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SuSE Businesses Software Linux

Analysis of SuSE Linux Desktop 295

Posted by CowboyNeal from the up-the-flagpole dept.
pdajames writes "ZDNet UK has a look at the new SuSE Linux Desktop, running Microsoft Office. They seem to think Linux is just about there when it comes to desktop users, although their words about StarOffice are not so kind. It seems like some of the reality of desktop Linux is starting to match the hype." Not being an Office power user myself, I felt that way a long time ago, but it's cool to see projects like Evolution get some more street cred.
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Analysis of SuSE Linux Desktop More

Analysis of SuSE Linux Desktop

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  • SuSE is Excellent (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28, 2003 @11:26AM (#6319724)


    SuSE is what allowed me to leave windows.

    I've tried RedHat, Debian, and Mandrake. They all really do not work well for the desktop.

    SuSE, however, has automatic updates (nightly!), EXCELLENT support (although RedHat has support, it is very expensive.)

    All in all, fine tuned, ergonomic, German Precision.

    A++.

    • Re:SuSE is Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)

      by deadsaijinx* ( 637410 ) <animemeken@hotmail.com> on Saturday June 28, 2003 @12:08PM (#6319915) Homepage
      It's interesting that you mentioned the automatic updates. I find it interesting that you are pleased that SuSE does nightly auto updates, and most people hate MS for it's automatic updates. That alone says a lot about consumer trust of Linux over MS.

      Personally, I don't trust anyone with automatic updates. I like reviewing what each update does, whether I need it, and if anyone has experienced any problems with it.
      • I like reviewing what each update does, whether I need it, and if anyone has experienced any problems with it.

        Every update ?, maybe on a server that might make sense. Afterall on a web server you probably shouldn't be running anything other than the OS and web server software so the amount of updates would be small.

        But on a desktop you could have many different applications that the user will need. Would checking every update really be an effecient use of time ?. Generally desktops aren't as mission
        • My workstation doubles as a render Node and triples as a small web server (I know i should offload these tasks onto other computers, but so far it's worked out well). To me, uptime is very important, and the apps I run work well enough that I rarely worry about updating until I'm confident about the stability of said updates, or if it's a crucial security patch (I still like to wait and here about any potential conflicts). If it works, there's no reason to fix it :]
      • I think that he means nightly updates, as in they update their site with new software and some patching, when necessary. In the case of Windows, it means patches for the operating system, not always desirable.

        Moreover, people hate automatic Windows updates because in their EULA, I remember there was a clause that essentially allowed Microsoft to scan Windows XP based computers and automatically apply updates. On SuSE'S YOU(YaST Online Update), it's entirely your choice when you want to update.

      • They probably won't bullshit you will wierd licensing either, because there is competiton with in Linux, if you don't like them, there is someone else, right now atleast your someone they can't afford to loose.

      • Re:SuSE is Excellent (Score:3, Interesting)

        by NanoGator ( 522640 )
        "hat alone says a lot about consumer trust of Linux over MS."

        It says a lot about Linux zealousy. Any feature can have a good side and a down side. For example, a single mouse button is good because it's simpler and more intuitive to use. Good job Apple for figuring that out! 3 mouse buttons are better than one measly mouse button because you can be more productive with it. Good job Microsoft! Apple, you suck!

        The same thing's happening here between Windows and Linux. Lotsa growing up needs to be don

      • Re:SuSE is Excellent (Score:3, Insightful)

        by salimma ( 115327 ) *

        It's interesting that you mentioned the automatic updates. I find it interesting that you are pleased that SuSE does nightly auto updates, and most people hate MS for it's automatic updates.

        As long as the feature is optional it's fine, of course, at least for me. I kind of like having my updates automatically downloaded, but requiring my confirmation before they get installed.

        And it's not as if M$ would be suicidal to make automatic updating compulsory. Think of the outcry in corporate environments when

    • Re:SuSE is Excellent (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Arandir ( 19206 )
      Funny, every Free UNIX system with package management has automatic nightly updates... but not necessarily by default.

      Find a good ftp site for your system and write your own update script.

