[wplug] Corporate Desktops

[Jason Sopko]

begin  Chris wrote:
> Well, my basic needs are:
> 
> 1. Ability to open/save/modify MS Office Docs.
> 2. Interact with our MS Exchange server
> 3. Basic we surfing
> 4. Easy Install/setup (auto install big plus, ie Kickstart type)
> 5. Remote management/maintenance
> 6. Good hardware detection
> 7. Network Printing
> 8. Win2k domain browsing/sharing
> 9. Clean default GUI
> 10. Ability to edit/create/view PDFs
> 11. Good performance
> 
> Now I know that a number of these aren't really distro specific and can
> be achieved with software like OpenOffice for 1.  However, I am looking
> more at default installs.  I don't want to have to install additional
> packages on every machine.  I know that can be scripted and all that,
> but I am going to look at it from an ease of installation and someone
> relatively new to Linux.

You might want to look into the Linux Terminal Server Project at 
http://ltsp.org. You can also stop by irc.freenode.net #ltsp and ask 
questions there. I'm not sure of your workstation requirements, but it 
may be a good fit if your users are doing simple 'office' tasks and 
you're willing to look into thin computing using Linux. One of the main 
advantages of thin computing is you'll only have to maintain one server 
rather than multiple workstations, which makes administration a lot 
easier. As far as which distribution to use, I recommend Suse.

///Jason