Brilliant and very useful for FreeBSD, IMHO

[Terry Lambert]

Michael Josefsson wrote:
> Lets get down to cases. At my job I ran a LAN with 65+ computers, most
> of them are dualbooting winxp and unix. Almost all problems stem from
> the win-boxes and that is not because they are more used, they arent,
> but because people insist on downloading software and installing it on
> them. Most sw for win seems to assume a non-networked environment and
> clutter up the local disk after a while. Yes we ghost the partitions
> and expect a reinstall now and then.
> 
> With FreeBSD the problem does not exist. There is no way I'll give away
> the root account to let them install software of their choice onto the
> machines. Since their "home" is on a samba/nfs-server all they can do
> is mess up their own space.

When I buy a computer, I want to "0wn" it.

When my company buys a computer, I acknowledge that they "0wn" it.

Corporate use is very different from most desktop use: in the
corporate world, you have money to hire system administrators.

I frankly doubt that most home users would be willing to have
their ISP "admin their computer for them", even if the service
came free with the monthly ISP bill.

Give the choice, corporate users are the same way.

FWIW: It's possible to do the same administrative division on
Windows XP; I have to wonder why you haven't done it.  I suspect
that it's because it's politically impossible, and the executive
users wouldn't stand for not having the admin password on their
machines, or being able to install the newest "Flash" plugin
when some web site demands it.


> The FBSD machines are installed with what they are likely to use in
> terms of software and if some software is missing I will gladly install
> it for them (for the benefit of everyone in the lab due to nfs). The
> point is that I have control and wont install any ol' program (do you
> know how many mp3-players there are out there in win-land...), it has
> to be of relevant use.

Again, it's possible to make this same requirement of Windows XP
systems, making users use what's installed by the admin, and store
all their data on a network server, instead of locally, or store
data locally, but make that storage area useless for installing
plugins and other software.


> All in all: I take the militant approach to have a lab I can trust will
> work thay way it is intended.

Standard corporate environment, even for Windows (if it's XP).

-- Terry