      No, I'm not being elitist in telling you to do stuff yourself. I'm merely pointing out the major benefit of Free UNIX: you are in charge of your own system. Stop relying on Redhat, SuSE, Mandrake, etc., to administer your system for you. Be your own master.

  • But it's still not quite there... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Radon Knight ( 684275 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @11:30AM (#6319742)
    The desktop might be polished, but they complain about a notable lack of polished apps. Essentially the author says that Evolution is about it. And, if you are going to run MS Office, what's the argument, again, for not running it under Windows?

    Still, this is a nice step forward. But don't read too much into the article - there is still a long way to go.

    • Re:But it's still not quite there... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @11:35AM (#6319768)
      The desktop might be polished, but they complain about a notable lack of polished apps. Essentially the author says that Evolution is about it. And, if you are going to run MS Office, what's the argument, again, for not running it under Windows?

      Lower licensing costs? Easier remote administration? Freedom from vendor dependance?

      The article makes it sound like if you want to use MS Office, oh well you might as well use Windows then, as if that's a tiny and insignificant thing next to the awesome power of MS Word. Not so.

      • [i]Lower licensing costs?[/i]

        Generally I'd agree. But you missed part of the article:

        [i]SuSE sells SLD only in combination with a maintenance programme that covers a minimum of five desktops. The five-desktop, one-year maintenance contract, along with an installation kit, runs at $598, with $99.80 for each additional desktop.[/i]
        • Actually that's a lot cheaper than anything comparable in the Windows-world (no, the support from your PC-maker is certainly NOT comparable. You have to pay per phonecall for Microsoft's support.)

          For home users or businesses who don't need any support, SuSE 8.1(or a comparable distro) for 70$ for unlimited desktops will probably the better choice.

    • Re:But it's still not quite there... (Score:5, Informative)

      by pVoid ( 607584 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @11:55AM (#6319859)
      I have to say though, that I am thoroughly impressed with Microsft Office running pretty much flawlessly on that desktop.

      Office is one of the 'richest' windows programs in that it uses every possible API under the sun.

      It's not like it's just using Win32 like for example Winamp or Regedit would... on top of the regular stuff (GDI, Win32), it extensively uses COM/DCOM/ActiveX, and not the simple features in those either.

      Kudos is what I have to say. Even though I agree with parent post =)

      • It's not like it's just using Win32 like for example Winamp or Regedit would... on top of the regular stuff (GDI, Win32), it extensively uses COM/DCOM/ActiveX, and not the simple features in those either.

        Well, that's quite interesting..... yes, it does use quite a lot of APIs, however after working on Wine for a bit you realise that the Win32 API is so labyrinthine that almost every app, no matter how small or obscure, will use it in a slightly different way.

        In fact, Office itself isn't quite so bad c

      • So, basically what you're saying is that Microsoft Office is a resource hog, and that OpenOffice isn't? OpenOffice takes a far longer amount of time to open the Microsoft Office, and uses more memory.

        Same with Mozilla vs. Internet Explorer, which uses more memory? Mozilla. But then you have commerical products like Opera that use hardly any memory, and leave a very small footprint.
    • Last week I spent a few hours of each day playing with the new 8.2 Distro (FTP install version) and here is what I came up with.

      On my old laptop, everything but the wireless NIC and the sound card came right up. Easy to setup users, change screen resolutions. To get the NIC working, I downloaded and read the README from Cisco, Hmmm.. says I need the src files for the PCMCIA software, ok - no worries. Get the latest version. Ok, so that's unpacked. What, now that PCMCIA version wants the src for the ke

  • Compatibility (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nastard ( 124180 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @11:32AM (#6319748)
    When I see terms like "binary compatibility" in reference to a Linux distro, plus things like Lindows' application pay-service, it almost seems like we're being told that different Linux distros can't share the same programs.

    If I'm slightly confused by this, imagine what the average user (who I imagine is the target market here) must think.

    • Re:Compatibility (Score:5, Informative)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @11:41AM (#6319788)
      Yes, it is confusing. Most applications with a bit of work can be made to install on nearly any distro in fact.

