Many vendors provide implementations of CIM in various forms:

* Some operating systems provide a CIM implementation. For example, the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) API available in Microsoft Windows 2000 and higher implements CIM, so do some GNU/Linux distributions with the [http://sourceforge.net/projects/sblim SBLIM project] on sourceforge.

* The storage area network industry has heavily bought into using CIM and WBEM: their usage of CIM is called Storage Management Initiative – Specification (SMI-S) which is a standard defined by the SNIA.

* Some server manufacturers collaborate in the DMTF under the SMASH initiative to define CIM based management of servers.

* The DASH initiative in the DMTF attempts to define CIM based management of desktop computers.

There is also a growing tools market around CIM.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Common Information Model (computing), under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Evolution is released as part of GNOME. GNOME is the default desktop environment for several Linux distributions, most notably Debian, Fedora and Ubuntu. Foresight Linux showcases the latest releases of GNOME. Novell distributes Evolution with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and the openSUSE community project.

Evolution is also available as source code. Some pre-built install packages are available for other operating systems, but only for older versions.

Evolution for Mac OS X

In 2006, Novell provided an installer for Evolution on Mac OS X. This outdated version was downloadable for quite a while but the link no longer works.

Evolution for Windows

In January 2005, Novell’s Nat Friedman announced in his blog that the company had hired Tor Lillqvist, the programmer who ported

GIMP to Microsoft Windows, to do the same with Evolution. Before

this announcement, several projects with the same goal had been

started but none of them reached alpha status.

As of November 11, 2009, DIP Consultants, LLC provides Evolution 2.28.1-1 with Windows Installer, which runs on Windows XP and newer.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Evolution (software), under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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MultiSeat Desktop Virtualization is a method by which a common desktop PC, with extra keyboards, mice, and video screens directly attached to it, can be used to install, load, and concurrently run multiple operating systems. These operating systems can be the same across all “seats” or they can be different. It is similar to server based computing only in the fact that one “mainframe” is supporting multiple users. On the other hand, it is different because the “terminals” (or seats, as they are known in multiseat jargon) are composed of nothing more than the regular keyboard, monitor and mouse, and these devices are plugged directly into the PC. USB hubs can be used for cable management of the keyboards and mice, and extra video cards (typically dual or quad output) may need to be installed.

Introduction

It is commonly known that modern day PC’s are extremely powerful and have substantial excess CPU processing power. In fact, most desktop applications do not use the multi-core (core2Duo, core2quad, etc.) capabilities of today’s CPUs. When an application is launched it runs on the first core, and when a second application is launched, it continues to run on the 1st core. That process continues (with the second and subsequent cores basically idling) until the original core gets very busy. At that point, the operating system tells the new applications to run on the 2nd and subsequent cores.

Server Based Computing

Server Based Computing has been around for a long time specifically to take advantage of this excess CPU power and allow multiple users to share it. It started in the 50′s and 60′s with batch processing and has taken its’ current day form with Citrix and Terminal Services. nComputing and Microsoft Multipoint are current iterations of the same thin client technology. The typical problem with this type of system is that it is dependent upon one operating system and one set of applications and there are many software titles that are not allowed to be shared among multiple users. That means that the first user of a program will get access but subsequent users will not. Another problem is that the video is not delivered via native means. It is usually delivered via network traffic and must rely upon the “packetizing” methods employed using TCP-IP. This means that video does not run very well especially if the network traffic is busy.

Server Virtualization

Virtualization can solve some of these problems. Virtualization is a method by which the “guest” operating system runs on top of, while being separated from the “bare metal” hardware. This means that multiple “guest” operating systems can be run, solving the problem of single user applications not being able to be launched for multiple, concurrent users. Xen used in conjunction with Citrix or VMWare used in conjunction with Microsoft Terminal Services are examples of this technology. Although it is still server based computing and relies upon a “thin” or a “fat” client to display the video output of the session, it allows multiple users to launch the same application because they are launching totally different instances of the same application, in different “guest” operating systems. But the issue still remains that video does not run very well because it still relies upon the network to delivery video. It is also extremely complicated to install and maintain, require extra training and knowledge.

