Active Directory Domain on Ubuntu

[Christopher Chan]

On Saturday, November 13, 2010 09:17 PM, Basil Chupin wrote:
> On 13/11/2010 23:17, Christopher Chan wrote:
>> On Saturday, November 13, 2010 07:38 PM, Basil Chupin wrote:
>>
>>> On 13/11/2010 20:43, Christopher Chan wrote:
>>>
>>> [pruned]
>>>
>>>
>>>> Since when do you get educated arguments from trolls like me?
>>>>
>>> <FX: Nods heads slowly several times>    True, very true......
>>>
>>>
>>>>> It's like someone spouting forth about the merits of DOS when it is no
>>>>> longer in the picture...... :-) .
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> But you see, I work in these blooming factories that use DOS on their
>>>> control stations and they are not willing to make the big change
>>>> to...er...hmm...something that is better but requires them to engineer
>>>> their solution.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> At which point I am not sure if you are trying to convince the members
>>> of this list to take a certain approach or you are trying to convince
>>> those you work for to "see the light"...it's all kinda confusing overall.
>>>
>>>
>> Well, it goes both ways..."see the light" is usually not a
>> problem...they will see that Linux desktops would be easier to manage
>> (system wise - desktop wise depends on admin :-p), much more secure,
>> more cost effective but they usually come back with "but I need to use
>> this or that" and also point out the time involved in retraining. The
>> latter is usually no biggee if there were either viable alternatives to
>> 'this or that' or you could get 'this or that' to work on Linux. I'd be
>> happy to roll out GNOME desktops now that Sabayon provides the bare
>> minimum requirement of being able to customize desktops based on group
>> membership. What's left is replacements for software like Photo Story 3,
>> Windows Movie Maker 2.1, software used by the special needs team. Time
>> to get Wine a whirl with some of this stuff.
>>
>
> I think I can see your dilemma, but can't you set-up, say, your own
> desktop using, say, Ubuntu, with all the necessaries including Wine or
> VB so that the Windows' -er- "stuff" will work? Don't have to tell
> anyone - just simply install it all, use it all for some time - dunno, a
> month? - and then spring that surprise and shout, "Gotcha by the short
> and curlies!" :-) . Then take them all out for a feast of Peking Duck in
> the restaurant on the top floor of the Peninsula Hotel - and you'll be
> "in like Flynn" :-) .
>
> BC
>

I previously had test boxes in the library for the kids before the use 
of Windows Movie Maker and other software got ingrained. However, there 
were stuff that would only fully work on Windows only and the kids would 
have to have to use them. kvm for Hardy came in a bit too late for me to 
get things rolling. The group policy settings via kiosktool, the 
automatic login into the local Windows instance via rdesktop, the shares 
and proper links to those shares were all setup, mounted and ready to go 
but in the end I had to scrap the Ubuntu + Windows in vm setup because 
qemu was just too painfully slow. The kids were already getting used to 
the online flash stuff in Mozilla Firefox in KDE and some word 
processing with OpenOffice. But alas, not enough to keep them there and 
when the order for Office 2007 from HQ came down, it was definitely 
forget it since Hardy did not have an OOXML capable Open Office.

Maybe I will get another chance in the new library. Or maybe my line 
manager will finally have enough of Windows and just go the Mac route 
given that a fair number of teachers have gone Mac at home. More likely 
the status quo will just be maintained.