Zentyal Desktop Distro

[kernevil]

Hi everyone,

my name is Samuel and I am the new Zentyal team member, focused in the development of Zentyal Desktop. As Nacho said, we expect to have some exciting new features in 2.3 beta around mid March. For the moment, I am working in kerberos integration to allow SSO on the clients.

Stay tuned for news 

Cheers.

[stuartiannaylor]

Hi Guys,

Just to ask a few opinions maybe its poll time again, but if you would permit me could I ask a few opinions.

If the Zentyal Desktop a singular entity of is it a dynamic collection of modules that provide solutions to certain implementations.

I see samba as a solution for win clients. In the sphere of win clients and Win8 what do you think about the Win8 dual boot barrier debate?

Should we have a Zentyal desktop windows basis.
I am not saying it can't be "OS hetrogenious" but the infrastucture logic is MS based.

Should we have Zentyal desktop ubuntu basis. As with Landscape I can understand Ubuntu not wanting to chip at there core commercial offerings.

Then the thin client PXE RDP LTSP desktop.

Then sorry to spam again but Zentyal is looking a super system for "Cloud" solutions. I have been banging on about BOSSIE applications and have spent some time on a "suck it and see" demonstration on allllinux.co.uk.

There is always the question to where the desktop actually is nowadays? Or exactly what is the desktop?
I think that topic is quite prevalent at the moment. I know we all have a modus operandi, but it not always the same. I think that is one great plus point that Zentyal is extremely modular and diversity creates a stronger product and community.

This to me is an important ethos to be brought to the desktop and actually what is the desktop needs a granular approach at a proposed solution level. A desktop is there to be used, so what do you want to use it for. What systems, OS and what are your expectations?

I think it might be interesting for the developer at least to get some opinion. I guess specifics have been agreed as employment usually has a defined role. I am really glad the kerberos...SSO...Samba elements are on track?

To be honest I am beginning to feel that the desktop might not at all be the desktop. Then again many might think I am confusing the thread with the browser.

I am just going to start a new POLL and hope its throws some light. I am just going to bang some things off the top off my head plus submit or retract any entry.

Poll http://forum.zentyal.org/index.php/topic,9321.msg38784.html#msg38784
 
I have left this one totally open. You can change or vote for several.

The above isn't concrete. Submit your opinion and I guess we can champion our opinions and see what the community thinks?

[ichat]

dear stuart zentyal is mainly a small buisness solution meaning that it provides services like print services file services and who knows some day even compleate buissness intelligence solutions like  DMS, CRM or even student information / e-learning for scools..   that said, 

it has been stated that we need more intergration with the clients on our network,   and while samba4 (whitch as you know was already in the plans for the zentyal future already supports most of the desktop intergation features,  there was a lack of these features for non-windows clients.

its good that you want to think about future development and cloud, although i think it will be safe to assume that oldschool-clients/server setups will be there for a long time to come.

but there are many technical reasons for for the TOC (total operation costs), to be still lower with local clients than with remote computing  in many cases especially when using partial windows clients. 

other than that, i think a lot of these questions wil be answered when the first alpha versions of the new zentyal 3 modules will be availible  as a lot of expert user's and system administrators are working, as well as that nacho has shared with us cononical's point of view,  i think at this point in fact the smallbuisness use of ubuntu desktops will add a lot of support to the ubuntu and zentyal communities..

as a last  when quoting

This to me is an important ethos to be brought to the desktop and actually what is the desktop needs a granular approach at a proposed solution level. A desktop is there to be used, so what do you want to use it for. What systems, OS and what are your expectations?

i feal that you have missed a lot about the entire topic, or that you may lack the experience of managing a lot of diferent small buissness networks?   i ask this to get some sort of understanding on your refentials so that we dont talk in two diferent languages. ...

[stuartiannaylor]

as a last  when quoting

This to me is an important ethos to be brought to the desktop and actually what is the desktop needs a granular approach at a proposed solution level. A desktop is there to be used, so what do you want to use it for. What systems, OS and what are your expectations?

i feal that you have missed a lot about the entire topic, or that you may lack the experience of managing a lot of diferent small buissness networks?   i ask this to get some sort of understanding on your refentials so that we dont talk in two diferent languages. ...