MultiSeat Desktop Virtulization differences

Multiseat Desktop Virtualization is an entirely new methodology which combines the cost saving benefits and ease of maintenance of server based computing, the time savings of hardware agnostic cloning, and the capabilities of desktop virtualization, with the performance capabilities of real PC functionality. It takes advantage of this fact to enable ordinary users to install a multiseat PC giving 2 “seats” with a core2Duo CPU or 4 “seats” with a core2Quad CPU. The operating system of this PC is initially installed just like a regular PC. Regular PC users can install and use this type of product without having to install servers, or know how to manage complicated, server based computing or server based virtualization products. It has the combined benefits of a Type 1 hypervisor and a Type 2 hypervisor virtual machine. It does this with the efficiency of a Type 1 hypervisor while maintaining the portability of a Type II hypervisor.

Category:Human-computer interaction
Adapted from the Wikipedia article Multiseat desktop virtualization, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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K3b (from KDE Burn Baby Burn) is a CD and DVD authoring application for the KDE desktop environment for Unix-like computer operating systems. It provides a graphical user interface to perform most CD/DVD burning tasks like creating an Audio CD from a set of audio files or copying a CD/DVD, as well as more advanced tasks such as burning eMoviX CD/DVDs. It can also perform direct disc-to-disc copies. The program has many default settings which can be customized by more experienced users. The actual disc recording in K3b is done by the command line utilities cdrecord or cdrkit, cdrdao, and growisofs. As of version 1.0, K3b features a built-in DVD ripper.

As is the case with most KDE applications, K3b is written in the C++ programming language and uses the Qt GUI toolkit. Released under the GNU General Public License, K3b is free software.

A first alpha of a KDE 4 version of K3b was released on 22 April 2009, the second on 27 May 2009 and a third on 14 October 2009.

K3b is a software project that was started in 1998, and is one of the mainstays of the KDE desktop.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article K3b, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Acorn officially halted work in all areas except set-top boxes in late 1998 and the company was renamed Element 14 (the 14th element of the periodic table being silicon) with a new goal to become purely a Silicon design business (like the previous very successful spin off of ARM from Acorn in 1990). RISC OS development was halted during the development of OS 4.0 for the RiscPC 2 (“Phoebe 2100″), whose completion was also cancelled. A beta version, OS 3.8 (“Ursula”) for the original RiscPC, had previously been released to developers. The project code names of Phoebe (for the hardware), Ursula (for the software) and Chandler (for the graphics processor chip) were taken from the names of characters in the TV series ”Friends” (Phoebe and Ursula were twin sisters in the series).

This led to a number of rescue efforts to try and keep the Acorn desktop computer business alive. Acorn held discussions with many interested parties, and eventually agreed to exclusively licence RISC OS to RISCOS Ltd, which was formed from a consortium of dealers, developers and end-users.

There were also a number of projects to bring the advantages of the RISC Operating System to other platforms by the creation of the ROX Desktop to provide a RISC OS-like interface on Unix and Linux systems.

Two similar projects, Impulse and Eidos’s Phoenix, have both stalled.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article RISC OS, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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On October 20, 2008, many users of Windows XP in China received a black desktop, as Microsoft introduced its WGA system for Chinese language systems, in an effort to combat piracy, which is extremely high in China. This version of WGA is of a more hostile approach as compared to previous forms, as it provides a hindrance to users and trespasses on usability. Since the majority of users in China run on a pirated copy of Windows, many users have experienced what is described as a “black screen syndrome”, where the operating system changes the desktop background to a black screen every 60 minutes, as well as displaying constant warning messages. Some users have even reported the disabling of Office programs such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Outlook.

According to various polls carried out by Chinese portals such as Sohu.com, QQ.com, 21cn.com, and many others, a large number (over 60% of those surveyed) of Chinese Internet users are hostile to Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) and Office Genuine Advantage (OGA).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Windows Genuine Advantage, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Modern free and open source software systems are composed of software by many different authors, including the Linux kernel developers, the GNU project, and other vendors such as those behind the X Window System. Desktop- and server-based distributions use GNU components such as the GNU C Library (glibc), GNU Core Utilities (Coreutils), and bash.

