Robert Pogson

I found an interesting article about how businesses can use GNU/Linux thin clents. It covers all the important stuff…
“Implementing thin-client solutions achieves a number of benefits, including lower costs, easier maintenance, and an enhanced customer presence. Costs are reduced because the client’s hardware needs are less than solutions that require full, local-client functionality. Maintenance is easier because all the software maintenance is done on the server, because no software resides on the thin client itself. In fact, some businesses using thin-client solutions simply replace a failing thin client rather than perform maintenance on it. Again, because no software runs on the client, no configuration is needed on the replacement hardware. Finally, a thin-client solution can enhance customer presence because it lets a business safely provide access to customers within an environment that can be fully controlled and secured from the server.”
see How to Implement Open-Source Solutions: Thin Clients | Systems Management content from iPro Developer
…except there’s something terribly wrong with assuming the purpose of the thin client is to run applications on M$’s OS. A computer running GNU/Linux can do anything that a computer running M$’s OS can do but GNU/Linux will be better, faster and cheaper. That’s why TFA suggest using GNU/Linux on all the other infrastructure.

It’s past the time that we should assume the use of applications that are M$-only. That’s just plain silly. More computers were shipped with Android/Linux last year than M$’s OS. Why not assume Android/Linux “apps”? Why not replace M$-only applications with FLOSS applications that the world can use for $0? The world is huge compared to M$ and “partners” and can make its own software. The world has better office suites (better compliance with open standards), better browsers (faster, less malware), and better servers than M$ and “partners” (faster, greater uptime and throughput). Why the Hell should we put up with applications that run only on that faulty/defective-by-design OS?

Wake up! FLOSS should be the default solution and applications on that other OS a temporary solution while alternatives are found/created.

H-Online has a neat preview of Linux 3.9, now in the works.

My favourite item, additional caching ability for Linux:
“Device mapper, which is used by the logical volume manager (LVM) but can also be used independently, now includes a cache target called "dm-cache" (1, 2, 3). This option enables a drive to be set up as a cache for another storage device, for example, an SSD as a cache for a hard drive.”
see Kernel Log: Coming in 3.9 (part 1) – Filesystems and storage

Caching of files in RAM has always been a huge plus for Linux in my terminal servers I installed in schools. RAID 1 was very useful but adding an SSD cache to that would be amazing. Students I used to advise to be careful when clicking should now wear seatbelts and helmets.

"I absolutely think the slowdown in computing performance gains play a big factor [in slowing PC sales]. Maybe even more so than the whole tablet thing. Why would you replace your PC if it’s not noticeably faster than what you bought two or three years ago?"
see Why Moore's Law, not mobility, is killing the PC

Of course that’s a factor but there are others:

• Moore’s Law also helps make smaller, cheaper computers without fans and storage drives. Without all those moving parts thin clients and tiny desktops will easily do on the tenth year what they did on the first year. You can upgrade servers or add servers much more cheaply than you can roll out a new fleet of client machines. It just is too costly to change all the hardware, something that prompted a lot of migrations to GNU/Linux because it required fewer resources to work.
• The typical CPU in a single user system idles most of the time and the real delays are accessing dozens of files to open the next window or application. One can update storage to something faster without changing the rest of the machine but one can also do the heavy lifting on a server that can have enough RAM that storage doesn’t need to be accessed for applications. They can all be stored in RAM and shared amongst users. Zero storage is obviously faster than any other form of storage. Again, thin clients and small cheap computers work.
• The ARM processors are clearly able to do the job most users need done and consumers see the advantages of a pocket-sized PC over the legacy boxes and even notebooks. Hundreds of millions have traded off the larger screen for the greater portability. This is partly an effect of Moore’s Law making ARMed machines good enough but it’s an entirely different architecture with its own advantages. If there were no ARM, salesmen probably still could sell the next release of Wintel…
• Today’s networks are a huge improvement on even five years ago. Gigabit/s is fairly standard on the LAN and Internet connections for individuals approach the pipe whole buildings used to have to the Internet. This means a thin client and its server are behaving more like one machine and the user appreciates the web application that runs on someone else’s hardware with all those headaches gone rather than having the headache over Wintel at home. No headaches. No need to replace the PC to fix the headaches, temporarily. Wintel was built on making new sales to soothe headaches created by Wintel. That worked when Wintel was the only choice on retail shelves… Welcome to the 21st century.
• It’s also a matter of software. Peoples’ small cheap computers are not slowing down because they have less malware and incompatible and resource-hungry apps on the go. They are consuming less power, making less noise and taking up less space. They are often far more portable than Wintel to boot. The app-stores and package managers of */Linux system just work better for people customizing/managing their personal computers. Clearly, people like installing an app in seconds without having to fiddle with re-re-reboots, malware and Patch Tuesdays. Those negatives are all associated with the legacy PC so why buy more headaches? Wintel might have adopted and extended ARMed systems a few years ago and rationalized their system management and headed the stampede off at the pass but they didn’t and we are seeing a quite different historical change.