I dunno to what level experience is required. I guess I am small fry with my role as an IT manager at a call centre in Ireland of approx 150 clients being the biggest. It was a bit of a nightmare as we had german, japanese and various other nationalities working on various projects. Grabbing a keyboard of a different language was always interesting especially japanese. I had enough of the call centre madness and acted as a sole trader where I used MS SBS 2000 for legal firms. I actually had the pick of firms in Galway and Sligo at one stage. Mainly my role was support with bridging development of enterprise products. It was DMS / CRM and the nuances of legal two ledger systems. I have sort of been involved with the 10-50 client range for almost 25 years now and actually started with an outgoing ICL system 5000 onto what was then a new beast called the IBM PC which I still remember thinking it strange that the keyboard was an optional extra.

My whole point is that to reduce cost in modern networks that the desktop is a bit of a misnomer. The desktop in business isn't really important. Like a workbench its somewhere to store and use your tools.
Its the tools in business, the applications that dictate the desktop and not the desktop that dictates the tools.

OS indedependent applications with shiny new buzz words such as the cloud are a means to practically remove the cost of client configuration and admin.
I am unsure to who is confused but I do think it is worth discussion.

[stuartiannaylor]

My view might differ from others but the desktop or concentrating on a singular desktop might be a futile attempt.

If you are talking about create an ubuntu distro specifically to partner Zentyal as a server in the industries I have worked in it would be of little use.
My clients have always been specialised and use specialised software that is chosen for functionality.
In previous incarnations this would translate to bakeries in accounts and CRM management where high quantities of low value product and customers have specialised taylored software for that purpose.
O'Hara's of foxford only has a couple of million turnover but there weekly invoice qty would rival some corporations.
In the legal space their accounting differs because of the legalities of having a separate client and practise ledger.
So you end up with a two ledger system and localised legal aid requirements.
In manufacturing many of the shop floor processes are dictated often by the shop floor machinery and MES systems.

I have often been caught in catch-22 situations where application and industry specifics and the doom words of legacy systems dictate overall operation.

I have gone from dr dos to windows 3.1 to 95 to nt4 to windows 2000 to xp to win7 and to be honest the desktop is beginning to be a pain in the proverbial.

I can really see a strong argument in the current economic climate to start providing low end centralised client through a mechanism such as LTSP.

I can really see a strong argument to bypass client specifics and utilise what are almost defacto OS independent technologies under the umbrella of the web.
If you look at the client now and say this could be win7 / 8, Mac Lion, Chrome books, Linux derivatives, Android, Badu... Maybe the desktop isn't as clear as it used to be.

Then from development experience putting a specific desktop out there could take a couple of years. Then you have a period of client introduction and distribution in companies where from training to optimum efficiency can take several years. Then the client wants several years of usage to gain ROI and then we have an EOL scenario of the introduction of new systems. This seems to of commonly worked in cycles of a decade.
I might be confused or trying to guestimate future trends but I have a strong feeling that any particular desktop will not have much relevance apart from the applications that we use.

Does this explain my own personal opinion.

Stuart

[majestyx]

There is a zentyal client package (deb) with this I can every apt / dpkg system  connect on zentyal.

I would another package (rpm) sufficient 

a hole distro? "a shoot whit a cannon on a little bird" (my grandma says) 
(samba integration is ok)

btw: i love LXDE. have you ever seen a Gnome3 on a 1600x1040px Desktop Monitor .... LOL

just my 0,5 cent

[argais]

In my opinion the requirements that Nachico posted are really nice, but I'd add what Robb mentioned, some CMDB solution would be really good. Heck, I'd say Zentyal would be just perfect for my needs, but thats me As it is it already is almost perfect.

