“Red Hat Desktop is sensible to the point of austerity, but practical in the way it supports updates and other features. It’s not for individuals or very small businesses, but larger companies who calculate the total cost of ownership (TCO) may well find it worth considering.”
More here.
Review: Red Hat Desktop 4
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
“Unlike some other distros, Red Hat Desktop is fine with remote printers — all it needed was the IP address and printer model to use HP’s JetDirect to print directly to a networked HP LaserJet in the ZDNet UK office.”
They’re kidding right? Is there a Linux distro that doesn’t support jetdirect printing?
This review reads like its written by a complete “n00b”. While I wouldn’t rip a newb for that, I’ll rip a “journalist” for it.
Well, maybe the guy did have some bad experience with some other distros. I don’t understand how you can judge him without knowing what he has used before. Besides, a “journalist” can’t know everything. Not even an engineer can. An OS is such a vast thing, that it’s almost impossible to know all the aspects about it and review it in full. You would need a full book for that.
Or maybe he’s a total n00b he quoth judging the writer’s credibility based on what was written and finding it incredulous.
Or maybe he’s a total n00b he quoth judging the writer’s credibility based on what was written and finding it incredulous.
It’s not that you can’t do it on other distros. He’s just referring to that fact that it isn’t particularly easy or straightforward to do in a user friendly way.
Then he should say that. Words mean what they mean…
I’ve used a lot of OS’s with jetdirect printers, I’ve not seen one that I had any trouble getting it to work. I’ve had a tiny amount of experience with your typical cheap HP/Lexmark on Mac’s and Windows PC’s, and I’ve had a thousand times more trouble with those.
The jet direct laser printers themselves give me more troubles than getting them setup on anything. They’re just so well supported.
And I do expect a journalist writing on a topic to seem like he knows what he’s talking about. I don’t expect him to be an expert, but the tone of the whole article is as if he’s never touched Linux before. And frankly, a journalist shouldn’t be doing Linux reviews unless he’s knowledgeable about GNU/Linux OS’s.
I don’t expect him to know everything; but I certainly expect him to be knowledgable.
I have found some distros quite unintuitive to set up network printing. Here’s an example: Suse 9.2, you have to run a command line utility to set up a password before you can use CUPS printer admin. Until you figure that out, by looking it up in Google, you’re out of luck.
Then again, in Suse, you also have to pick what protocol you are using and get the addressing right. Its not particularly difficult if you know roughly what you are doing, understand IP addresses and so on, but it is not terribly intuitive and would be hopeless for ‘ordinary users’. Guess they won’t have networked printers in the first place.
I never installed RH so don’t know how it compares, but if it significantly simplifies on Suse, I don’t think he’s being an idiot.
His point about sparseness is pretty valid. For ‘ordinary users’ having three or four ways to administer printers, do spreadsheets, edit a file and so on is really forbidding.
I agree, you expect at least a little knowledge/experience of the material from any technical writer, professional or otherwise.
I heard Windows XP Professional SP2 is great also, comes with Games, you can purchase it stand alone or in 3 packs or an OEM version for as little as $80 with qualifying hardware such as a mouse.