“Red Hat Inc. is looking to expand its general retail Linux and enterprise server software offerings and so will release a formal desktop Linux product geared toward the corporate market early next year. Mark De Visser, a vice president at the Raleigh, N.C., open-source technology provider, told eWEEK Tuesday that Red Hat is “working on a special desktop product offering for the corporate market. There is now a place, as well as demand, for this.” Hence the greatly improved – from the simple user’s point of view- Limbo beta. Red Hat is after the corporate desktops, eWeek and News.com report.
Red Hat Expanding to Corporate Desktop
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I am ready, willing and able.
Not suprising. But one thing I find easier to do, from the “simple user point of view” in Mandrake than in Limbo is installing new apps via RPM. Mandrake has APT-like URPMI, and a graphical front end to it. I haven’t tried Red Hat Network, but it seems in Limbo 2, the only way for a “simple user” to install apps is via Ximian Red Carpet. (Which is quite good… I wonder how much faster it could be when I pay for it…)
But Limbo is a huge step forward in ease of use. Sure, it uses GNOME 2.0 instead of KDE 3.x, but the only people integrating KDE into their distro (as oppose to just bundling it) all make it into Windows-clones…. *sigh*.
“Go buy one, please. Support my kids. They need new shoes,” McNealy quipped.
Demand for their servers must be really low… or probably iWork cost much more than they said it did…. (Kidding 🙂
“”Go buy one, please. Support my kids. They need new shoes,” McNealy quipped.”
Gosh, here I am pirating Windows when McNealy’s kids need a new pair of shoes? And by pirating Eminem’s latest CD, I’m taking food out Dr Dre’s kids’ mouth? Geez, what a louzy schmuck I am
“Mais non! Support us, my children need wine!”
“Mais non! Support us, my children need wine!”
I *NEED* wine! 😀 Besides, why does McNealy children needs shoes anyway? It’s summer, its California… they shouldn’t be wearing shoes 😀
Perhaps with the revenue of this new product Red Hat can afford to ship KDE security updates.
Sure, it uses GNOME 2.0 instead of KDE 3.x, but the only people integrating KDE into their distro (as oppose to just bundling it) all make it into Windows-clones…. *sigh*.
You know, its funny. The distros that bundle KDE3.0 do make it look more like a Winblows clone, but out of the box, its Gnome that leans more towards windows. IMHO, KDE is going after a very ‘Mac’ feel.
Just my thoughts….
>> I haven’t tried Red Hat Network, but it
>> seems in Limbo 2, the onlyt way for a
>> “simple user” to install apps is
>> via Ximian Red Carpet.
No, this is not correct at all. In fact, this is one of the nicest improvements and greatest surprises in Limbo 2. It has an easy, slick-looking, simple-to-identify package manager. Just Click on START –> SYSTEM TOOLS –> PACKAGES, and up comes an easy, very logically organised, packaging app you can use to install or uninstall apps. I’ve used it many times and it is simply wonderful for joe user.
Oh, I forget: gnorpm is now deprecated and will be retired shortly.
Judging from limbo 2, I have no doubt that Redhat can register some good success on the corporate desktop if they work hard on it. Also, starting with the business desktop is a pretty good strategy to introduce a linux desktop. People are generally very willing to learn and work with whatever they need on their jobs, and once they get familiar to a linux system at work, getting one at home would be a lot easier.
One more thing: Redhat, I suppose, will be pushing gnome mostly. As gnome gets better, the competition with KDE will heat up again, which would really be a nice thing!!
Still my complaint about Gnome/KDE desktops is network intergration. Just think about it, with windows all you have to do is connect to your office network, log on to the domain. Thats it, now you can easily share files(no need to
go type username/passwords everywhere) Outlook connects seamingless to the exchange server, no need to run and ask te sysadmin about password/hostnames etc. Same goes for using a printer, no big hassle of setting it up and finding the right printer.
Now, th MS implementation may suck, but there is no reason someone cant take the idea and do it right. The infrastructure is here (SLP, LDAP, Kerberos, PAM/NSS are the keywords) it just needs Gnome/KDE intergration.
Having atleast set up openldap, pam/nss_ldap(thanks http://www.padl.com) , mit-kerberos as a _very_ nice repacement for NIS has helped us alot with atleast central userinfo & password managment. Its still a hassle to set up, and Redhat seems to be the only one that got their /etc/pam.d/ configuration “right” for easily setting up client machines. A great thanks to RH’s “authconfig” tool also.
I think that Red Hat is the Microsoft of the future…
I always thought Caldera had a very nice linux desktop that just seemed more complete than the rest. Though it still suffered from the same problem I see over and over with linux. It’s too slowwwwwwww.
That is the reason above all else that I keep finding myself tearing my hair out and eventually uninstalling linux in favor of some other alternative os (usually beos).