As for the points that stuart is trying to make, I think they are valid, and the discussion is nice, but it doesnt seen to be what this thread is about.
From what my brazilian portuguese wired brain could make of it, we were discussing features for zentyal as a desktop distro and how they work with the server (be the client windows or linux, what we want it to do...) and not trying to define the future of what a desktop is and how we should deal with it

[ichat]

There is a zentyal client package (deb) with this I can every apt / dpkg system  connect on zentyal.

I would another package (rpm) sufficient 

a hole distro? "a shoot whit a cannon on a little bird" (my grandma says) 
(samba integration is ok)

btw: i love LXDE. have you ever seen a Gnome3 on a 1600x1040px Desktop Monitor .... LOL

just my 0,5 cent

i think that your missing a whole point here,  that  deb package is far from feature complet and it certainly does not support  a complete zentyal infra structure,

the hole point here indead is to have better intergation of a workstation  into our zentyal services.  wheter that be windows  linux (ubuntu)  or macOS  should no longer matter for the level of intergration  that you get..

so this is certainly NOT shouting with a cannon..     

remember there is a lot of stuff thats not default in ubuntu regardaing  remote manage software updates and security,  joining a primary domain controller  using ubuntu is also not default   

than as a reply on stuart, where not fucussing on one single desktop...  i cant seam to stress this to anyones atention enought,   where only at this point focusing on 1 desktop's development because it obviously needs more work from us than the other desktop...  also keep in mind that with a windows desktop  they dictate and we follow (actually the samba project does this for us)... 


as a last  argais i agree but i  feel the need to add that this whole project is a major effort and that im sure that not all of these goals could probably be dealed with in just 1 year and 1 release cycle.   so even if we could add a cmdb i doubt it would support a lot of features from the start.

but ofcaurce any guy can wish...

[stuartiannaylor]

Maybe I spent to much time on the future of the desktop as I do have a personal feeling that the time of the desktop and the desktop application is drawing to an end.

Saying that I just have this feeling of Yet Another Distro and the Zenbuntu Desktop client on a disk in my mind would be "Yet Another Distro".

I was talking to Ichat and I explained that maybe I am fixated on what was the last Zentyal Desktop. Which was basically a windows installer of a selection of programs that brought in Zentyal services such as mail and jabber.
Clients can still do something similar with the OpenVPN download from the user corner.

At the start of the Zentyal Desktop Distro I was in favour but the more I think about it the more I have a hunch that is just going marginalise zentyal rather than opening it up.

Samba and Kerberos will bring in an AD style control mechanism which will be massive for Win clients and a much needed addition. In some scenario's it is impossible due to client dictate to get away from M$.

I just feel that the community has a wide range of opinion that the road to a Zenbuntu client would narrow the choice available.
I don't think we should be talking about an ISO that allows you to choose various desktops or applications. As this would mean a limited amount of options or the community having to cater for all the diversity that the linux / bsd community have to offer.

We already have our favourite desktop distro's and they are already publicly known and we should be looking at how to create mechanisms to make it easy to provide for all distro's rather than just supplying a specialised distro Zenbuntu client.

I no longer use the Zentyal ISO I just use a vanilla Ubuntu LTS server ISO and apt-get the Zentyal package. From that singular disk I can select many end results from a KDE client to a Lamp server or the Zentyal server that I mainly use. I don't need Yet Another Distro to limit my choice of how I should employ a client.

Before the community goes down a long and winding road in providing a Zenbuntu client can we not talk about providing a centralised control method that allows practically any client distro.

To be honest I am unsure how this should be employed as the topic is quite huge.
But as a suggestion just as a start I am a big fan of a centralised repository cache / mirror system. The reduction in Wan traffic from a localised repository for the matter of updates is huge.

Also if the repository is centralised on a Zentyal server then we can control the repository. Which in essence means you control the client.

If I was talking about a ubuntu base maybe I might go to the user corner and download my connection script.
This would modify the etc/apt/sources.list to the centralised repository and maybe make the necessary authentication mods.
The I could apt-get install myclientdesktop and hey presto I have a fully functioning SMB client with my choice of applications running and configured without someone else's prescribed selection.
A managed centralised repository has many advantages and could control what is available to a specific client.

