Novell Linux Desktop Screens and Details
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I think that Novell should go the way RH did, by unifing KDE’s and GNOME’s look. I don’t mean to bring down anyone else’s hard work but the themes shown in the screenshots don’t look extraordinarly new.
I’m always asking myself when freedesktop.org is going to work on a unified widget themeing standard.
I like the Gnome theme, as I like light whiter themes as opposed to darker looking ones, I can’t judge the KDE side as all we have is a screenshot of the system tray on the bottom. I’m hoping Novell will be able to bring something worth wild to Linux.
I just hope Novell won’t do the mistakes made by Sun in their Linux desktop.
Just looks like Novell went in and switched “Suse” to “Novell” whereever it occurred, and then put a big, red ‘N’ on the menu. It’d be nice to see some substantive UI development rather than simple re-branding..
Haha…such a VAST departure from SuSE Linux!? I’m awestruck!
I think the big red ‘N’ as Novell’s logo needs to change. If they are going to plaster their logo all over the place, they need something more exciting than a plain, red ‘N’. Their “balls” logo or “stripes” logo would be better in a UI, I think.
If you had actually gone through the documentation you would have seen a lot of difference.You can run both Gnome or KDE, but there is only one app per category for most things.
1) Mail/Calendaring : Evolution
2) Media : Totem
3) IM : Gaim
4) Office : OpenOffice.Org
5) Web : Firefox
6) Music : It looks like rhythmbox
7) CD burning : K3B
8) CD Ripping : Sound Juicer
9) CD Player : The Gnome CD Player
10) Streaming Audio and Video : RealPlayer
11) Network Browser : Nautilus
http://www.novell.com/documentation/nld/
Forgot to add
12) File Manager : Nautilus
It seems to be a very good enterprise desktop, but lacks the really good stuff. Hopefully Beagle and F-Spot will be ready for the next release
“If you do not know which environment your company prefers, ask your system administrator.”
What’s the point of that? If they have configured standard Gnome applications for most tasks, why bother to include a question about KDE at all? It just adds unneeded confusion. It would make more sense to me if they installed the KDE libs by default, but left KDE itself as a post-install configuration option in YaST. And in case you think I am just being a pro-Gnome troll, I think KDE-based distros should do the same but opposite thing: use KDE by default and let the user configure Gnome afterward.
The best example of this is in Fedora Core 1 and 2 installs, where the user is supposed to choose between KDE and Gnome. But both KDE and Gnome have the exact same description, so a new user would just have to throw up their arms in confusion. A pathetic first experience to Linux, for no good reason. I’m not sure if Novell’s installer question will be as poorly worded as the Fedora/Red Hat installer, but from the quote in the installer it sure seems like it will be.
Actually the Novell desktop is the old Ximian desktop not Suse. (They did change the Suse logos in the Suse OS but it’s still carries the Suse name)
At least that is the impression I’ve got from what Nat has said.
From what I gather it looks to me like Novell is going the Sun route, except that probably Novell will not eliminate KDE totally. I don’t see the reason behind their move, except as a marketting tool. They should improve Linux and compatibility, but instead they create one more distro. I think it’s a waste of resources, but who knows, maybe they’ll make allot of $$$ out of it, and that’s all it matters. Novell has the ball now in their court, maybe they will not screw up this time.
Novell® Linux* Desktop (NLD) offers a stable and secure working environment packed with easy-to-use business software and services. NLD offers both GNOME and KDE desktops and leading Novell products and services to create a work environment that helps you capture and share business information.
http://www.novell.com/documentation/nld/
Well, that answers a few questions. I’m somewhat disappointed that they didn’t just pick one and go with it, but hey, it’s their support headache
Anyone know if it will include gnome 2.6 or 2.8?
God, what a mess! Take yast, make it a bit prettier, eliminate *choice* from your menus (hey, that’s why you guys mostly use Linux right, choice?). Support Gnome instead of KDE (or both as it really should be). It obviously seems that Gnome is being pushed by FSF to be adopted and KDE to be ignored. Personally, and i’ve said it before, I’ve found the Gnome UI to be disgraceful. Just starting using XFCE 4.2 beta and it’s nice. And guess what Gnome lovers, it works, and it’s easy to configure, no little surprises or “how the F do I do that?” that i’ve encountered trying to use Gnome 2.4/2.6.
