Terminal services and Linux

Fri Mar 29 10:51:24 PST 2002

Quoting Daniel Curry (dcurry at cariocas.com):
> Does anyone know of a way to access MS Terminal Services from a
> Linux/Unix workstation running X?

VNC is often mentioned, but let's keep in mind that MS is now
moving towards a license that says that only Windows software
can be used to access Windows terminal servers.  So VNC may
become illegal for this.  (this might be an XP only issue -
older versions were likely ignorant of this "threat" to their
monopoly).

You don't really say what you need it for, but there are other choices.

Options?  Well, stop using MS software.  Evolution is a lovely
replacement for Outbreak^W OutLook, though it doesn't run the
virii of the week nearly as well :)

Or, replace Exchange with a nice IMAP and Calendar back end
and use a couple small workstations to serve 30,000 people.
Some folks can still keep using LookOut if they want and not
even know Exchange has left the building.

Mozilla is about to hit 1.0 and, with about 4 other browsers
I use, does not have the problems that Internet Explorer has.

The Office habit is hard to break.  We have a developer who
replied to word doc in Tex and sends a pointer to Tex software
that's available for free (roughly: "you seem to insist that
I spend hundreds of dollars to buy software for an OS that I
don't run, my reply is written for software that is free for
you")

I'm used to FrameMaker (way too $$$$ for Unix) and WordPerfect.
StarOffice is not terribly portable, but runs on Linux and is,
er, ok.  I can run PPT presentations just fine with it.  There
are other word processors available for Unix, Windows and Mac.

Excel is harder to match.  Most people use 5% of it's capabilities,
but insist that they still need functions that can run 4
dimensional quasar graphs.  I rarely see anyone doing things
that I didn't do with Quattro Pro in 1990.  We have one guy
who makes Excel dance and he needs it; the other people send
me half page price lists in 4MB spreadsheets.

On the other tack, MacOS X runs Office.  And Unix.  (and iCab,
Mozilla, Opera and others). If you have a fast enough Mac
(NetBSD screams on my Mac compared to the more functional OS X).

But mostly, if they insist on using Microsoft software, then
you should request extra boxes just to run Windows for your
folks.  And make sure they see the cost of running that - $300
for the OS, plus $400 for Office and 1/5 of a support person
for each box plus unexpected downtime, monthly security patches,
unexpected but regular virus attacks and reduced productivity
(unless you count as productive spending 4 hrs do make PPT
slides for a 20 minute presentation that would have worked
just as well with 20 minutes using a translucent and a Sharpie).

If the answer is Microsoft then the question was usually phrased wrong.

chuck