      The ruckus over Ximian Desktop was because it replaces a lot of core system packages (well, gnome/gtk packages) so must be tuned for each distribution separately. It's a bit odd that XD2 doesn't support the "Enterprise" editions of distros though.

  • I think it nice review from outsiders.

    Of course it has lots of politically correct F.U.D's.

    But seeing positive words for GNU/Linux on ZD very nice. It's like seeing snowing in hawai islands.

  • Eye Candy (Score:2, Insightful)

    by aufecht ( 163961 )
    What, no screenshots? next story

  • Why isn't there a macro language and recorder OO (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jerryasher ( 151512 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @11:42AM (#6319794)

    StarOffice is intended as a Microsoft Office replacement, and can read and write Office file formats. For most uses, it should be fine, but it does have limits. ... There isn't a macro recorder, and for obscure technical reasons, there isn't likely to be one in the near future. The lack of a really top-flight office suite remains one of Linux's weak points, and it is one for which CrossOver Office isn't really a long-term solution: after all, if you're using Microsoft Office, why not use Windows as well?

    I find writing the occasional macro useful in Word and mandatory in Excel. I know that many businesses do implement significant modifications and applications using VBScript for the Windows Office Suite. And there's a significant third party application market of these things, including some very sophisticated data modeling tools.

    I understand why Open Office doesn't want to try to implement a VBScript clone, but why isn't there a Python, Ruby, or other scripting language implemented for OO?

    What are the obscure technical reasons the article alludes to?

    • Re:Why isn't there a macro language and recorder O (Score:5, Informative)

      by justsomebody ( 525308 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @11:45AM (#6319808) Journal
      It will be in version 1.1. Just as PDF export for windows and swf export.

      You can download beta2 and see for your self.

    • Actually they are working on that (Score:4, Informative)

      by ShatteredDream ( 636520 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @11:49AM (#6319827) Homepage
      They have a Basic intrepreter for stuff like that. It's called IIRC OpenOffice Basic.
    • Isn't there something called starbasic included with staroffice and openoffice?
    • There is Starbasic. That very similar to VB but as the document model is different in Star/OpenOffice than in MS-Office macros written for one environment can't directly be transferred to the other without porting.

      One other problem with the current version of Star/OpenOffice is tha lack of a macro recorder. This will be fixed in the next version though.
      It's allready fully functional in the beta versions
      of Star/OpenOffice.

      Apart from built in macro features, there is also a SDK available for Star/OO that en

    • Re:Why isn't there a macro language and recorder O (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > I know that many businesses do implement significant modifications and applications using VBScript for the Windows Office Suite.

      You are not wrong there. I have worked for a number of very big Wall Street banks and some portfolio managers run practically their whole businesses on Excel macros (no wonder their advice is so bad :-).

      At one place they pulled share information from four exchanges down from a mainframe, ran beta calculations using a macro, sent portfolios out to a Barra engine to calculate
      • I have done some of the only Excel macros that I know of in my Fortune 250 company, and they were -- and continue to be -- used on a regular basis every day for years. I can't recall the last time I got a call about them. They are quite extensive, as you example suggests, though I the program that did a pull from our mainframe went away many, many years ago.

        It's unfair to say that, as a whole, VBA "programs" (more precisely: macros) are nightmarish, poorly documented, and brittle. I find that the object mo
    • What are the obscure technical reasons the article alludes to?

      Microsoft doing their hardest to make sure that you cannot easily reverse engineer VBA perhaps?

      However, this comment is out of date (or nearly so) as theyhave managed to get it going in OO.org 1.1 beta, despite the same roadblocks that MS used to try and cripple Samba, WineX etc. A little while to get it stable and it should be in Star Office as well.

      Personally I am not sad that it's not in OO at the moment, as too many people waste ti

      • Re:Why isn't there a macro language and recorder O (Score:5, Interesting)

        by allanj ( 151784 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @01:03PM (#6320155)

        No one can write anything but a dirty hack in VBA, it _just isn't possible_!


        This is SOOO wrong. Bad developers write bad code in VBA (and any other language), good developers write good code in VBA (and any other language). All VBA does is make bad developers out of people having no business coding in the first place because is't so accesible, but their code would be just as awful in any other language.