Maybe we could have a centralised ISO manager that allows you to configure preseed options so that localised specifics can be embedded into the ISO so that admins have the choice to either simply PXE boot or burn off a client disk at the server.

This has been my confusing question to what should and where is the Zentyal desktop. Is it Yet Another Distro that is disk based or is it a collection of new modules on the Zentyal server that allow client configuration?

If we go the path of Yet Another Distro then I believe it will reduce choice or at least make a very complex distro for the community to support. If we move the Zentyal desktop to a series of client managers that allow customisation then we leave choice open. In fact we might be able to allow any client to be configured and have a system that can cope with RHEL, CentOS, Debian, Mint, Ubuntu, Slackware.... the whole gummut of distro's because we have a scripted centralised distro manager and repo manager.

I don't think either the Zenbuntu client distro or centralised distro / repo manager will be an easy chore. I think the amount of time and energy in each is probably something similar. What I do believe is that a Zenbuntu client Yet Another Distro narrows choice and centralised managers open choice.

That is my main argument and sorry for the confusion.

Stuart
 


   

[argais]

What I do believe is that a Zenbuntu client Yet Another Distro narrows choice and centralised managers open choice.

That is my main argument and sorry for the confusion.

Stuart

And what is the problem with choice? All distros basically do the same thing, they run kde/gnome/younameit, and we use that to access network services. Is having an standardized zentyal distro that bad? What choice are you giving up? The whistles and bells of your favorite distro?

I believe that both choices are valid, either having packages to integrating distros (IMO a nightmare for developers, but I could be wrong) or having a full zentyal desktop distro.

Personally I would go with the zentyal desktop distro, whatever it is decided to be, a system that is reliable and I can be sure will work well with zentyal server services is worth a lot more than my personal distro preference.

I run a network for a company, they want it to work, and to be low maintenence. Its a small business (hardly more than 100 computers) and users dont dictate what they want to use, they will use what works well and that is up to me to decide, given the requirements of what software/services they need to work.

Unless you are one biiig company you shouldnt be worrying much about desktop distro choice, unless you like making trouble for yourself

Now if you think the desktop as it is has its days counted, I highly doubt so, we will have to deal with both realities for quite some time yet.

[nachico]

Hi,

I am getting lost in the conversation and we should probably come back to the initial vision of what we want Zentyal Desktop to be by 3.0 release (September 2012). I would be more than happy if we can solve the following use cases:

1) A Zentyal Server as a complete replacement for an Active Directory in an office were desktops run Windows (and Macs )
2) An office that has migrated to Ubuntu desktops and that can enjoy a similar level of functionality as in use case 1) thanks to Zentyal Server
3) A simple way to deploy Ubuntu-based thin clients in Zentyal Server
4) A set of tools that can allow a system administrator to save time in the deployment and management of desktops (Windows, Mac or Ubuntu) in an office based on Zentyal

Once we have solved these use cases (a pretty ambitious goal already), we can discuss about other Linux flavors, tablets instead of traditional desktops, VDI, etc.

Do you agree or do you consider I misplaced the priorities? Thanks.

Cheers,

[kernevil]

Hi Robb,

PolicyKit(http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PolicyKit) is aimed to allow a regular user to perform privileged operations. This combined with Pessulus (http://live.gnome.org/Pessulus) or Sabayon (http://live.gnome.org/Sabayon/) will allow to define policies for user desktops. What is not clear is the current status of Pessulus, it seems that the project get stuck on gnome 2.16.... Does anyone know any alternative?

About configuration management, I had a look the list and Salt (http://saltstack.org/) have catch my attention. It allows remote execution, monitoring, configuration management, and is very flexible. We could use it for application deployment, inventory and monitoring the desktops. What do you think?

I miss the distinguishing between installing clients (adding new clients to the Zentyal network) and maintaining client OS and software (updating OS and software/adding new software). Is it necessary to distinguish between those?

