[wplug] Corporate Desktops

[Embery, Nathan]

Someone may have already mentioned this, but the ximian exchange connector
for evolution was recently GPL'ed. Its definitely not part of the default
setup of any distro yet, but its doable fairly easily if you set up your own
red carpet server or similar to distribute upgrades and custom packages. 

Nate

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanco, Don [mailto:don.vanco at agilysys.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2004 10:19 AM
To: General user list
Subject: RE: [wplug] Corporate Desktops



wplug-bounces+don.vanco=agilysys.com at wplug.org wrote:
> 
> Well, my basic needs are:
> 
> 1. Ability to open/save/modify MS Office Docs.
OpenOffice can do this - arguably, it will function better with MS docs
generated on older releases of Office (Office97, Office2000, most
OfficeXP) my experience with things from Office2003 is that they suck -
SmartTags are here to stay, and bloat a "Hello World!" html doc to
10,000 lines of code.   WINE works also - but why bother when OO does it
as well.  (the latest Knoppix has 1.1.1 - very nice)

> 2. Interact with our MS Exchange server
Via LDAP you can use Evolution - it's excellent

> 3. Basic we surfing
Prego (it's in there) - if you load up WINE you can even run IE for
those moron sites that are coded strictly to that browser

> 4. Easy Install/setup (auto install big plus, ie Kickstart
> type)  
Fedora (kickstart) or use xCAT (or some other cluster manager like ROCKS
or OSCAR)

> 5. Remote management/maintenance 
Prego - you can build most of what you need with xCAT or scripting and a
central management server

> 6. Good hardware detection 
part of Linux - kudzu

> 7. Network Printing 
ibid - CUPS

> 8. Win2k domain browsing/sharing 
yep - via SMABA

> 9. Clean default GUI 
arguable - but Lindows or Fedora

> 10. Ability to edit/create/view PDFs 
OpenOffice and/or buy Adobe

> 11. Good performance
Prego

> 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.  
Fedora or Knoppix - but when you spend a little time learning about
deployment tools like kickstart or xcat you'll realize that a "default
install" is as much or as little as you want it to be - regardless of
whether or not a given package / application is part of the core distro
or downloaded from another source

> 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. 
build an xCAT server - there's no way you're going to use a single
distro that gets MP3 and DVD playback and other things without going to
packages outside the core distro.  Distros like Fedora are _made_ for
what you're doing - providing flexibility in the background to give you
exactly what you want (and quickly) to the end user.  Not slagging on
you here, but it sounds like you're discounting some methodologies
before you investigate them fully.  You _can_ do this with kickstart,
and quite easily at that.....

My $.02
Don

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