Using Linux Virtual Desktops With VMware Horizon View

This article explores if using a VDI broker with Linux could significantly help with the entitlement, authentication, provisioning, security and management of Linux desktops over physical Linux desktops.

Horizon View 6.2 allows Linux desktops to be used as virtual desktops. VMware has three licensing options for using Linux desktops with View: Horizon 6 Enterprise Edition, VMware Workspace Suite and View for Linux. For those interested in running only Linux desktops, View for Linux is the least costly option.

OSes used: CentOS 6.7 VMs. View 6.2 supports four Linux distributions: Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS, and NeoKylin. Supported versions of these distributions can be found in the VMware documentation. Each of the VMs had two vCPUs, 4GB RAM and a 120GB hard drive.

As a desktop administrator, I found that manageability of the desktops was greatly improved; I could provision and entitle a user to a new desktop in less than five minutes, and access to the desktop was easily provided by either a View client or vSphere.

With this access I would be able to install new software, or observe and correct issues that users were having with their desktops. If a user was hardware-constrained, their virtual hardware could be reconfigured in seconds.

VMware View Linux desktops do not yet support all the features of Windows desktops, including support for linked clones, single sign-on (SSO) and support for mobile device and Zero client access. I'm confident these features will come with time, but compared to physical desktops they are far more secure, manageable and accessible.

Source: https://virtualizationreview.com/Articles/2016/01/15/Using-Linux-Virtual-Desktops-With-VMware-Horizon-View.aspx?Page=2