Here our plan is to add a zentyal-desktop package to the official ubuntu repositories so it can be installed on a vanilla ubuntu (or lubuntu, kubuntu, etc).

[argais]

Do you agree or do you consider I misplaced the priorities? Thanks.

Cheers,

I totally agree with you.

[stuartiannaylor]

1) A Zentyal Server as a complete replacement for an Active Directory in an office were desktops run Windows (and Macs )
2) A simple way to deploy Ubuntu-based thin clients in Zentyal Server
3) An office that has migrated to Ubuntu desktops and that can enjoy a similar level of functionality as in use case 1) thanks to Zentyal Server
4) A set of tools that can allow a system administrator to save time in the deployment and management of desktops (Windows, Mac or Ubuntu) in an office based on Zentyal

Once we have solved these use cases (a pretty ambitious goal already), we can discuss about other Linux flavors, tablets instead of traditional desktops, VDI, etc.

1) Is definitely the first priority as M$ unfortunately still rules the desktop. The ability to provide a hetrogeneous server environment adds more value than any other. Part of the battle is Samba4, Kerberos and SSO with the later having many advantages in any environ.
2) I have upgraded the thin client (LTSP ?) solution. This is because its implementation is fairly obvious and it would follow standard install methods.
Here I would like to state that if we are going to have a pxe boot (part of thin client) a boot menu that gives the choice of thin client or ubuntu-desktop live install would be a simple addition that offers much to the sysadmin.
3 & 4) This is a general area I am confused. I have a gut feeling that providing a dedicated client such as a Zenbuntu client is very much a closed source offering. I was initially completely behind the ZD effort until I realised how closed it seems to be going. The dedicated client / server is an M$ method, that I thought this community was trying to get away from. Even though the dedicated client is built on an open source distribution it pushes a closed distribution as a solution. I have to ask purely on a philosophical level, that isn't this opposite of an open offering.
My personal opinion is that this is all a bit chicken and egg. In that is the ZD a dedicated closed client or is ZD a set of centralised tools to open up the desktop to Zentyal services. Thats my main question and also if you are going to provide option 4) why would we start @ 3) ?
A Zenbuntu LTS dedicated client would benefit Canonical and Zentyal in terms of branding but in the long run would it benefit the community?
As I say I was in favour of the Zenbuntu client until the point the community started to ask what applications would it run. I definately don't want to have my desktop choice closed to a certain set of applications.
Zentyal should have centralised methods to push service settings to a client and not a client preconfigured to pull service settings from a server. This is the chicken and egg debate (open vs closed).
Then we have questions about options of choice that a Zenbuntu client should offer in terms of GUI and applications. If a client is going to give variations on ubuntu to provide KDE, Gnome, LXDE... Applications... then the community is going to have to support this.
Concentrate on providing centralised methods to accomplish this but leave those options to the choice of Sysadmin their employer or client. It is there choice and the support is their prerogative and not the Zentyal community.

Stuart


 

[nachico]

Hi Stuart,

I think there are a few misunderstandings. First, let me state that I did not write the 4 previous points in any specific order

Then, I do not understand what you mean with 3) and 4) being closed options. The point about 3) is that Ubuntu Desktop is lacking some of the corporate features available by Windows Desktop. The base packages (open source) are actually in the distro or easily integrated, but there is no easy, automated way to set it up. The idea would be to make them work out-of-the-box in a Zentyal environment, the same way Windows Desktops will work out-of-the-box in a Zentyal environment once Samba4 is integrated. I do not see any narrowing of available options or any philosophical question. Quite the contrary: we would be adding Ubuntu to the list of available options for desktops on a corporate environment.

If you are worried about the options of GUI and applications, I do not think this is the key point. There should be some selected applications for the automated configuration (obviously) but it is not the most important question and the list does not need to be closed.

Maybe the confusion comes from the name Zentyal Desktop, looking like the whole conversation is about a desktop-based product. For me, ZD is a project, aiming at implementing a corporate-ready integration between desktops and Zentyal server, including new modules and improvements in the server side, as well as improvements in the package Zentyal Desktop.

Cheers,