Re: MIDRANGE-L Digest, Vol 2, Issue 1528

Jame Rich wrote:

>4.  Minimize maintenance by using smart displays.  Remember dumb 
>terminals?  Reliable, easy to set up, low maintenance, not prone to
>user 
>error.  Smart displays are dumb terminals with more capabilities.  As 
>reliable and easy and error free as dumb terminals but with a graphical
>
>display.  Using linux as the server (or any unix) these smart display 
>have available every application that the server does.  This means 
>email, web, office apps, 5250, etc., etc., etc. all without having to 
>maintain anything on any display.  All apps run on the server (just
>like 
>a dumb terminal) but display on the smart display (just like a dumb 
>terminal).  There are no moving parts.  They can just be switched off. 
>You don't have to upgrade them.  Need more power?  Upgrade the server 
>and everything instantly runs faster on every display.  Users need new 
>versions of software?  Upgrade the server and every user instantly has 
>the new version.  Suddenly maintaining your network is as easy as 
>maintaining your iSeries.

My network admin set this up as a test using a product called CygWin. 
Think of it as a Linux Server Emulator.  I was eased into using Linux on
the desktop this way: I would log in to my Windoze machine and open
CygWin which accessed a public Linux box on our network.  I would work
all day and if I found myself going to my windows box to do something,
then I knew I either had to do find a replacement app or hit the books. 
In a couple of weeks I would practically forget that I was on a Windows
box, so I finally took the plunge and installed Linux on my desktop. 
Now I'm learning how to install and configure :-P

The beauty is that we had 5 people doing the same thing on that box, an
old ratty PIII 550 with 32mb of Ram.  If we wanted something installed
we just did it once, like James is saying: maintenance is a snap.  We
plan to have the entire DP staff doing this in the next few months.

Joel
http://www.rpgnext.com