Linuxlookup.com Interviews KDE League Chairman

Linuxlookup.com is running a nice interview with Andreas Pour, Chairman of the KDE League, Dot editor ("Dre") and KDE evangelist, about the latest KDE release, the KDE developers' attitude towards Open Source and business use of KDE and KOffice.
Andreas points out some reasons why businesses might consider switching to Linux/KDE instead of migrating to Windows XP and reveals some interesting facts about the City of Largo's KDE installation: apparently it only requires half a person to provide user and technical support for all 800 KDE Users in an office environment. TCO - no problem for KDE. You can read the full interview here.

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Comments

by Robert Gelb (not verified)

I don't understand how they can run MS Office from their terminals if they are running linux/kde? Surely, not through Wine???

by Daniel (not verified)

I'm not sure exactly what the program they use is, but the MS Office components run on a server running Windows, with the interface displayed on the users terminal.

by Martin Dahlberg (not verified)

they are using Rdesktop . Works great when you have to log on to a NT4 Terminal Server Edition, any W2K server or Windows XP.

by reihal (not verified)

Do you use Rdesktop? Would you care to tell us how it is done?
It seems very interesting.

by Corba the Geek (not verified)

rdesktop is very, very good.

The home site is at http://www.rdesktop.org

Search www.rpmfind.net for a suiteable RPM. The PLD (Polish(ed) Linux Distribution) have made some. I took the source RPM and rebuilt it with no problems on my, basically, redhat 6.2 server.

This server provides application support for a network of "Thin Client" X terminals.

I've created a "session" for KDM so that uses can choose to select a full screen "Windows" session at login - hard to distinguish from the real thing! After logging in to KDE rdesktop can also be run - so that the windows session appears in a window...

Of course, although rdesktop doesn't actually need to check for licenses, you still need a boat load of MS Windows NT licenses... but at least you don't actually have to run the software.

We use it against Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0 - mainly to run applications that we need to support clients with a windows environment. Performance is very good - certainly for light usage.

The command line for "windows in a Window" is:

rdesktop -l -4 -k uk

For full screen

rdesktop -l -F -4 -k uk

Is that enough info for you?

by reihal (not verified)

Thanks, I must try this.
It will be interesting to see what speed I will get on a small, switched, 100Mbs home-network.

by Philippe Fremy (not verified)

They could be using vnc. VNC clients everywhere, few windows workstation with VNC servers and that's it. What windows is missing now is probably the ability to have multiple users logged at the same time on the same station.

by Guest (not verified)

reminds me of a funny project i saw in a large european telco, but the final architecture was different: first a client to a Win TSE, and then from the TSE a commercial equivalent of VNC to a farm of workstations.

by me (not verified)

please, never link to the same thing twice in your article, its just annoying.

thanks.

by Loranga (not verified)

...since it was an interview with "Chairman of the KDE League", wouldn't it have been even more interesting to hear some news about the KDE League? Does anyone have any news about the KDE League?