All in all, this is a good thing about which I have been writing for years now, first about GNU/Linux instead of that other OS, then APT package manager of Debian GNU/Linux and then small cheap ARMed computers. It’s empowered by more than Moore’s Law, but it is empowered and Wintel is getting taken down a level or two. It’s no longer essential and soon Wintel will have to work for a living competing for price/performance on retail shelves. I expect 2013 will be remembered as the year small cheap computers really went on a tear.

My next motherboard may well be from VIA if they keep making small and cheap motherboards. This one looks like it will fit any old ATX case you have laying around or you could just glue it in somewhere and hook up a 12V PSU and be on the air. It doesn’t get much easier than this. It runs Android/Linux 4.0 out of the box.

“Earlier this year, VIA released a tiny $49 ARM-powered motherboard it called the Android PC System (APC) in an effort to ride the wave the Raspberry Pi Foundation accidentally started with its $35 Linux computer for budding young developers. Today, it’s announcing a pair of follow-ups: the APC Rock is a $79 bare motherboard, and the APC Paper is a $99 version that is identical, except it loses the VGA port and comes in a recycled cardboard case designed to look like a small hardcover book. The Rock is available now, and the Paper has a March pre-order date. The original APC will continue to be sold with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) for $49.

Do they have the raw power of my present Beast? Nope. Nor do they have the storage but they would make a nice thin client, access to gazillions of Android apps, and a cool and quiet form factor I could use anywhere like out in the workshop or in the kitchen. No doubt I could set things up to run applications on Beast or access a web application on Beast from anywhere on the LAN for only a little more than the cost of a keyboard, monitor and mouse. Heck, I could probably get this to run on my lawn mower… Best of all, there are no hefty fees involved for paying off M$ or Intel or a wireless ISP.

“Simple arithmetic shows that unless Microsoft manages to make a dent in the smartphone and tablet market, it’s pretty much the end of its dominance”

via Editorial: Will 2013 be the year of… Microsoft? | Netrunner Magazine.

I found this insightful article which has just about everything right, except it leaves as an open question how M$ will do in 2013. I am certain M$ has passed its prime. It’s whole empire rests on the Wintel PC which has definitely peaked. M$ has gone as far out on that limb as it can and the world isn’t even paying attention. I remember when people queued up to buy Lose ’95, a really shoddy OS. Now they produce much better software and they cannot get it installed on a telephone. They still have some retail shelves and OEMs locked up but you can only pay people so long to give up their freedom. Much of the world is about to buy its first personal computer and they have no idea that the game of Wintel being the only choice even exists. Even the big PC OEMs are shipping millions of GNU/Linux PCs and just about anything else they can sell. The gate of the castle is bending inwards under the weight of increasing competition, something with which M$ has not had to deal with since the 1980s. They’ve been on an exclusive dealing binge since then.

The world can and does produce hardware and software unrelated to M$ and the rate of production of the new personal computers exceeded Wintel’s unit production last year. This year, everyone on M$’s treadmill are looking for the exits. This is the most tentative uptake of M$’s next release since Lose 3.x. This time around the Chinese are ready to produce millions of units of anything that sells within weeks. If M$ could stop the flow of tablets, smart phones and GNU/Linux PCs by Christmas, there would be a whole new set of products and players by June of 2013. M$ is just too small to control the world. For 20 years, instead of expanding and diversifying, they relied on the desktop PC monopoly and the world moved on. Moore’s Law, global education and the Internet means the world can move on without any contact from M$’s arm-twisting salesmen. Too much is happening for Ballmer and Gates to intervene.

Yes, 2013 will be a highly defensive year for M$. They are sweating bullets that FLOSS and ARM are just about to absorb hundreds of millions of former users of Wintel. Those old machines won’t last forever and only a small minority see the necessity of buying Wintel today. Even business can throttle M$’s cash-cow simply by using GNU/Linux thin clients, web applications and just a few terminal servers running that other OS. M$’s CAL-count won’t recover the loss. With fewer PCs running that other OS, there will be less need for M$’s server OS and its office suite. The sound you will here in 2013 is called “implosion”. It still makes a lot of noise but the bubble shrinks really quickly and then it’s just a damp spot.

I had an indication of how irrelevant M$ has become at a party recently. The people there are the most connected on the planet. Everyone had a personal computer of one kind or another. When they stopped to eat every flat spot in the place was covered with digital thingies, none of them Wintel. There was a Wintel PC in the home but it was never used. The smart thingies were phoning, texting, e-mailing, photographing, playing media, and browsing amid the din of the party. There were four generations of humans present. Only the very old (I and a couple of others) and the very young (0 to 10 years) seemed to be unconnected. Everyone was having fun. The youngest who seemed not to have their own gadgets could mostly pick up any gadget and use it to take a picture or to replay one. I was impressed. I was 18 before I could control a computer.

The thing that was so awesome about that party is that it was not a select group. There were people from every age, financial status (probably no billionaires though), career, education. It was a pretty good sample of people in Winnipeg and Wintel did not control them at all. The retailers had better wake up real soon or be replaced with ones who give these people what they want, great IT at a fair price. They should at least expand the space for gadgets and put Wintel under the counter. Better, they should stop excluding GNU/Linux.