[TAG] Talkback:124/smith.html

[Benjamin A. Okopnik]

On Thu, Aug 17, 2006 at 11:41:25AM -0700, Amber Sanford wrote:
> 
>    Non-linux machines: any recommendations for this set-up though running
>    on Windows XP?

You bet: switch to Linux. :)

Amber, I'm not the world's top expert when it comes to Windows, but I've
got quite a lot of experience and expertise with it under my belt.
Speaking from that perspective and to the best of my knowledge, there
are a few minor things that you can do in this direction - i.e., a pair
of video cards and even multiple keyboards attached to a single CPU -
but all of this hardware is still tied to one session, i.e. one person
using all of it. There are some uses for this type of configuration, but
it's a completely different kettle of fish.

As far as creating a robust, serious piece of software that will do this
under Windows, or even a project toward that end, it's simply not going
to happen: Microsoft would need to open-source their OS, and that's not
in the cards. This is one of the many reasons that so many people and so
many companies _are_ switching to Linux: in the world of Open Source, if
you have this kind of a requirement, you can either find someone
somewhere who has already done it (and perhaps fund them to tweak it to
your exact specs) - or you can do it yourself (perhaps by hiring a
little programming muscle if the capability does not exist in-house.)
It's a different - and we believe, better - approach to computing.

Best of luck in your search, and we'll be happy to hear from you if you
decide to make the switch at some point in the future.


* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://linuxgazette.net *