2020: Will BSD and Linux be relevant anymore?

Erik Aronesty erik at q32.com
Thu Jul 21 20:55:31 UTC 2011


I work at a biotech lab.

All our compute nodes/grid engines run ubuntu.  If you count the computers
at our office, there are 50 windows desktops, 4 windows servers and 40 linux
servers.   The windows desktops are basically only for web browsing... the
backend web servers and compute nodes are all linux, with 1 big postgres db
on a 16-processor freebsd box that we're not going to change...hopefully
ever, since it's been reliably running with no performance issues for years.
  Anything that has to be reliable, we stick on freeBSD or linux.

We use AD to manage our desktops,  but really, the custom cloud and
data-base driven apps are pushing out the Windows/AD "it department managed"
apps.   Lightweight clients still aren't an option because people do pretty
complex work locally (excel/powerpoint, etc.), and switching to Open Office
might never be an easy sell around here.   Mac's do work (BSD), and people
use them as clients instead of windows pretty freely... they integrate well
enough with AD.

Managing a workplace without Windows desktops and Active Directory still
isn't realistic... think a $45K/year junior IT guy at a small business... he
should be able to do everything.   Windows/Mac have the advantage of being
able to force their model on all users, and therefore make it simple.   When
it comes to managing users & permissions, email, file serving, etc and basic
office stuff ... you need top town authority... even with its limitations.
The difficults of a unified "copy paste" protocol comes to mind.

Probably there should be the POSIX for

Directory & Office Required UniX Standards

DORXS!

- Erik


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