        All you should need is a clean, open API into your business logic which should be destinct from the application suite and centralised for version control and efficiency, which can then hook into a _real_ database for data security and integrity. None of this half assed scripting rubbish that so many people get away with, even for enterprise applications :o(


        Scripting is good for (at least) one thing - to act as "glue" between the business logic API you describe (and I agree there should be one), and the user interface. Look at ASP or PHP - they both provide wonderful vehicles for doing "gluing" of business logic to web pages. Scripting is not necessarily bad, you know.


        • It's shockingly hard to read VBA code - even stuff I wrote myself 3 months ago and documented well. It's the splitting up of the code along arbritary (ie this code relates to this table, and this code relates to this interface) versus functional (this code relates to user interaction and this code relates to logic) lines. It's almost impossible, no matter how talented, to functionally split VBA code into clean modules - some dirty hacks have to be used, and these make the code even less readable than split
  • Am I the only one a bit shocked by how expensive these variou linux distros are? from what I could gather from the article, the SuSe liences (with support, but nevertheless) were about $100/ea. I've seen that RH goes for up to several thousand dollars.

    perhaps somebody can clue me in here: is it possible to get what SuSe or RH are charging $$$$ for for free (of course support not included?). If not, why not - do they include proporietary (closed source / otherwise copy-restricted components?).

    I know

    • If not, why not - do they include proporietary (closed source / otherwise copy-restricted components?).

      Well, the SuSE installer is open source in the sense that the source is available, but proprietary in the sense that it comes with a very restrictive license -- I believe it would be difficult to legally embrace & extend their installer code. So this is one of the ways that they restrict distribution, and to be honest, since they also have a free installer for FTP downloads, I really don't mind the

    • Redhat can be downloaded form ftp.redhat.com

      SuSE is more difficult; you have to do an FTP install. They don't provide free ISOs, but it's not too hard, even for a noob. Or try a .org distro (debian, gentoo, etc.)

  • There will be a Macro recorder in OOo 1.1 (Score:4, Informative)

    by pierre.ch ( 605045 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @11:48AM (#6319825)
    There isn't a macro recorder, and for obscure technical reasons, there isn't likely to be one in the near future.
    That's plain wrong, there's already a Macro recorder in OOo Writer 1.1 beta2. I also wonder which version they've used. I've been running 1.0.1 for professional purposes without big problems. And the problem I encountered were fixed in 1.1beta2.

  • Installation IS easier (Score:5, Informative)

    by sfled ( 231432 ) <sfled.yahoo@com> on Saturday June 28, 2003 @11:49AM (#6319829) Journal

    My .02

    Progression over the last 3.5 years, '()' indicate experiments:
    Mac 8.6, WIn98, (RH6.1),Win2K, (Yellow Dog, PPC) WInXP Home, Suse 8.1.

    The Mac installs were always ez, the win installs were tedious, the RH & Yellow Dog/PPC had me reading manuals left & right. The SuSE install was brain-dead easy (easiest one of the bunch!, even easier than Mac), except for my lack of experience in assigning partitions (found a nice partioning scheme in the LAMP book (Lee, Ware - Addison Wesley).

    Still fighting the WIn2K server & converting some Office docs, but that's just a matter of studying.

  • Sounds about right.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by naelurec ( 552384 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @11:57AM (#6319874) Homepage
    This review sounds about right for the state of Linux on the desktop. Lots of polish, lots of nice icons and fonts and anti-alias, but when it comes to native core productivity apps, the polish starts to lack. While I haven't tried Ximian OpenOffice.org, it seems like a step in the right direction -- a bit nicer interface, tighter integration with the desktop, etc.. Seems like lots of smaller apps (and KDE apps) have this nice consistent look and I'll be very pleased as more and more apps achieve this consistent professionalism. In anycase, the review is just about right. With the continued interest of Linux desktop from major distros, governments and corporations, I would have to guess that a lot of these rough edges will ultimately be addressed and the future for Desktop Linux will be very bright.

