[nzlug] Idea...

[Nevyn]

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 1:18 AM, Simon Bridge <simonbridge at ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
>  On Wed, 2008-03-26 at 00:11 +1300, Nevyn wrote:
>  > On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:42 PM, Simon Bridge <simonbridge at ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>  > >
>  > >  On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 19:57 +1300, Nick Taylor wrote:
>
> > >  > So maybe the transition to Linux could be done without a massive amount
>  > >  > of retraining. I think I'd pilot it first though. Anyone know if these
>  > >  > are going on anywhere? I'm kindof out of that loop these days.
>  > >  >
>
> > >  The number one thing keeping people on XP is that they don't want to
>  > >  have to learn something new on top of all their other pressures.
>
>
> > I'm of the opinion that using going to centralized application servers
>  > serving up using a Citrix like system
>
>  Now we're talking strategies... the trick, then, is to convince the
>  right person it's worth doing. Which leads us back to the start of the
>  thread.
>
>  It's worth doing because it puts money in your pocket.
>
>  Otherwise I get to resistance issue number 2: "If it ain't
>  broke..." (this from someone contemplating an XP reinstall to fix
>  browser issues.)
>
>  I point out that this *is* broken... she claims this is broken in the
>  same sense that the qwerty keyboard is broken, and she ain't about to go
>  use dvorak.
>
>  A great many people have been contemplating the options, uninformed, and
>  decided to see how long they can limp along with XP. Maybe till Windows
>  7?

I suppose this is one of the greatest arguments for this sort of
system. Instead of having to have 5 odd people running around trying
to sort out people's desktop, eventually you're going to end up with a
"man behind the curtain" scenario. What's good for the goose is good
for the gander. It takes a lot less people to test and implement
updates to software packages as they're only doing it on a very
limited number of machines and as they're not dependent on the
settings of individual machines, the support calls should supposedly
go down depending on how well it's implemented.

On Login:
Set up authentication (ldap? - how well does this play with active
directory?), mounts (probably want to do something like map My
Documents to a file server - samba)

On Application Launch:
-Client
You'd need a launcher which checks to see if an X-Server is running -
if it's not, start it. (mingX with ... ps and grep?) Do the same with
which ever sound daemon is needed (esd comes to mind immediately
though I'm sure there are others that work with Windows which are
probably more secure). Log in via ssh (X Forwarding - plink/putty)  -
probably want to do something along the lines of round-robin load
balancing (bind9?)
-Server
Setup My Documents folder within home directory. (nfs)
Run application.

Once that's sorted out, a nice web based configuration tool (so it can
be used from any OS) which allows things like "publishing" apps,
adding servers, removing servers (per application) etc.

Documented and a cookie cutter design for the application servers
meaning that hopefully, after a bit of authentication tweaking, a
system like this could be implemented both speedily and with minimal
disruption. Package mingX as a msi file and push via SMS if
implemented and Bob's your cousin's father.