[118992] in Cypherpunks
Re: An article from Microsoft
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Harmon Seaver)
Tue Oct 12 11:28:18 1999
Message-ID: <38034F01.F765C222@arrowhead.lib.mn.us>
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 10:08:49 -0500
From: Harmon Seaver <hseaver@arrowhead.lib.mn.us>
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: "J.A. Terranson" <sysadmin@mfn.org>
CC: Tom Vogt <tv@wlwonline.de>, mark galliart <mark@wi-ks.com>,
cypherpunks@toad.com
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Reply-To: Harmon Seaver <hseaver@arrowhead.lib.mn.us>
"J.A. Terranson" wrote:
> of the various platforms excell at different things, and should be specified
> accordingly. I get just as mad at the
> *nix-Everywhere people.
>
> Novell has a place. *nix has a place. Even Windblow$ has a place... A
> "skilled" administrator will not be any
> more interested in putting a M$ box in a mission-critical server application
> that s/he will be in putting a *nix
> box on a newbies desk...
Why not? A thin-client linux on every desktop in the enterprise
works fine. The "newbie" doesn't administer it anyway, the sysadmin does all
that -- has to, in fact -- and it can be locked down to just exactly what
needs to be there and nothing else, there's no virus problems, etc., and
tremendously reduces the overall administration costs.
All the newbie needs is an icon to click on, to open the browser,
wordprocessor, whatever -- we don't want the user ( in a networked
business/educational/whathaveyou situation) to be able to a damn thing more
than that. I deal with people every day who can't even figure out how to close
an open window on their desktop - the more we can lock down the desktop the
better, and unix does a much better job of that than anything else on the
market. And now that we have StarOffice, WP8.0 for linux, Applixware, etc,
there's absolutely no reason to choose windoz in many, if not most, situations.
--
Harmon Seaver, MLIS System Librarian
Arrowhead Library Systems Virginia, MN
(218) 741-3840 hseaver@arrowhead.lib.mn.us http://harmon.arrowhead.lib.mn.us