Ever wonder why Slackware is considering dropping Gnome? Read those forum posts and you’ll see why. Bitch to install. Gnomes ftp site doesn’t even have all the packages. Documentation is poor. Very poor. And the Gnome developers have been bugged about this for some time but have done jack. And they wonder why they’re being dropped! Peter (Slackware) has hit the nail right on the head. He builds his distro and doesn’t let political things tell him what he should/shouldn’t do. He uses commonsense.
Novell should be ashamed of itself, but then it did by Ximian, so what did we expect.
As to the ease of use of Gnome – a user on my distros forum had lost the wastebasket from the Gnome desktop, and wanted to know how to get it back. He needs to edit the gconf file to do so. Now I believe that the gconf editor is really not a very easy thing to understand/use, powerful yes, but not intuitive, especially to the average, “non-hacker”. I personally feel, like Peter, that Gnome has went downhill from 1.4 onwards…
Just my 2c worth.
Dave
is this firstboot from redhat/fedora?
> http://www.novell.com/documentation/nld/index.html?page=/documentat…
Quickly browsed through their documentation and as someone stated before they actually use one specific application for every task… one GNOME application for every task (except CD Burning where the available GNOME apps are far worse than in the other categories).
KDE Users even get to use the GNOME Volume Control and their media applications like Totem and Sound Juicer.
Given that this is meant to be a Business Desktop the latter should not matter that much – but then again why include them at all… (I haven’t felt the need to rip an Audio CD at work yet… don’t know of any other department that has CD Rippers in use).
Looking at the screenshots and the documentation I guess it’s time to finally wake up and see:
Novell Desktop is a GNOME Desktop through and through – KDE ist “just there” not to scare away all the former SuSE customers (mainly in germany) and make them comfortable with GNOME in a non-scary way.
I’m not sure, but their “accessing network” documentation gives a shot of Nautilus. Now if that’s true this is a real insult to anyone at SuSE working on KDE… Nautilus as a file manager?!
Ok, I mean I can live with Novel Desktop beeing fully (99%) GNOME – but the talk about supporting / offering KDE as well makes me sad. It’s just marketing and a (rough) transition for companies formerly using KDE – nothing more.
Another issue is the way the original SuSE Linux Professional will go. They already market 9.2 as the “home users and enthusiasts Linux” and with the coming releases GNOME and .NET (yeah ‘Mono’) based apps will overtake everything that was (somewhat) good in SuSE before – or replace it with ND completely.
I don’t think the money from Novell towards KDE (i.e. spnosoring events, employing KDE developers) will stop that soon though – but it weill happen /me thinks.
Yeah…. so what have the little slaves at Novell actually been doing? That looks like a stock install with a different wallpaper to me… big deal.
I would have thought a big corporate like Novell would like to stamp their appearance on it – basically saying “If you want your desktop to look this good, you have to get it from us”. Doesn’t seem to be the case though…
Gnome-centric baby!
Looks great.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=8445:
Novell plans to launch its first Linux desktop offering, which incorporates technology it acquired from German Linux vendor SuSE last year, within the next month. The vendor says it is combining its own proprietary technology with open source software in an “enterprise-ready” desktop operating system that will be a low-cost alternative for most organisations.
Apparantly Novell Linux Desktop and SuSE LinuX 9.2 are two
different products.So what’s the fuzz all about?Personally i
wouldn’t care less what standardized desktop manager is installed on my PC in the Office, if the additional network
technology added by Novell and the rest works.
http://reseller.co.nz/news.nsf/0/CC256E690007D482CC256F1D00787F73?O…
“Novell is releasing a number of its current products in Linux flavours and is also developing a Linux server operating system, named Open Enterprise Server, which will combine NetWare 7 and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 with a common management interface”
I sincerly hope though that Novell will not drop the SuSE linux series like the coming 9.2 . This enterprise desktop
is butt ugly,but hey if it works at the Office fine with me.
Oops, typo – Peter = Pat. Was talking to a Peter on the phone when I was posting…
Dave
1) Mail/Calendaring : Evolution
7) CD burning : K3B
That is the biggest problem of the linux desktop. Some applications runs under Gnome and some runs under KDE. In this case the user must run paralell two totally different desktop architecture with different look&fell, different configuration, different component arhitecture. And the unified skin is not a solution: if the user changed the KDE settings it is not affect Gnome applications an vice versa.
IMHO the linux desktop environments like Highlander: There can be only one :-). And IMHO this one will the Gnome because the Qt license not too good for commercial developers.