Not because of a lack of applications. (There are quite a few quality apps, stuck among all the generic stuff) Not because I don’t want to fiddle around with settings and a command line. Not because the desktop doesn’t have enough neat graphics.
But, because linux makes even windows 2000 feel lightning fast! (And that is quite a feat to accomplish!)
actually, Linux is fast…it’s that darned X Windows that slows it down…but with a decent (supported) video card, XFree 4 is actually pretty good…also…don’t use KDE if you want speed, it’s so slow…Gnome is faster and Blackbox is really fast…if you’re not afraid of the command line, etc. i really recommend giving Linux another shot, but this time use Blackbox for your window manager
-bytes256
In terms of usage there are various quirks that send me rebooting back to NT. One of them is KDE’s Klipper, there are 2 modes, windows mode with ctrl-x (cut), ctrl-c (copy), and ctrl-v (paste). The other mode is the Unix mode, which uses highlight to copy and middle mouse to paste. On my current system (MDK 9.0 b2) they are both on by default with no way to prevent highlighted text from copying to clip board. I will constantly highlight text to delete it when doing word precessing or surfing and this is very annoying as it is then copied over what ever else I have in clip board. This makes simple tasks like pasting a URL in the address bar nearly impossible as you can’t highlight, and there is no clear button. You have go to the beginning or end of the current URL and delete it letter by letter with the delete or backspace key. It’s little UI annoyances like this that need ironed out.
And one more thing, by default clipper will popup a “what would you like to do” menu when you highlight something that begins with http://. When you select edit, it will pop up in a seperate ASCII editor. As if you can’t edit (delete) a URL from the address bar?
This feature however, can be turned off.(I think by unchecking enable actions)
> linux makes even windows
> 2000 feel lightning fast!
You have a point there, especially if you are using an older machine. In my experience, if you have a new desktop though (anything from 800 mhz and up), the speed problem is almost non-existent, and linux desktop becomes extrememly useable. Try Limbo! Seriously! It really is a pleasure to use.
My wish list would include:
1. More speed. more speed. And more speed
2. A cleaned up menu (too many redundancies)
3. A better-looking, and faster, mozilla
4. An improved evolution (still ugly, and still kinda sucks)
Jim, first: Klipper is not Linux. GNOME has no Klipper.
The default auto-action also annoyed the hell of me but that’s KDE, not Linux.
The mouse selection clipboard and CTRL+C clipboard was just broken in Qt2. Gtk always did it right and Qt3 does to (so it’s a non issue by now).
Those clipboards are different, so if you copy something with CTRL+C, it will be stored in clipboard A, while a mouse selection will be stored in clipboard B. This means that you can easily copy something with CTRL+C, select text or a locationbar and overwrite the contents with CTRL+V, it will work! While you can still use the middle mouse button pasting for the stuff you selected with the mouse (different clipboard) which is _very_ convenient.
You are right, there are 2 seperate clipboards.
I have used SuSE 8.0, mdk 8.2 and 9 beta and Limbo. I find them faster than XP Home. No latency problems is the kernel.
Still I wish BEOS was being developed and had apps, drivers etc. Its a great Desktop OS.
Are you running KDE or Gnome? In my experience, they are the things that slow the Linux experience down. I use WindowMaker (although IceWM is fast and similar in general design to KDE & Gnome) and use older applications. Instead of Nautilus or Konqueror for a file manager, I use XWC which is very fast indeed. On an AMDK6-500, it reads my /usr/bin directory in less than a second from cold, and that contains over 2,200 files. Or gv for viewing pdf files and so on, though OOo is still very slow. With this in mind, it strikes me that X isn’t the big bottleneck either, although it could be faster.
BTW – has anyone tried Windows 3.x on a modern machine. That flies! Outruns everything else by a large margin (until it crashes of course!)
>>BTW – has anyone tried Windows 3.x on a modern machine. That flies! Outruns everything else by a large margin (until it crashes of course!)<<
It would be sorta like System 7 on a new Mac!
But BeOS probably is the fastest OS still 🙂
Chris: You know, its funny. The distros that bundle KDE3.0 do make it look more like a Winblows clone, but out of the box, its Gnome that leans more towards windows. IMHO, KDE is going after a very ‘Mac’ feel.
If it is leaning more on anything… it is Windows. But most people think that KDE is copying Mac’s UI because of Keramik and Crystal (I wonder, why not Krystal?) in 3.1. Well, the UI is not the same as the looks, and secondly, how is Keramik remotely close to Aqua? Well, I finally got a chance to say it :-P.
Besides, using Windows 50% of my time, I wouldn’t think that GNOME 2.0 copied Windows UI. Its very different.
linux_baby: Just Click on START –> SYSTEM TOOLS –> PACKAGES, and up comes an easy, very logically organised, packaging app you can use to install or uninstall apps.
