Cobind Desktop Reviewed, With Interview

An anonymous reader writes "Cobind Desktop takes a remarkable turn from other Linux distributions by being one of the first to include Mozilla Firefox 0.8 and Mozilla Thunderbird in their first release. Though Cobind Desktop only uses XFce and not the more popular KDE, its entire design is based on a clutter-free workspace. Flexbeta.net took the time to write up a review and conduct an interview with David Watson, Co-Founder and President of Cobind Desktop. He mentions how the entire design concept of Cobind Desktop is based on a book called the Paradox of Choice, by Barry Schwartz, who is a professor at Swarthmore. David Watson believes that this concept can be applied to software design, and produce more usable products as a result." (We mentioned Schwartz's book earlier today.)

Okay, all we need now is...

[Anonymous Coward]

A third article on Paradox of Choice, and this is officially Google/Paradox of Choice Day on Slashdot. Perhaps an article on BOTH Google and Paradox of Choice would be a good one.

I don't think this should be on slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Cobind Desktop takes a remarkable turn from other Linux distributions by being one of the first to include Mozilla Firefox 0.8 and Mozilla Thunderbird in their first release.

How is that remarkable? I'm sure if Firefox and Thunderbird were around when Slackware or Debian 1.0 were created they would have included them.

He mentions how the entire design concept of Cobind Desktop is based on a book called the Paradox of Choice

So this distro set's itself apart by including less packages, then allowing users to download any more that they want.

As far as i can tell from reading the article, it's based on fedora, but has less packages, and a few more bugs. It fits on one cd, and doesn't ask you to select packages.

I really don't see a niche for this distro. It seems like the bastard child of a Live CD and a full distro, not really doing either well.

Re:He must hate linux

[BiggerIsBetter]

No, he's doing the right thing... I dunno if I completely agree with his choice of packages, but it does mesh well with the aims of a basic but complete package. With a little polish applied to the installation, I'd imagine it would work just fine for a lot of people, and they wouldn't have to fret over which word processor they want to use today.

Fedora and Mandrake et al couldn't get away with dropping half of their packages - the user outcry would be enormous. But a new distro can. Whether many people will actually use it is something else however. Personally, I think the real solution is not rolling a new distro, but providing a reworked installer script that uses an existing distro, like say Mandrake 10. You get the clean interface and small footprint, but you also get the installation base and user support.

Re:So they illegally BUNDLED Mozilla?

[ewhac]

Two factors invalidate your claim:

1. Cobind and other Linux distros are not a monopoly. Thus, exclusive bundling, though perhaps short-sighted, is not illegal. Once you're a monopoly, the rules change.
2. Microsoft has made much hash of the claim that their browser is "integrated" with the OS and cannot be removed, and that if you try to remove it the system will fall over dead. Linux does not suffer from such a design handicap. Mozilla is not "integrated" into Linux. You can swap out the browser freely and the rest of the system will not care. Thus, forced bundling is not taking place as it is with Windows -- no one is forced to keep Mozilla around if they don't want it.

Schwab
Blithely ignoring the Do Not Feed The Trolls sign

Funny that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that I'm a member of the Western-Pennsylvania Linux Users Group [wplug.org] (which serves Pittsburgh, PA... the home town of this distro), and this is the first I've heard of it.

Too bad they haven't been involved in the local *nix community so far as I can tell.

Re:Concerned about Alphas

[robbyjo]

It's easy to make a lot of noise about software you're going to write. It's a lot harder to be quiet and write software that will someday make a lot of noise.

That's right... It would come out worse if the users caught the fanfare but later be disappointed for the lack of features / stability / what have you... IMHO, it's harder to regain someone's trust than to obtain it in the first place.

Re:I don't think this should be on slashdot

[DarkSarin]

having looked at the article, I don't know where this distro fits in:

its not as whiz-bang good as Xandros/Mandrake/etc.
it isn't as easy to install as lindows.
it isn't as customizeable as gentoo/debian/etc.
Lacks the choices of packages/desktops/etc of all of the above.

Maybe it has perfect printer/sound/video support out of the box? That would, at least, be something.

Personally, I think that so many distros is cool, but guys, try to at least come up with a cool name/theme for your distro. I bet most people would love a fire linux (all fire themes, etc) (I can think of a few others too, but hey, so can you...).

Re:erm

[bono8106]

innovation is not necessarily about building sth from scratch.

i think the fact that they were the first to build a simple usable platform viable for the broad desktop market currently dominated by ms is innovative enough by itself. some times the simplest things can be the most innovative.

and by desktop market i mean the hoards of pc's in the corporate world used by the hoards of white- (or blue- i was never able to remember which one is which :) workers in the US.

and by "platform" i mean not a distro in the sense that it is not targeted to the broad current hard-core "geek" linux user base. it is targeted for the average layman user who does not care about the

i am at odds from the overwhelming (short-sighted) negative response from the /. community.

all you linux-lovers and/or should be happy that microsoft is finally getting some heat in the desktop market.

i believe cobind comes right on time, after hp's lead in deploying linux on the desktop.

i can understand why most of you would not want to look at cobind. well, this distro is not targeted at you. come out from under that rock and you'll see that there's much more out there than your own little world.

this distro has a lot of potential and it will be up to the small team at cobind to make it happen. only time can show.

the current release is not wihtout shortcomings and naturally so - if you took the time to take a glimpse at the web site you will notice that this is version 0.1 - i would say that it is actually an impressive start!

p.s. as for the claim that vectorlinux has already done what cobind tries to do, i have only this to say (about their web site):

bad design + no screenshots + too much "geeky" information = extremely uncrear message