In an analysis of the source code for packages comprising Red Hat Linux 7.1, a typical Linux distribution, the total size of the packages from the GNU project was found to be much larger than the Linux kernel. Determining exactly what constitutes the “operating system” ”per se” is a matter of continuing debate.

On the other hand, some embedded systems, such as handheld devices and smartphones (like Google’s Android), residential gateways (routers), and Voice over IP devices, are engineered with space efficiency in mind and use a Linux kernel with few or no components of GNU. A system running μClinux is likely to substitute uClibc for glibc and BusyBox for Coreutils. Google’s Linux based Android operating system does not use any GNU components or libraries, replacing glibc with Google’s own BSD based Bionic C library. Even the FSF agrees that “GNU/Linux” is not an appropriate name for these systems.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article GNU/Linux naming controversy, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Early computers took the space of a room. Minicomputers generally fit into one or a few refrigerator sized racks. It was not until the 1970s when computers such as the HP 9800 series desktop computers were fully programmable computers that fit entirely on top of a desk. The first large calculators were introduced in 1971, leading to a model programmable in BASIC in 1972. They used a smaller version of a minicomputer design based on ROM memory and had small one-line LED alphanumeric displays. They could draw computer graphics with a plotter. The Wang 2200 of 1973 had a full-size CRT and cassette tape storage. The IBM 5100 in 1975 had a small CRT display and could be programmed in BASIC and APL. These were generally expensive specialized computers sold for business or scientific uses. By the late 1970s and 1980s personal computers such as the Apple II series and the IBM Personal Computer used standard processors to reduce cost to put a complete computer on top of a desk with a separate monitor. These would find uses in the home as well as in business and industry, and later incorporate graphic user interfaces and powerful networked operating systems such as Mac (Macintosh) and Windows.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Desktop computer, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Thin clients have their roots in multi-user systems, traditionally mainframes accessed by some sort of terminal computer. As computer graphics matured, these terminals transitioned from providing a command-line interface to a full graphical user interface, as is common on modern thin clients. The prototypical multiuser environment along these lines was Unix, and fully graphical X terminals were relatively popular thin clients in the 1990s. Modern Unix derivatives like BSD and GNU/Linux continue this multi-user tradition.

Windows NT became capable of multi-user operations due primarily to the efforts of Citrix Systems, which repackaged NT 3.5.1 as the multi-user operating system WinFrame. Microsoft licensed this technology back from Citrix and implemented it into Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition, under a project codenamed “Hydra.” Windows NT then became the basis of Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Today, Windows allows graphical terminals via its Remote Desktop Services component.

The term ”thin client” was coined in 1993 by Tim Negris, VP of Server Marketing at Oracle Corp., while working with company founder Larry Ellison on the launch of Oracle 7. At the time, Oracle wished to differentiate their server-oriented software from Microsoft’s desktop-oriented products. Negris’s buzzword was then popularized by its frequent use in Ellison’s speeches and interviews about Oracle products.

The term stuck for several reasons. The earlier term “graphical terminal” was chosen to contrast such terminals with text-based terminals, and thus puts the emphasis on ”graphics”. The term was also not well-established among IT professionals, most of whom had been working on fat-client systems. It also conveys better the fundamental hardware difference: thin clients can be designed with much more modest hardware, because they perform much more modest operations.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Thin client, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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NComputing is a desktop virtualization company that manufactures hardware and software to create virtual desktops which enable multiple users to simultaneously share one computer. The company’s approach is similar to thin clients but promises better media streaming and audio performance and lower costs. The company supports both Windows and Linux operating systems. The name “NComputing” comes from the mathematical term “”n”” which stands for an indefinite number (in this case) of additional users sharing a single computer.

NComputing, based in Redwood City, CA is a privately held for-profit company with offices in the United States, Australia, Canada, China, Germany, India, Korea, Poland, Russia, and the United Kingdom; and resellers around the world.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article NComputing, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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