Association eager to modernize their deployments of Linux have two new alternative for operating the open source OS remotely. In the new edition of its Virtual Desk Infrastructure (VDI) application, Oracle has integrated the capability to run a variety of Linux distributions on thin client devices. And Novell has declared that Amazon will start contributing cloud-based editions of Novell's SUSE Linux OS on its Elastic Compute Cloud service.

Innate in Oracle's acquire of Sun Microsystems, Oracle VDI (formerly Sun VDI) suggest the skill to stream entire desktop interfaces from servers to thin-clients and PC. Version 3.2 increases the number of OSes it can bear beyond Microsoft Windows.

"For us, VDI is not solely Windows," said Wim Coekaerts, Oracle senior vice president for Linux and virtualization engineering. "Linux PC is not much, but it's more than zero." VDI 3.2 formally supports Ubuntu, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and Oracle Enterprise Linux; although association is liberated to run other Linux distributions with the application as well. Oracle has no strategy to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux, given that the company's own Oracle Enterprise Linux is a near imitation of that OS, Coekaerts stated.