Editor's note: This article is Part 4 of a five-part series. See the previous developerWorks® articles, IBM open collaboration client solution: An introduction," "IBM open collaboration client solution: Organizational planning and user segmentation for desktop migration," and "IBM open collaboration client solution: Technical planning requirements for desktop migration." See the recently published part 5, "IBM open colaboration solution: Architecture decisions and execution options for an IBM open virtual client."

As more and more applications become available for Linux® clients, mainstream consumers have started looking into Linux desktops and laptops. Today vendors such as Ubuntu, RedHat, and SUSE offer consumer-winning Linux Desktop versions such as SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 that offer enterprise-level support. Although Microsoft® Windows® currently has the larger market share, the Linux Desktop is gaining momentum for reasons that include low cost, usability, flexibility, and security. All of these factors have prompted IBM to standardize on RedHat and SuSE to provide enterprise-level support for IBM® products.

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Before moving to Linux desktops, you must consider your infrastructure, business line applications, collaboration tools, and total cost of ownership. The good news is that most of these considerations can be met with current Linux desktops and applications. The bad news is that, in today's world, customer environments range from Java™ applications to Microsoft .NET applications to Visual Basic applications. What is a customer to do when different applications require different operating systems?

The solution lies in the various tools available for migrating to a Linux desktop that provide alternatives to Microsoft Windows applications. For example, you can translate your Microsoft .NET applications to Java applications or host your applications on a Microsoft Windows Server system and access it through a Linux desktop.

Applications available on Linux desktops

Applications that might have previously been used only on Microsoft Windows operating systems are now supported on current releases of Linux operating systems. Here are some examples of application types supported on Linux desktops:

• Office suite. IBM Lotus® Symphony, based on the Open Document Format (ODF) standard, is a suite of free software that you can use to create and share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. In addition, Linux desktops come with OpenOffice.org 2.0, which offers a complete office suite.
• Web browser. The Mozilla Firefox Web browser protects users from viruses, spyware, and pop-ups, making it easy to import favorites and settings.
• Collaboration. IBM offers IBM WebSphere® Portal, IBM Lotus Connections, IBM Lotus Quickr™, and IBM Lotus Sametime® as collaboration software that is supported on Linux desktops using the Firefox Web browser.
• Instant messaging. The IBM enterprise-level Lotus Sametime client provides such features as VoIP, location awareness, and Web conferencing. Similar to the Gaim instant messenger, which supports popular public instant-messaging networks such as AOL, Jabber, MSN, and Yahoo!, Lotus Sametime supports AOL.
• Multimedia support. Multimedia support for Adobe® Macromedia and RealNetworks comes installed and ready to use on Linux desktops.
• Search engine. Beagle personal information management is tightly integrated into the Linux environment to provide real-time indexing and integrated search capabilities throughout the entire desktop.
• Desktop effects. AIGLX and XGL compiz provide new 3-D graphical enhancements that increase productivity; users can better organize their desktops, reducing the amount of time that they need to complete tasks.
• Virtualization. Linux comes with XEN virtualization. Both RedHat and SUSE provide XEN support. With no additional customization, users can create XEN virtual machines running modified, highly tuned, para-virtualized guest operating systems for optimal performance.

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Tools for accessing Microsoft Windows applications on Linux desktops

Several applications and tools are available today from various IBM Business Partners that offer alternatives to Microsoft Windows applications available for general users to migrate to a Linux desktop. You can choose which application is right for your business needs. Options include translating Microsoft .NET applications to Java applications or hosting applications on a Windows Server machine and accessing them through a Linux desktop. This section highlights the various IBM Business Partner solutions that allow you to access Microsoft Windows applications from Linux desktops.

Diamond Edge

Diamond Edge helps customers convert from proprietary Visual Basic applications to open-standards Java-based applications, thus avoiding any vendor lock-in in the future. Diamond Edge offers the following conversion services:

• Visual Basic (VB) to a Java application
• Visual Basic to a Web application using Java Platform, Enterprise Edition(Java EE) and one of the Java/Ajax toolkits
• Visual Basic to a Web application using Java EE/JSP/Java Servlet
• Visual Basic to J2ME (wireless phone and PDA, for example, using Palm OS)
• Visual Basic to HTML and JavaScript™

Diamond Edge offers a product called VB Converter, Java SWT Edition. This product lets a VB programmer to take full advantage of the Java platform and all the Java libraries that VB Converter provides for Visual Basic-to-Java conversion (see figure 1). Diamond Edge also offers migration services to get your VB application converted in the least expensive way possible. Such Business Partner offerings help customers move to Linux Desktops more quickly.

Mainsoft Corporation

Mainsoft Corporation is an independent software company offering a cross-platform development and porting tool that enables IT organizations to move to Java-enabled platforms, such as Linux, while preserving existing investments in Microsoft .NET code and skills (see figure 2).

Using Mainsoft's Enterprise Edition eases these cross-platform challenges by letting you rapidly port Microsoft .NET Web and server applications to the Java EE platform, without having to rewrite your entire code.