>>In this case the user must run paralell two totally different desktop architecture with different look&fell
Actually K3B looks pretty good in Gnome.
http://www.novell.com/documentation/nld/userguide_gnome/graphics/mu…
Now all you free software lovers have to do is grab your wallets, dish out a few hundred bucks, and you can have something more than few screen shots….lmao
Actually K3B looks pretty good in Gnome.
IMHO not too good. And propably when you start K3B it will starts the KDE services. This is a biggest problem with KDE applications: if you run a simple KWrite or Konsole under Gnome or XFCE or ICEWM the most important parts of KDE architecture will start.
why would we need that, when we have this http://osdir.com/screenshots/gnome2.8/37.gif
>eliminate *choice* from your menus
how many cd burner apps does mac or windows come installed with by default? how is it a bad thing to simplify a default linux install?
>Support Gnome instead of KDE (or both as it really should be).
Novell supports both. SuSE is still alieve and well, and owned by novell. So is ximian.
>It obviously seems that Gnome is being pushed by FSF to be adopted and KDE to be ignored.
how in the world does the FSF factor into this? the vast majority of desktop distros use kde, the vast majority of corporate desktops use gnome. i dont see why you zealots get so worked up over this stuff.
>Personally, and i’ve said it before, I’ve found the Gnome UI to be disgraceful.
you are probably an ex windows user, as most of my friends who use windows feel totally alienated in gnome. but regardless, its flamebait and totally offtopic.
>Just starting using XFCE 4.2 beta and it’s nice. And guess what Gnome lovers, it works, and it’s easy to configure, no little surprises or “how the F do I do that?” that i’ve encountered trying to use Gnome 2.4/2.6.
im glad youve found a DE that works well for you.
>Ever wonder why Slackware is considering dropping Gnome? Read those forum posts and you’ll see why. Bitch to install. Gnomes ftp site doesn’t even have all the packages.
you are very correct about gnome being a pain to build. just to note though, theres some quirks to kde as well. not as much as gnome, but its not anywhere near easy, especially if you deviate from konstruct.
>Documentation is poor. Very poor. And the Gnome developers have been bugged about this for some time but have done jack.
the first thing that comes to mind is how does the build problems of gnome factor into a discussion of novell linux? cant you even wait for the next thread actually about gnome to do your trolling?
>And they wonder why they’re being dropped! Peter (Slackware) has hit the nail right on the head. He builds his distro and doesn’t let political things tell him what he should/shouldn’t do. He uses commonsense.
first, his name is pat, not pete. secondly, its mostly political. pat doesnt like the direction gnome has gone since about 1.4. that combined with it being a maintanence nightmare were the reasons he *may* drop gnome. again, i really dont see how slack packages have anything to do with novell linux.
>Novell should be ashamed of itself, but then it did by Ximian, so what did we expect.
wait… im confused. novell should be ashamed of itself for the build problems slackware maintainers have with gnome? and where does ximian factor into this?
>As to the ease of use of Gnome – a user on my distros forum had lost the wastebasket from the Gnome desktop, and wanted to know how to get it back. He needs to edit the gconf file to do so.
maybe another thing for novell to be ashamed of?
>Now I believe that the gconf editor is really not a very easy thing to understand/use, powerful yes, but not intuitive, especially to the average, “non-hacker”. I personally feel, like Peter, that Gnome has went downhill from 1.4 onwards…
GConf is a copy of the windows registry, just a heck of alot cleaner. noone really likes it, but at the same time noone has really come up with a better solution. it wouldnt suprise me at all if gconf is gone in gnome 3.0.
many people agree with you and pat on this one. many people disagree as well. welcome to the wonderful world of linux, and please keep DE trolling in threads about DEs. this is a place to say stuff like “gentoo pwnz all!!!11” and whatnot.
gotta love osnews
>>GConf is a copy of the windows registry…
OMG!!!
Gconf != Registry
Gconf is a collection of XML files, thats it!
<QUOTE>
Windows has the Registry to keep track of settings. Linux, in contrast, has dotfiles (files whose names begin with a period). While GConf and the Windows Registry share the same goal, it is important to note that the similarities end there. Typically, Linux dotfiles can be found in a user’s home directory and contain configuration data. While these are robust, easy to edit with a basic text editor, and simple to backup, they lack a consistent API or a consistent format or organization. They’re also difficult to lock down, and they make imposing a network-wide configuration policy rather difficult. GConf is the GNOME project’s attempt at retaining the benefits of plain text files, while addressing these disadvantages. Unfortunately, the GConf editor shares a user interface similar to Regedit, leading many critics of GConf to wrongfully classify it as poor clone of the Windows Registry.
