I'd say Microsoft Office, everything else Microsoft which integrates seamlessly and most of all Active Directory. Getting anything equivalent to Active Directory up on Linux is an absolute nightmare, or at least so it was last time I tried. Making something as basic as making a Linux machine join a domain and authenticate against the DC work cost me a full weekend, and yet in the end I just had to give up.
That's really not a user- nor computer-management strategy that scales.
> Getting anything equivalent to Active Directory up on Linux is an absolute nightmare, or at least so it was last time I tried. Making something as basic as making a Linux machine join a domain and authenticate against the DC work cost me a full weekend, and yet in the end I just had to give up.
I feel that your account of making a Linux machine play nicely with AD deserves a 'YMMV' addendum. In my experience it is not common that this should be so difficult to implement with a reasonably up-to-date Linux system. It also doesn't hurt to use a distribution that has undergone testing for this usage scenario, which is definitely true for the "enterprise" distros - both RHEL and SLES should give you very little trouble when it comes to joining a domain and authenticating against AD. It is indeed mostly a "just works" type of thing in the majority of cases.
Maybe that was because you were trying to apply AD ideology to GNU/Linux, i.e. do things in "Active Directory-way"?
I don't know about AD, but implementing a single sign-on authentication on GNU/Linux is simple. Just configure PAM and roll the configuration to all machines (with rsync or whatever you prefer). I've never tried authenticating against a LDAP database, though. However, I believe if I'll see a Windows machine and be asked to set up a simple SSO configuration, it would take ages to understand (not just step-by-step copy some tutorial from the net).
I agree. I actually meant to say the biggest hang up for the enterprise to switch over to Linux is finding a good replacement for Office. However, you absolutely correct about how easy it is to get a Microsoft AD up and running.
Though I am sure there is a way to do it in Linux if you have all the experience, sometimes when a System Admin has to get an environment up and running it is easy to get it done with Windows and AD.
I'd say Microsoft Office, everything else Microsoft which integrates seamlessly and most of all Active Directory. Getting anything equivalent to Active Directory up on Linux is an absolute nightmare, or at least so it was last time I tried. Making something as basic as making a Linux machine join a domain and authenticate against the DC work cost me a full weekend, and yet in the end I just had to give up.
That's really not a user- nor computer-management strategy that scales.