Mainsoft compiles the Microsoft .NET source to Java bytecode without changing it, allowing the same Microsoft .NET developers to maintain their application using Visual Studio, even when it runs on the Java EE platform. Applications ported with Mainsoft perform just as well as the original Microsoft .NET applications.

Mainsoft supports IBM WebSphere Application Server and any standards-compliant Java EE server.

Virtual Bridges

Virtual Bridges, Inc. develops small-to-medium business (SMB) and enterprise virtualization solutions that let users of open-source platforms run Windows applications. Virtual Bridges’ products are multiplatform and are aimed at businesses that want to use virtualization solutions to create a sustainable business advantage.

Virtual Bridge's Win4Lin Pro Desktop allows Linux users to run Windows applications from the Linux desktop, using a virtual computing environment (see figure 3). This product is also available for Sun Solaris, FreeBSD, and PCBSD operating systems.

Win4Lin Pro Desktop runs Microsoft Windows applications and desktops on the Linux desktop at near-native speeds, through either a full desktop mode or a floating application mode. The Win4Lin Pro application uses the X window system to display this Windows Desktop on your Linux machine. Other benefits of running Win4Lin Pro Desktop include the following:

• Security. Win4Lin Pro Desktop runs as a well-behaved Linux process, sharing Linux memory and file system without surrendering control to the Microsoft Windows guest operating system. Networking options provide additional security. If desired, a Microsoft Windows session can be started in a read-only mode, which ensures that no harm can be done to the Microsoft Windows image.
• Interoperability. Many Linux users are finding the dual-boot mode of using Microsoft Windows to be lacking in interoperability with their Linux system. Win4Lin Pro Desktop provides file sharing between the Linux and Microsoft Windows file systems. In addition, cut and paste between Microsoft Windows and Linux is supported, as well as the ability to let the running Microsoft Windows applications use the Linux host's local and network printers.
• Backup. Win4Lin Pro Desktop users can easily back up their Microsoft Windows system by copying one file.

In addition, Win4Lin gives users options for networking. Win4Lin sessions can be configured with bridged networking or network address translation (NAT) networking. NAT networking gives the Microsoft Windows guests seamless access to virtually all network resources while maintaining the security of an automatic inbound firewall. In contract, Bridged networking gives Microsoft Windows complete access at the expense of fully exposing it to the network. While Bridged networking requires a constant physical link to a network, NAT networking is much more flexible and mobile, even when working over your wireless or VPN connection.

Ericom Software

Ericom Software is a provider of enterprise-wide application access solutions ranging from server-based computing (SBC), Virtual Desktops (VDI), and Web-to-host connectivity to client-based terminal emulation, which allow users to access business-critical applications residing on a broad range of systems in a secure centralized environment (see figure 5).

Ericom's server-based computing solution, PowerTerm WebConnect, enables Microsoft Windows, legacy, and Linux applications to coexist on a single platform, enabling customers to access Microsoft Windows applications on their Linux desktops almost seamlessly. Customers can access their Microsoft Windows applications through a Web browser or through a PowerTerm WebConnect Downloader that comes installed on Linux desktops such as RedHat or SuSE.

In addition, Ericom offers PowerTerm WebConnect solutions for IBM Lotus products. Within a unified collaboration platform, users are presented with a list of applications, personalized by user, group, or role. This solution provides single-click access to Microsoft Windows and legacy applications while using business collaboration applications on the Lotus Notes® 8 or Lotus Expeditor desktop (see figure 7).

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Conclusion

Customers have a choice when it comes to solutions for accessing Windows applications on Linux desktops. These solutions eliminate the challenges of porting your infrastructure and business-line application to a Linux desktop. With Linux desktop solutions such as IBM's open collaboration client solution, customers can now have an end-to-end unified collaboration platform.

Resources

• Refer to the previous developerWorks article in this series, "IBM open collaboration client solution: An overview."
  
  
• Refer to the previous developerWorks article in this series, "IBM open collaboration client solution: Organizational planning and user segmentation for desktop migration."
  
  
• Refer to the previous developerWorks article in this series, "IBM open collaboration client solution: Technical planning."
  
  
• Refer to part 5 of this series, "IBM open collaboration solution: Architecture decisions and execution options for an IBM open virtual client."
  
  
• Read about the IBM open collaboration client solution.
  
  
• Refer to the IBM Redbooks® publication, “Linux Client Migration Cookbook, Version 2: A Practical Planning and Implementation Guide for Migration to Desktop Linux."
  
  
• Refer to the IBM Redbooks publication, “Migrating from Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003 to Lotus Notes and Domino 7."
  
  
• Read about the IBM open collaboration client solution powered by SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell.
  
  
• Read the IBM white paper, "IBM Point of View: Desktops of the future and how to get started today."
  
  
• Read the developerWorks Lotus article, "Developing and deploying rich client applications on desktops and mobile devices using Lotus Expeditor V6.1."
  
  
• Read the developerWorks Lotus article, "Building an offline application in IBM Lotus Expeditor."
  
  

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Table of contents

• Applications available on Linux desktops
• Tools for accessing Microsoft Windows applications on Linux desktops
• Conclusion
• Resources
• About the authors
• Comments

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