GConf stores data in a tree structure similar to a filesystem. ‘Files’ are configuration keys (‘wallpaper’) and contain values (‘my-smooth-wallpaper.png’). These are contained within ‘directories’ (‘desktopsettings’) and are separated by forward slashes as the delimeters (‘/desktopsettings/wallpaper’). The actual data storage is performed by a set of backend plugins. The default backend stores values in a directory hierarchy in ~/.gconf, with each directory carrying one XML file that contains the settings at that level.
GConf has a number of important properties. A notification service alerts applications to changes in configuration data, and is used by GNOME to (among other things) propagate settings to multiple applications. As GConf is the de facto way of persisting application settings, virtually every developer building applications for GNOME will end up utilizing it. They will be rewarded with a reasonable API and rich featureset. End users will appreciate the instant application of system-wide settings (such as network proxy server and desktop theme preferences), and system administrators will appreciate the options for site-wide configuration presets.
Support for multiple configuration sources allows things like a network-wide configuration policy to be implemented. GConf can be told to search a read-only network-wide configuration database before the user’s own database. For example, this might be used to enforce corporate standards for desktop settings. It is also network aware, allowing multiple logins to access the same GConf store.
</QUOTE>
> Gnome [..] dominant in Suse
Stop dreaming. KDE is default desktop on SUSE 9.2 Pro and there is no default desktop on NLD.
your right, GConf isnt the same as the windows registry. but it fullfills a very similar task, and you interact with it in a very similar way. maybe i shouldnt have said “copy”, as its more along the lines of “heavily inspired by”. but regardless, my point stands, i dont think ive ever seen anyone really praising gconf, and its mostly there for the same reasons we had a crappy file selector for so long, noone is really bothering to think up something better.
I had great expectations on NLD, based on all the marketing hype I’ve seen in the past months: KDE/Gnome integration, unified desktop, suited both for novice and for power users, and so on… but now I have to say I’m very disappointed.
Basically it will be Just Another Distro(tm) — even with in-sane defaults (Nautilus as the default file manager: ROTFL!). All things you could easily get with any distributions (even without paying any $$$).
Nothing new here, move along.
I don’t understand why people are so excited about the Novell Linux Desktop. First, it is a corporate Desktop and not for home users. I am pretty sure most people here are home users and consequently, many things the Novell Linux Desktop will offer (like Groupwise integration or potential Netware integration) are irrelevant for them. Also most home users are probably not happy with a very restricted set of packages. Second, Sun offers a corporate desktop for years and I don’t see what makes the Novell Linux Desktop so much better then the Sun Java desktop. I remember Sun speaking of installing millions of Java desktops in China. Nothing has happened so far. The only thing I heard from Sun recently is that they want to kill Linux. For me, the reason why they are no longer happy with Linux is obvious: the don’t make money with Linux. In my opinion, the same will happen with the Novell Linux Desktop because I cannot how Novell wants to make a substantial amount of money with this product.
And for GNOME vs. KDE: even if Novell/SUSE really decide to completely drop KDE from SUSE Linux and the Novell Linux Desktop (and I seriously doubt that this will going to happen) KDE will not die. Novell/SUSE employ some of the core KDE developers and it would certainly be a blow at KDE if they could not work on KDE fulltime anymore. But KDE has a lot of developers that are not employed by Novell/SUSE (actually the vast majority) and they will just continue to work on KDE. A lot of exciting things are going on with KDE like the Mozilla/Gecko integration, possible DBUS integration, the creation of a KDE HIG and usability improvements, integration of the ATK accessibility framework, Qt4, OpenOffice integration and also work on applications like AmoroK, Konversation and Krita (an KDE painting and image editing application similar to Paintshop pro). KDE offers a powerful and easy to learn application development framework today and this really begins to show in the quality of the applications. I have no doubt that KDE will progress nicely, no matter what Novell/SUSE are doing.
Linux is also getting a lot of corporate support. But did this kill FreeBSD? No, FreeBSD is still alive and I doubt it will ever die just because some companies decide to support Linux. If Novell/SUSE really decide to completely drop KDE, someone else will just step in and create another KDE-centric distribution.
