GatorLUG Meeting | Tame Windows With Linux | Fun with SMART

Update 7-20-2008 - Clint - This meeting was scheduled for this month but got moved due to tropical storm Fay. Stay dry and we'll see you next month!
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So you've got your users running linux and they can do everything they need to do except a few legacy items that still require Windows... what to do?

Use Linux to turn Windows into an application that starts cleanly the same way each time regardless of what the user or "bad things on the netz" does to it.

Brian Bartholomew will be doing a presentation on managing Windows with linux.

Here is how Brian describes it:

This presentation shows how to turn Windows XP into a Linux application.

You run the "windows" command to start the "Windows XP" application.
Each time you start it, on any machine, as any user, the application
starts from the same state.  A fresh, clean state just for you.

You aren't managing a bunch of Windows machines.  The underlying
container disk image is identical on all installations.

There are zero license costs.  VMware player and server are free as a
sales promotion, and it's hard to avoid buying a Windows license.

If your "Windows XP" application catches a virus, simply quitting and
restarting will discard those changes.  You don't need to reload it
every six months to repair accumulated filesystem damage.

The "Windows XP" application can read and write files on the enclosing
Linux, including automounted home directories.

You do not need a Samba server, Windows workgroup server, active
directory server, or any other piece of Windows infrastructure.

You do not need to "log in" to your "Windows XP" application.  You do
not need to manage accounts and passwords in Samba or Windows XP.
Yet, the user of the "Windows XP" application can't access anything
they couldn't already access in Linux.  The "Windows XP" application
runs as the user who started it, and there is no suid.  Access
controls are enforced by Linux.

The "Windows XP" application can reach the Internet via NAT, but it's
not directly reachable inbound, so it's harder to attack.

You don't need a separate IP for the "Windows XP" application.

Linux laptop users may find the "Windows XP" application has more
attractive integration and maintenance properties than dual booting.
Or have both: dual boot to test hardware, use the app for daily use.

If the "Windows XP" application locks up, you can kill -9 the process
and restart it.  This does not accumulate file corruption in the
"Windows XP" application's container disk image.