Looking forward to the era of desktop systems

Do you often pay attention to the IT industry? What desktop system do you apply now? Linux or Microsoft? Recently, the latest high-profile version of Ubuntu 9.10 was officially released. Is the CIO concerned about the operating system? It may not be as interesting as it was in the past; but with the release of Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 code "Karmic Koala") just a few days ago, CIOs have at least a reason to be excited about the future of desktop systems.

In addition to the numerous upgrades and improvements every six months for each new Ubuntu version, Karmic has also made some practical improvements that CIOs and IT managers may pay special attention.

Senior IT executives should consider the following five aspects about Karmic before considering Linux as an operating system solution suitable for a large number of desktop systems and servers.

1. New Software Center

When I chatted with a CIO last week, the other party told me how much he liked Linux, but he still needed to install the software package through command line. Ubuntu's New Software Center, Software Centre, is on the stage and is expected to solve this problem.

Karmic will include the Ubuntu Software Center by default to replace Applications.) Add/Remove in the menu) and any newly established Package Manager Synaptic Package Manager required when a conflict occurs ).

According to Ubuntu, it has many ways to manage software. Ubuntu developers recently wrote on the Development wiki: "This type of repetition increases the number of interfaces that people need to learn, wastes space on Ubuntu CDs, and disconnects development work. "This is indeed the case!

Another problem Developers find is that the description of available software is often "Technical nonsense ".

The software center is expected to eliminate all this complexity. It also means that the desktop administrator has a unified and easy-to-predict way to manage the software on the desktop system. This is the way out!

2. Ubuntu enterprise cloud image

Running Ubuntu on Amazon's Elastic Computing cloud EC2 infrastructure is nothing new, but Karmic also supports private Ubuntu enterprise cloud UEC) and EC2 images.

EC2 has a pre-configured Karmic image, which can be used for cloud computing. The new version is provided by Ubuntu to Amazon.

In this regard, CIOs are concerned about the ease of migration between public and private clouds.

Even if CIOs do not have a fully functional "private cloud" in their enterprise, they can get a certain degree of assurance that deploying applications on EC2 using Ubuntu will not cause lock-in ). UEC uses the Eucalyptus package, which is intended to be compatible with EC2.

Is Linux A Scalable Server architecture? CIOs should pay attention to the cloud.

3. Local online backup

If the enterprise has implemented the client backup policy, adding Ubuntu One to Karmic may be irrelevant, but for enterprises that have not implemented such policies, Ubuntu One is expected to make data protection easier.

As defined by Canonical, Ubuntu One is a kind of "personal cloud" personal cloud), but its functions are no different from any other online backup services customized for the client operating system.

Ubuntu One can be used for backup and storage, and can also be used to share data with other Ubuntu One users.

Therefore, the collaboration feature may be more interesting to CIOs than the online storage feature. The online storage starts from 2 GB. Each customer can purchase 50 GB of storage space at a rate of USD 10 per month.

4. storage, security, and Virtualization

Karmic has made significant improvements to many aspects until very specific technical aspects.

For example, the ext4 file system is now used for new installation by default; supports larger files and partitions, and has more features in terms of reliability. In terms of stability, the existing ext3 file system cannot be upgraded to ext4.

In terms of online storage, the iSCSI installation process has been improved. Without a local disk, the installer can provide you with the option to log on to the iSCSI target device. The root file system on iSCSI is also supported.

Application access control system AppArmor has been optimized to run faster at system startup.

Such improvements may not attract the attention of CIOs, but they will undoubtedly help eliminate misunderstandings about Linux, for example, in terms of how Linux handles enterprise tasks, "how is scalability insufficient" or "How high is security ".

5. Better support for Windows Applications

The last aspect worth mentioning is the support for Windows applications.

Frankly speaking, one of the biggest obstacles to Linux's appearance on corporate desktops is Windows applications.

Linux and Mac OS X can handle most Web applications well, but if you need a Windows application to work normally, you may need fancy Windows virtualization software, this may cause complexity.

However, Wine has recently made some improvements to run Windows applications on Linux, which can be greatly improved; Ubuntu is using this.

Karmic also predicted a new era of Ubuntu's road map: "true" Integrated Wine, including managing Wine installed software and GNOME control panel for Wine applications.

Because about half of Ubuntu users have installed Wine, Ubuntu acknowledges that Wine is not a real part of the desktop system.

Some enterprise IT departments want to copy such a Windows experience: Double-click to install software and run Windows CDs; for these IT departments, better integration with Wine is certainly a good factor.

Unfortunately, the completed Wine integration results have not yet been incorporated into Karmic, but as part of the Ubuntu road map, this is at least in progress.

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