Comment 1735 for bug 1

> Guess what: He migrated back to Windows as he noticed a whole bunch of
> workarounds he needed to do. It started with the fact that he as a
> support-guy needs to use a IE-only trouble ticket system. Attempts
> with IE under Wine/Playonlinux) failed because of stability issues.

What about virtualbox + Windows + IE?

> Not to tell about some TeamViewer glitches on Linux (extremely
> annoying when TeamViewer is one of the only remote-support tools that
> work on Linux and you either pay for it when using it for the daily
> job).
There are also rdesktop for RDP. But yes we would need a lot more tools.

> Apart from that I had a few issues on my workstation myself that have
> nothing to do with the Windows environment, I have to cope with: I had
> lock-up and reboot issues after switching to 12.04 (several different
> reasons - see https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/993187 just for
> example). So far everything solved with tweaking, manual updates and
> hand-work. Most annoying: The current kernel status is not stable (not
> only for me) and so I currently use 12.04 with the manually installed
> 3.5.0-18 kernel. But this means, I need to manually upgrade to newer
> versions with security updates. :-( - Stuff I cannot put onto the
> shoulders of the "normal" user. - BTW: Most major distros these days
> have problems - be it stability issues with changing desktop
> environments or "early-adopter" style run to newer technologies when
> finally older ones got stable enough (nearly every month I read about
> some planned change - I already worry about what will be after change
> to wayland...). Compiz is also such a thing - finally quite stable
> (for me personally since about september or october) I hear that they
> want to throw it out for the sake of something else.
That's why I install RHEL/CentOS on novice users. Its far from fancy, but noone can blame EL for being unstable.

> So - by now - status for me is:
> a) I finally (after a lot of extra analyses, bug reporting, testing
> etc) got - again - a very stable system with Ubuntu 12.04 + kernel
> 3.5.0-18. And this although I use a Canonical-certified machine!
> Unfortunately with some manual udpates that now mean I don't get newer
> versions automatically through normal update channel. - However, at
> least I am ok.
That's bad. Certified hardware should be supported, or the certification becomes useless.

> b) I currently do not try to convince other people to Linux/Ubuntu
> because they will blame me if some windows-only crappy thing does not
> work or some shitty windows-only file format is sent to them and they
> can't cope with it. If somebody really wants to have Linux, I will
> help of course, but so far I am quite fine by telling people, that I
> don't fix their Windows machines. Lost some "friends" - but only those
> I don't care about after noticing the reason why they keep their
> contact with me.
Whoever gave you the idea of don't fixing their Windows machines? :)
Some actually stick to Linux because I and others do not support Windows. They bitch about it, but they are free to do as they please.

> But - to fix Bug 1 from current point of view:
> 1. Things must work out-of-the-box again (we had this status already
> but IMHO currently somehow lost) and Ubuntu must be rock-solid and
> stable again. My current experience in comparison with Windows 2008r2
> over the last months is: Far more lock-ups/freezes and accidential
> reboots than on Windows Servers I need to work on. Far more RDP
> connection drops (remmina still crashing at least once a day on my
> machine).
That's why I stick to EL when I can. It has been rock solid for man years and do not disappoint me. Of course with three different mayor versions (4, 5 and 6) supported in parallel they can make sure that the two first are rock solid while keeping the latest a bit edgy. However I am sure that when they release EL 7 this will also apply to EL 6.

Ubuntu is a lot sexier, but on enterprise servers i prefer stable and reliable.

> 2. Before doing marketing for Linux/Ubuntu, marketing for open
> standards is required - I mean open protocols and open file formats
> that can be handled on all platforms. In the ideal world it should be
> irrelevant which OS you are using. To real success of Linux/Ubuntu
> there need to be less barriers.

This is the mayor issue today. The popularity of Firefox and Chrome did a lot for Linux in defeating IE. However some artifacts like Flash (not lightspark but the adobe version) and proprietary office packages have to be defeated as well. Html+JavaScript and Java are on the racetrack here. However web standards (and their implementation) are not up to the task yet. Java may be further ahead because OpenJFX and possible OpenGL support in the Java standard. However the development process are not very transparent.

Also office documents continue to be a problem. Documents from open/libre-office do not work well with Microsoft Office and vice versa. This is the far worst problem. One solution would be to have a OpenOffice-comatible import filter for Microsoft Office. However we also be able to open Office documents properly.

One of my brightest ideas here are to make a linux emulation layer for Windows. Similar to what Wine is to Linux. Then we could RPM/DEB our applications to a windows system and have some of the Linux experience which will smoothen the migration. I know that many Windows users would use it just because of the package management. Who don't remember the pain of getting openoffice + pidgin + firefox and other FOSS applications AND manually keep them all updated? Automatic yum or apt upgrades would make the Windows environment a lot maker, and lure users towards FOSS software while doing so.