> Quickly browsed through their documentation
You’re sure that you didn’t read the GNOME’s user guide only? You have gotten a complete wrong impression obviously.
> KDE Users even get to use the GNOME Volume Control and their media applications like Totem and Sound Juicer.
FUD
> Novell Desktop is a GNOME Desktop through and through – KDE ist “just there”
Wrong. They are on an equal footing without default desktop. One funny note, starting the help of GNOME applications like Evolution in SUSE 9.2 and current NLD starts the khelpcenter. 🙂
> Ok, I mean I can live with Novel Desktop beeing fully (99%) GNOME
Once again, you’re misguided or are spreading FUD with intention.
You have not gone through the documentation
>> KDE Users even get to use the GNOME Volume Control and their media applications like Totem and Sound Juicer.
>FUD
It clearly shows it in the Mutimedia section of the KDE User guide
e=/documentation/nld/userguide_kde/data/sec.sound.mixers.html
Whoops
My bad on the url. Here is the correct one
http://www.novell.com/documentation/nld/userguide_kde/data/sec.soun…
Suse has always deleverd good quality software. But thay have also delivered everything in a mess. I talk about the look and feel of stuff. Yast has always been good. The problem with it is the mess thay call gui. But now finally it starts looking good. I guess the ximian part of the company forced them!!
> Whoops
> My bad on the url. Here is the correct one
> http://www.novell.com/documentation/nld/userguide_kde/data/sec.soun…..
Well the documentation is work in progress. I have followed earlier versions of the NLD documentation at that URL and I expect those screenshots to change to KMix-screenshots in the future (If you compare the respective pages it just looks as if the former Ximian docs-guy used the Gnome-version of the docs as templates). If you read through the docs you’ll realize that the current state of the documentation is inconsistent unfinished and sucks — especially if you compare it to the usually excellent SUSE documentation.
The whole NLD is still far from finished (Personally I expect it to be released by Spring 2005). So give them some time. But don’t ask me why it took them almost a year to create this buggy stuff. SUSE usually needs about 3-4 months to create a new distribution, so I guess it’s not SUSE’s fault.
It’s not my intention to spread FUD by any means – this is just what I saw in the current Documentation and if you want it would be the documentation spreading FUD then – thanks.
If the documentation is really just preliminary and all the KDE pages are just using the GNOME pages as template and aren’t finished yet… ok.
But if what can be seen right now in this documentation (no, I did not read the GNOME part as someone else already corrected) is to be the truth… well I can’t see why anyone looking for a real KDE desktop would consider NLD if it comes with all-GNOME applications.
Don’t get me wrong – Evolution is nice as an Outlook replacement and beats Kontact at that today, but there is no good reason to use Totem or Sound Juicer – or even Rythmbox as there are better (imo) KDE apps that actually integrate into the Environment available for all those tasks.
Again, this Multimedia stuff is not the focus of NLD, but it shows where this is going (if it’s true).
What kind of makes me think the unfinished-documentation theory has to be true is that Nautlius is refered to as the way to access the Network – this is just a bit too much I guess.
Someone wondered about the impact NLD has here because it’s ‘just’ an enterprise desktop – not a home users desktop most of us would use privately.
I think the way of Linux on the enterprise desktop is far more important right now and I want it to succeed in a sense – but I can’t see this working out with all these GNOME centric Corporate Desktops around.
Just can’t see how or why companies using windows would want to switch to those versions of Linux. Windows does not seem too complicated today and the bonus of more simplicity does not make up for the loss of functionality in my view.
Oh yeah: This is a heavily biased “KDE fanboy” oppinion of course…
I just don’t see the simplicity bonus working out for sales and marketing like it might for grandma.
I wondered about the impact of the NLD because Sun tried the same thing and Sun failed miserabley. I think the problem of SUN is, that they don’t make enough money with Linux. And I don’t see how Novell wants to make money with Linux. RedHat makes some money with Linux, but compared to Novell RedHat is a relatively small company and I think for them it is o.k. to make a couple of million dollars profit a year. For Novell this won’t be enough and I don’t see how they want to make a magnitude or two more profit then RedHat by just selling Linux desktops. But this is only my personal opinion and I don’t know Novell’s plans, so I might be wrong here.
I think the most important thing for companies dealing with Linux and Open Source is to have a sane buisness plan that actually allows them to make money. From this point of few I think Trolltech’s Qt Licensing is a good thing because on the one hand Qt is open source and on the other hand, Trolltech earns enough money from Qt to ensure the further development of Qt.
