A Conversation for Ask h2g2
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
MaW Posted Oct 21, 2002
Oh definitely. And do you really like the idea of the police national databases running on Microsoft software?
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcups-Spurtle-and-Spoonswinner, BBC Cheese Namer & Zaphodista) Posted Oct 21, 2002
"The Blue Lamp of Death"?
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
HappyDude Posted Oct 21, 2002
The "police" story is the first large scale desktop deployment that I have come across in the UK public sector.
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
26199 Posted Oct 21, 2002
Indeed, it means they may well be serious about open source...
Governments saying what they mean - what next, I ask you? 
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
MaW Posted Oct 21, 2002
At the moment it's only a trial, but if it goes ahead it'll be thousands and thousands of desktop machines.
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
Apparition™ (Mourning Empty the best uncle anyone could wish for) Posted Oct 21, 2002
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
C Hawke Posted Oct 22, 2002
Slightly more than my single PC "trial" of mozilla in my public sector job - but still from little seeds.....
CH
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcups-Spurtle-and-Spoonswinner, BBC Cheese Namer & Zaphodista) Posted Oct 22, 2002
The question is, how do we go about getting Beowulf daemons running on them at our side of the firewall...? 
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcups-Spurtle-and-Spoonswinner, BBC Cheese Namer & Zaphodista) Posted Oct 22, 2002
Chances are that more than 90% of the time the desktop machines will be running at less than 10% CPU load... Over 3000 machines, them's a boatload of spare cycles... 
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcups-Spurtle-and-Spoonswinner, BBC Cheese Namer & Zaphodista) Posted Oct 22, 2002
Actually, that's a good point... Someone should suggest they fo that for themselves, and farm the excess cycles out internally, say for database indexing or DNA analysis... 
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
MaW Posted Oct 22, 2002
Somehow I doubt they actually need that kind of power... even the fingerprint databases that keep being developed by various people worldwide don't seem to need much power to do searches. Probably down to the way they work... I can think of several ways to reduce processor load when searching such a database.
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
Apparition™ (Mourning Empty the best uncle anyone could wish for) Posted Oct 22, 2002
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
26199 Posted Oct 22, 2002
Hmm, from what I read about the police use of Linux, I got the impression they were going for thin clients...
So not that much processing power going to waste.
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
MaW Posted Oct 22, 2002
You don't need all that much power to run a Linux desktop, depending on what you're running on it of course. An office-type system could be fairly low-powered indeed, and given how much their workstations are costing them, I'd say they're really very thin indeed.
And I doubt you'll find any of them have floppies or CD drives.
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcups-Spurtle-and-Spoonswinner, BBC Cheese Namer & Zaphodista) Posted Oct 23, 2002
Yup, but it's almost impossible these days to buy a CPU at less than 600MHz, which is overkill for a "thin client"! (a.k.a. terminal...
)
Key: Complain about this post
Why do you use MS Internet Explorer..?
- 241: MaW (Oct 21, 2002)
- 242: Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcups-Spurtle-and-Spoonswinner, BBC Cheese Namer & Zaphodista) (Oct 21, 2002)
- 243: MaW (Oct 21, 2002)
- 244: HappyDude (Oct 21, 2002)
- 245: 26199 (Oct 21, 2002)
- 246: MaW (Oct 21, 2002)
- 247: Apparition™ (Mourning Empty the best uncle anyone could wish for) (Oct 21, 2002)
- 248: HappyDude (Oct 22, 2002)
- 249: C Hawke (Oct 22, 2002)
- 250: HappyDude (Oct 22, 2002)
- 251: MaW (Oct 22, 2002)
- 252: Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcups-Spurtle-and-Spoonswinner, BBC Cheese Namer & Zaphodista) (Oct 22, 2002)
- 253: MaW (Oct 22, 2002)
- 254: Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcups-Spurtle-and-Spoonswinner, BBC Cheese Namer & Zaphodista) (Oct 22, 2002)
- 255: Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcups-Spurtle-and-Spoonswinner, BBC Cheese Namer & Zaphodista) (Oct 22, 2002)
- 256: MaW (Oct 22, 2002)
- 257: Apparition™ (Mourning Empty the best uncle anyone could wish for) (Oct 22, 2002)
- 258: 26199 (Oct 22, 2002)
- 259: MaW (Oct 22, 2002)
- 260: Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcups-Spurtle-and-Spoonswinner, BBC Cheese Namer & Zaphodista) (Oct 23, 2002)
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