Yes, it is rather good, but it is not easy. It may be easy for you and me, but certainly not my mum or my brothers. For example, it won’t automatically fetch the packages from the Net, ala Mandrake. But I must say, *uninstalling* apps is much more easier in Limbo than it Mandrake.
Besides, Red Hat put this app in, to my opinion, the wrong place with the wrong name. People, when wanting to install an app or uninstall an app wouldn’t think that “Package” has anything to do with apps. Something like Windows could be nice – Add/Remove Applications.
But I still stand by my statment, the only way a Average Joe could install an app easily on Red Hat is via Red Carpet.
linux_baby: Judging from limbo 2, I have no doubt that Redhat can register some good success on the corporate desktop if they work hard on it.
I’m very confident they would have some success on the corporate desktop, because everything an average employee needs is quite simple. Plus, Red Hat is very corporate orientated, plus a lot of companies are planing to move to STarOffice to cut cost (remember the change of licensing?)
But I doubt it would get that much of success from normal consumers, going into Fry’s and picking out a computer to use the Internet – its not ready yet.
linux_baby: One more thing: Redhat, I suppose, will be pushing gnome mostly. As gnome gets better, the competition with KDE will heat up again, which would really be a nice thing!!
I really don’t mind Red Hat pushing GNOME, but if they don’t want to support something with security patches and new packages, they shouldn’ bundle it. (I’m talking about KDE).
MattK: But, because linux makes even windows 2000 feel lightning fast! (And that is quite a feat to accomplish!)
If you are using KDE 2.x with XFree86 3.x…. no wonder
. There are plenty of speed improvements since a year ago.
bytes256: actually, Linux is fast…it’s that darned X Windows that slows it down…but with a decent (supported) video card, XFree 4 is actually pretty good…also…don’t use KDE if you want speed, it’s so slow…Gnome is faster and Blackbox is really fast…if you’re not afraid of the command line, etc. i really recommend giving Linux another shot, but this time use Blackbox for your window manager
Okay, bytes, I did my own benchmarks. The only big difference between KDE 3.0’s and GNOME 2.0’s speed is the loading, where KDE is 2 seconds slower. Also, KDE 2.0 is slower in loading a GTK+ app for the first time, but GNOME 2.0 is slower in loading a Qt app for the first time. Both KDE and GNOME are the ones bundled in Limbo 2… I thought perhaps GNOME would be given an upperhand.. but alas, no.
(Note: The only difference between the standard KDE bundled in Red Hat and my configuration ones is the font size… the same was done in GNOME too. I doubt it would increase and decrease performance that much).
linux_babe: 3. A better-looking, and faster, mozilla
I think the best Mozilla would be something that completely gets rid of the current one, and follow the native UI. I’m not asking XUL to go, but the god damn UI to flee. Besides, as for speed, yeah, something needs to be done about the speed difference between the Windows version (without QuickStart) and the Linux version.
Andrew: I have used SuSE 8.0, mdk 8.2 and 9 beta and Limbo. I find them faster than XP Home. No latency problems is the kernel.
I only did a side by side comparison between SuSE 8.0 FTP Install version and Windows XP Pro…… I found XP to be faster. (Note: on my laptop which XP is on, SuSE is the only one that manage to get the video card correct). It is slower, especially in boot time and printing. Konqueror is faster than Explorer, but there’s no point. By default, no NTFS support. i could get read support, but not write support…
Guess why I don’t have SuSE anymore?
Anonymous: BTW – has anyone tried Windows 3.x on a modern machine. That flies! Outruns everything else by a large margin (until it crashes of course!)
It can’t run on new machines, unless you have those hacks similar to BeOS hacks to make it run.
Are you running KDE or Gnome? In my experience, they are the things that slow the Linux experience down. I use WindowMaker (although IceWM is fast and similar in general design to KDE & Gnome) and use older applications. Instead of Nautilus or Konqueror for a file manager, I use XWC which is very fast indeed.
We are still comparing with Windows, right? Notice all these stuff aren’t made for the average Bob (who cares about Joe?). Besides, as for speed, GNOME 2.0 loads up 3 seconds more slower than Window Maker, and if 3 seconds is so important… you need prozac.
Window Maker is great for low memory computers, but once you have the current standard amount of RAM (256mb), it flies.
CattBeMac: It would be sorta like System 7 on a new Mac!
There could be a possiblity of System 7.5 running on a new Mac, but 7.0 is 68k only. Correct me if I’m wrong.
>>CattBeMac: It would be sorta like System 7 on a new Mac!
There could be a possiblity of System 7.5 running on a new Mac, but 7.0 is 68k only. Correct me if I’m wrong.<<
But of course 🙂
I’ve heard freeBSD is faster than linux. Is there really much of a difference? I’m thinking about running freeBSD and a lightweight window manager like Xfce or Blackbox, as someone suggested, on my old laptop (P100 16mb ram). Anyone have experience running feebsd or linux on older hardware like this?