Personally I really don’t care for Linux on the corporate desktop. Bascially Sun, Novell and others are not bringing Linux to the corporate desktop because they want to give free software to the community. The just want to make money and right now they think Linux is a good way to do so. I am a Linux user for years and Linux has done fine without corporate support for many years and I think Linux doesn’t really need Sun or Novell to succeed.
Mandrake will become the more important Kde-based distro …
That’s the same old YAST to me, only with some other theme.
Quote: “Suse has always deleverd good quality software. But thay have also delivered everything in a mess. I talk about the look and feel of stuff. Yast has always been good. The problem with it is the mess thay call gui. But now finally it starts looking good. I guess the ximian part of the company forced them!!
“
Yast looks good at first glance with the all-new GNOME icons (wonder if it will look like this in KDE too). However there’s still much room for improvement. What the heck is “Patch CD Update”? Must there be three separate “update” icons, I mean what’s difference between “Online Update” and “System Update”? Doesn’t the former update the later?
And look at the icons. “Network Devices” has an icon of a server tower, and “Network Services” has a network card icon. Oookay…, guys you might want to swap those around. And finally, there’s the ever popular “Misc” category. Like in programming, if you can’t think up a good function name it’s time to refactor or split the code up.
As long as there is proper support for netware(how about a real novell client) and groupwise, that’s all I really care about as far as NLD is concerned. KDE vs. Gnome nonsense aside, I want NLD to be able to talk to netware the same way my windows XP machine does, or rather the same clients/tools.
Though, ConsoleOne is already available for linux, I just haven’t had the time to play with it yet.
Alright I am sold. How much for one license, and do they have a 64 bit version?
> Alright I am sold. How much for one license,
Ask your merchant. 🙂
> and do they have a 64 bit version?
The second double-DVD contains the 64 bit version.
> Yast looks good at first glance with the all-new
> GNOME icons (wonder if it will look like this in
> KDE too)
If the user selects KDE as his default YaST uses KDE’s Crystal icons.
They should’ve gone with ROX!
A company called n:ix is developing a netware client, this quote of their website:
“NetWare Client for Linux
Together with Novell we are currently working on a new software the so called NCP-redirector and Linux NCP Client. This software will be included in Novell Linux Desktop ( NLD ) later this year. The client will support NetWare 5.1 and later. cNc will be included in this product. The time, more and detail information is avaible for public, we will place the URL on our webside. Thank you for give us some more time. You will like the results !”
see here:
http://www.n-ix.com/news/
please gimme a downl of these rel.
I have requested for one @ novell a couple of times.
the more the the better…
Probably some from Novell reading this- give osnews readers one like Lindows once did
Why couldn’t they have come out with their own desktop Linux without buying and screwing up Suse in the process. Suse used to have the healthiest amount of apps, and now it doesn’t even have decent codecs. Novell, having sold Unix, should have stuck to Netware.
Unless the docs are unfinished, it certainly looks like you can have “Gnome” or “Gnome plus a token bit of KDE” as your desktop. Time to browse over and checkout Mandrake, I guess. Goodbye SuSE, it was _great_ while it lasted…
Unless the docs are unfinished, it certainly looks like Novell has decided their desktop is either “Gnome” or “Gnome plus a token bit of KDE” like Red Hat.
Time to browse over to Mandrake. Good bye SuSE, it was _great_ while it lasted.
I fail to see why some are talking about dumping SuSE based on the NLD.
My understanding is that SuSE will continue to put out releases as they have been doing, while Novell will market NLD to the corporate desktop.
Maybe things will change in the future, but at the moment, I don’t see why anything Novell does with their NLD would affect your decision to use SuSE.
NLD will surely not be free
a lot of company will continue to use suse
i use suse at job and and NLD will not change that
Novell markets Novell Linux Desktop (NLD) for the corporate desktop user but I still do not see why they don’t market SuSE Linux Professional (SLP) for working professionals. SLP offers the end user more choice and tools than what comes with NLD. Just as NLD, SLP can be used on a single machine or distributed across a network. Even the included support package for SLP can be upgraded to a business package if the end user requires a better maintenance package. SLP offers consumers more options with what they want installed whether they are a home consumer or are in charge of purchasing software for the office. So whether you are a working professional in an office, work out of your home office, are a working professional with a laptop on the go or just typical Joe/Jane user surfing the net I believe SLP would be better suited to the task.