  • Expect Lawsuits and Litigation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @12:01PM (#6319892)
    The sco lawsuit is just the first salvo. As linux grows to be a credible competitor on the desktop, there will be alot of people that will be very upset about it.

    You can expect patent claims to come out of microsoft. You can expect the long dead concept of the look and feel lawsuit to raise its head, and every other sleazy tactic that can be used will be used.

    Remember during the senate hearings on microsoft, that they complained they always had competitors nipping at their heels ? Well I suspect we are about to find that they were perfectly happy with that as long as they weren't credible competitors.

  • OpenOffice needs a good Outlining Function! (Score:4, Informative)

    by rump_carrot ( 644292 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @12:08PM (#6319916)
    I've been trying to switch over completely from *f*ing MS Office to OpenOffice, but unfortunately the lack of Outline view/function in OpenOffice is a major problem, that and lack of support for support for EndNote (a reference managing program).

    (As a scientist, I have to write a lot of grant applications for my living). Thus, outlining big hairy elaborate boring technical writing things is vastly helped by an outliner. Probably like this post would have been. :]

    Anyway, does anyone know of a good Linux program that allows one to prepare and re-organize writing in an Outline form? No, don't tell me to use Emacs, that would be like a, er, well I can't think of anything clever so I'll just say a mis-use of a fine product.
    • I've been trying to switch over completely from *f*ing MS Office to OpenOffice, but unfortunately the lack of Outline view/function in OpenOffice is a major problem, that and lack of support for support for EndNote (a reference managing program).

      I can't help you with the second one, but you should try pressing the button in the OOo toolbar that looks like a compass. It brings up the navigator, which gives you a range of outline options. It's not an outline view, as such, but it does display headings by

    • I use Leo (Score:2, Informative)

      by Schlemphfer ( 556732 )
      Anyway, does anyone know of a good Linux program that allows one to prepare and re-organize writing in an Outline form?

      Leo [tds.net] does a great job with what you're asking for. It's really intended to be more of a programming tool than a writer's outliner, but it still does the job of outlining beautifully, and has some nice perks thrown in. Plus, it's free.

      I've used it for organizing book chapters, and it does that job beautifully. I even have a friend who uses it for outlining, writing, and then automatic

    • I think that the best tool for easy and proper outlining especially in technical writing is LyX. It takes some getting used to it but it pays back with the ease of use and correct outcome.
      Plus, there are templates for almost everything.
      This is one tool i never knew existed (and took some time understanding WHY it is good) back in the sinnful days of windows using. :)
    • lack of support for support for EndNote (a reference managing program).

      EndNote is quite over-rated. IMHO, it would be nice if OpenOffice supported (perhaps it does, and I'm just unaware, but I don't think so) BibTex databases. For technical fields, there is a wealth of precompiled citations. While the same databases usually exist for EndNote too, EndNote suffers from not being extendable. Want to add a custom field? Go ahead --- but don't expect anyone elso to be able to read it.

      If you're trying t

    • You don't need WYSIWYG (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why do you insist upon using a WYSIWYG document editor?

      You're a smart, technical person.

      Get Vim installed and spend two evenings reading through the included manual.

      Get a TeX/LaTeX/BibTeX system set up.

      Not only will you produce much higher quality portable documents, ready for professional publishing, faster, but you will save time not having to fiddle with layout issues and the guesswork that is inherent in an editor like Word.

      Vim allows you to have multiple levels of "folds". This means that you can

  • OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @12:20PM (#6319956) Homepage
    A, if not the, big problem with open source development is that it's not good at fixing usability problems. Too few developers read Bruce Tognazzini, or know who Susan Kare is. They think "user friendly" means "has skins".

    There are many absolute no-nos known by GUI designers. Try reporting a clear violation of one of those rules as a bug on an open source project and see what happens.

    Let's open up OpenOffice Write and see what happens.

    First, it takes about fifteen seconds to open the first time. Is there a good reason it should take that long? Could something occuring during startup be deferred until later? Could something be rearranged to cut down the number of I/O operations? Is there too much interpretive processing taking place. Yes, the program can be made resident in memory, but that's addressing the symptom, not the problem.

