windows?" From the article: "The desktop market is a very mature market, and Microsoft has a very strong presence there, which makes it hard for customers to move off [...] However, Jeff Jaffe, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Novell, said at the SLED 10 launch Thursday he is fairly confident that if enterprises have a chance to kick the tires of the new desktop OS, mass migration from Windows is soon to follow."

Displacing MS is difficult

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

For the FOSS Means Business [foss-means-business.org] event, it was suggested that we get Microsoft to take part and make a big controversial event (since Perens and Stallman would be the other keynoters).

We decided against because MS have it too easy. They don't have to prove their offering is better, they just have to raise enough FUD so that transitions to free software are delayed for one more year. Just like last year, and probably like next year. So we decided against, and instead of controversy we'll concentrate on showing the business value of free software, and why it is sustainable.

Re:Unlikely.

[Professor_UNIX]

I think that if any distribution had the right to claim being "Linux" it'd be Red Hat. I don't know if it still holds true, but they used to be the most popular distribution by far and thus, when someone made a commercial package that's what they (still) target. If it runs without any changes to your system on another distribution that's fine, but vendors will often only support Red Hat (and these days just specific versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux). Our RSA Authentication Manager for instance is supported on Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES 3 (not 4, not WS, but ES 3 ONLY. Their setup scripts check for this).

Re:Linux guys don't like to hear this, but ...

[miffo.swe]

Pretty good? Have you really administrated XP anytime in a larger enviroment? Its a big ugly PITA and demands crazy amounts of work to stay awake. Easy to use is the last thing i would accuse it of. I battle furious users all day long thats as lost now as they was the first time XP came out.

OTOH they really seem to like the new Linux Terminal Server installation. Why? It just damn works and arent in any way harder to use than Windows.

Re:What is required

[cpthowdy]

Fear not, for Novell has a world-class support infrastructure, and they fully support NLD9, SLES9, etc. Their knowledgebase [novell.com] and documentation [novell.com] are second to none.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Some companies can't.

[Ruie]

Additionally, our point of sale requires Terminal Server Client (RDP)

I believe rdesktop [rdesktop.org] can be used to connect via RDP.

Re:Unlikely.

[sinkemlow]

... I certainly could be wrong.

Wow, you weren't kidding there. Here are some things of which you should take note:

• It is called Ubuntu
• There is a company behind Ubuntu, and that company is Canonical [ubuntu.com]
• Certification for Ubuntu on the horizon [ubuntuforums.org]

Is all about the Applications!

[transami]

If they could get a few commonly used commercial application ported then they would have no problem becoming mainstream. For instance -- if Quicken ran on Linux I could have converted my sister's Doctor office. But alas she uses Quicken and even if there are Linux alternatives to it, she's used to using Quicken, so that makes all the difference.

Other key apps are QuickBooks and PhotoShop. I'm sure there are a number of others. Novell should really get after these companies to support them.

Re:Linux guys don't like to hear this, but ...

[dc29A]

out-of-the-box support for their hardware (like when you plug in your camera and get pictures with gphoto2, without having to install the camera's CD).

Don't get me wrong, I love Linux and I hate MS like the next guy around here, but out-of-the-box support for their hardware?! Pass the crackpipe please! After that, try installing (insert random WLAN card here) for Linux.

Just to get my 3 year old laptop running with a fairly popular WLAN card (D-Link) on (K)Ubuntu, it took me over 5 hours of searching the web and hacking text configuration files to get it up and running. Same process on Windows: insert driver disk, run install, enter router config and you are good to go.

Both OSes have their strenghts and weaknesses, but out-of-the-box hardware support is definitely not Linux's strength, it is actually its main weakness.

Re:Mod the AC -1 clueless or troll

[mmell]

There are a great many collaboration functions in Notes which can not be satisfied by PD/OSS solutions.

There's more than just mail to be considered here. Databases, availability/scheduling. Our lockin is to Lotus Notes - not the Lotus Notes mail client.

Eat any good books lately?

Re:Linux is great until it doesn't work

[iggymanz]

in the context of an enterprise, it won't be non-tech savvy users trying to install Linux, and it won't be without distro vendor support. That said, i've NEVER have to contact RedHat or SuSE for the clusters and other server farms I've built, in 7 years of doing Linux distros. Search engines and IRC & forums has saved butt many times, though. My 18 years Unix experience helps a little too ;)