Looking at the screenshots and the documentation I guess it’s time to finally wake up and see:
Novell Desktop is a GNOME Desktop through and through – KDE ist “just there” not to scare away all the former SuSE customers (mainly in germany) and make them comfortable with GNOME in a non-scary way.
It’s been written that way to give that impression by certain people – like so many have been done before. People believe so much from terribly poor screenshots that have taken ten minutes to get together.
Anybody who thinks KDE is being dropped should look at Suse 9.2 (that’s actually being sold), since NLD basically is Suse 9.2 with some stuff (whatever the hell that is) thrown in.
Honestly, if they were going with Gnome then they’d have something much more after several months of hard graft than a handful of pitiful paragraphs and some standard Gnome/existing Ximian Desktop screenshots splashed with a bit of Novell red. No wonder they can’t even roll the thing out in their own organisation.
Ok, I mean I can live with Novel Desktop beeing fully (99%) GNOME – but the talk about supporting / offering KDE as well makes me sad. It’s just marketing and a (rough) transition for companies formerly using KDE – nothing more.
What companies using KDE? Honestly, give me a list of Fortune 500/FTSE 100 type companies now who have rolled out Gnome and KDE and are worried about support for one or the other? That’s where the difficulty comes. It will be at least well into 2006 before there is anything credible here (if at all), and then they’ve got to try and really build it up and convince people gradually, probably with SMEs first. 50,000 desktop deployments are not going to happen next year or even the year after or maybe even ever, despite what companies like Ximian have thought, since, well ever. They still seem to have that attitude sadly.
The essential truth is that the technology is going to have to be convincing, and absolutely the most important thing, the technology has to be the right stuff (boring and mundane mostly, not hyped stuff like Dashboard and Beagle) to be able to sell it and build it up strategically. I see nothing from the Gnome stuff or the very sparse KDE stuff (probably written mostly without Suse’s input) that is convincing. Is that really the best that has been done since the beginning of the year for Gnome YaST integration? It doesn’t look great (if an office worker doesn’t blow his or her brains out by 5pm with that then they’re very resilient), but it fits the impression of a corporate desktop that some people seem to have. Is that what people think will be enough?
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Ok, lets see if it is around at the end of
next year?
Then you can bring out the ‘Hype’ police
chanting about this horrible looking
cheap operating system.
blog me at:
http://kaiwai.blogspot.com/
Ok, lets see if it is around at the end of
next year?
Then you can bring out the ‘Hype’ police
chanting about this horrible looking
cheap operating system.
Reluctantly, I have to agree with you.
> Anybody who thinks KDE is being dropped should
> look at Suse 9.2 (that’s actually being sold),
> since NLD basically is Suse 9.2 with some stuff
> (whatever the hell that is) thrown in.
Actually NLD will be based on SLES 9 which in turn is based on SUSE LINUX Professional 9.1. So if you want the latest greatest user-friendly distribution you might better want to look at SUSE LINUX Professional 9.2.
Since this is Novell it will stick around. Ximian and Suse have been around for a while and every year someone predicts sun/microsoft/apple/ibm/redhat/cisco (take your pick) buying novell. Novell knows how to stick around.
Apparently Mr. Pastern has never heard of Dropline Gnome. A quick overview for the ignorant, Dropline Gnome is either an (a)binary installer (b)build system.
It downloads and installs ALL of the required Gnome components, which I feel has been improving by leaps and bounds with each new version. Not that I have anything against KDE or XFCE, I happen to like and use both.
I just prefer to have a choice, even if Pete wants to stop supporting Gnome, I don’t even install KDE, Slackware or 90% of the things included with the CD, they’re generally outdated.
look folks, read the fine print. when SCO lost in court over the copyright contract, this july, that spelled doom for ANY chance for a gnome interface. sun (and even microsoft) could read the writings on the wall. ibm HAD to win. when they did, sun and microsoft HAD to make up. ibm is too big and has too many competitive business reasons to win the copyright dispute. with a win, ibm will definitely not back gnome. since the courts have held up windows, tabs and folders are too generic to copyright, one can only guess the ultimate gui will look like. novell, most likely, will combine sco with kde to placate both camps. eventually, this gui will evolve into the gui’s on the new smartphones, since the closest the new computer (or internet) users will come to using computers will be thru the smartphones.