I believe the point was that Ubuntu already includes everything but the kitchen sink. Maybe they're looking to focus more on the OS and Desktop and let the apps fend for themselves a little?

RTFA, you are way off base:

        * the general user doesn't use it
        * its user-interface is too complex
        * it's an application for professionals
        * desktop users just want to edit photos and they can do that in F-Spot
        * it's a photoshop replacement and photoshop isn't included by default in Windows...
        * it takes up room on the disc

None of those are anything the GIMP folks should take as a negative. You don't see Photoshop installed on every home PC for digital photo touch up, do you? They are saying that there are plenty of other smaller, easier to use applications for that purpose. GIMP will still be available via apt/Synaptic for those of us who might want to use it, it's just not going to be part of the DEFAULT installation.

I'd say you have no idea what the folks at Ubuntu are thinking. It's a huge app, and it takes up disk space. It's also not something your average Ubuntu user will ever use, so it makes sense to make room on the default install CD for other applications that may prove to be more useful to more people.

I'm one of the folks who learned image editing in the Unix/Linux world, and have yet to touch Photoshop for anything image related.

Uh...

GPU's are also libel for errors within their computations, making the ECC RAM pointless.

You missed that part, I guess. ECC is irrelevant if the GPUs will toss out random errors on their own.

Mods must have been asleep in the cockpit on this one.

Yes, but with Apple Remote Desktop, "by hand" does not mean being physically in front of each machine. You can sit in an office, and go through the motions out on the floor, or in another building, on each system if you have to.

Yeah, VNC is also available, but ARD does seem to work well with Macs, and enough so that it is worth the cost.

Active directory is an attempt to implement under Windows what Unix (take your pick back in the 90s) was doing with LDAP/NIS/NFS.

I have done a decent sized roll out of Active Directory tied into Fedora Directory Server (LDAP) for single sign-on capabilities across Windows, Solaris and RedHat workstations and servers.

It's all the same shit, different syntax.

It's probably because they (Apple) had their own calendar and email solutions, so why include support for a third-party system? Granted, it's no where near the same as Exchange for functionality, but it was there.

Personally, I could care less. I've moved more people off of Exchange and onto other platforms than I care to count (mostly to Zimbra), and personally hope to never have to deal with an Exchange system ever again. If you think Apple hardware/software is expensive, try pricing out your own Exchange server solution sometime.

It's a great thing that Dell offers that kind of support, because you'll need it frequently with the junk they produce and sell.

Considering the Xserve I manage in the office seems to handle all the functionality required to support network logins with roaming profiles for all of the users and workstations, I could care less what HP or Dell have to offer.

All of our production servers run Linux on the "big" servers from HP. The office machines are more than well supported by the Xserve hardware we have.

You don't buy an Xserve because it smokes everything else out there in raw hardware performance numbers. You buy one because it is rack mountable and runs OS X without a hitch. Otherwise, get a MacPro/iMac/Mini and load Mac OS X Server.