    Now we have a window, showing most of a document, including the entire left margin, but probably not including the right edge of the text area. What's wrong with this picture? Try Word and see what it does.

    Now type "a". A star-shaped thing pops up in the lower right of the screen. It's not clear what you're supposed to do with it. If you click on it, there's a 10-15 second delay, and a full screen window pops up, obscuring the document being worked on, announcing that "AutoCorrect has been activated. Start each sentence with a capital letter".

    What we have here is a failure to communicate. An AI "helper" that doesn't have a clue about what you're doing has intervened before getting enough information to decide what to do, slammed you in the face with a full-screen stupid message, and suggested that you turn it off. That last is the one intelligent thing it's done.

    The developers of OpenOffice seemed to be trying to emulate the Microsoft Paper Clip, which in itself isn't a popular feature. They totally blew it.

    I could go on. But it's clear that nobody ever did proper usability testing on this thing. It comes across like a really cheezy Word clone.

    In fact, OpenOffice isn't all that bad as a program. But as design, it sucks.

    All this can be fixed. But because it's open source, it won't be.

    • Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here (Score:4, Informative)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @12:58PM (#6320122)
      A, if not the, big problem with open source development is that it's not good at fixing usability problems

      Oh what a pile of BS. Come sit in #commits on freenode for a while. The last few commits have almost all been usability related, even really small stuff like getting the use of ellipses right.

      The rest of the post is just talking about OpenOffice. Yep, it has not so great usability. But OTOH neither does MS Office, I mean really the thing is riddled with problems.

      You can't take ONE program, which has been open source for not very long at all, and extrapolate that to the whole world of open source code.

      If you want an easy to use, HIG compliant word processor, use AbiWord 2. Most of the work done on the GTK2 frontend lately has been about HIG compliance.

    • A, if not the, big problem with open source development is that it's not good at fixing usability problems. Too few developers read Bruce Tognazzini, or know who Susan Kare is. They think "user friendly" means "has skins".

      Openoffice is ugly. That's just a given. That does NOT imply that all open-source projects are unusable and poorly designed. Try a recent version of Gnome, you'll be pleasantly surprised by how well the apps follow a consistent human interface guide. If you report UI stupidity as a b
    • Open Office is not an example of an Open Source program -- it was opened, but it was not originally developed open. If you want to criticize the Open Source/Free Software process, use an appropriate example, like AbiWord or KWord. Or give OpenOffice a few years to become a real Open Source program.

      I think most of the problems you note about OO are very much because it was a commercial product. It did things to unnecessarily copy MS Office, or to look superficially fancy or featureful, or it used a monolithic structure necessitated by the commercial distribution process.

  • KDE vs. Gnome (Score:3, Offtopic)

    by Domino ( 12558 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @12:23PM (#6319967) Homepage
    "One complaint we have in the ease-of-use department is the integration of the KDE and Gnome user interfaces. Linux applications are generally built on one or the other, and while we ran Gnome applications without any problem with the KDE desktop, there were occasional glitches."

    This is really bugging me the most about the current state of Linux on the desktop. We have two great Desktop Environments - thats one too much. I don't buy the argument of competition on the Linux desktop. There is enough to compete against out there (Windows, and especially Mac OS X).Both Gnome and KDE are great pieces of software, but Linux will not success before there is a common environment on which all GUI-centered software is based on.

    I personally would vote for KDE as a basis since its IMO more advanced and has a better underlying design. The great stuff in Gnome that KDE is lacking should be ported over. I know this is not going to happen, but it would lead the Linux desktop to a quicker success.

    Sorry, for the KDE endorsement, I couldn't resist. I really don't want to start the usual flame war again :)
    • We have two great Desktop Environments - thats one too much.

      So what do you suggest ? Handcuff gnome developers ? Erase gnome of every computer ? As long as someone wants to create open source software, there is nothing you can do. The choice is up to the user and not to marketers/managers/financials or whatsoever.

      That's good.
      • So what do you suggest ? Handcuff gnome developers ? Erase gnome of every computer ? As long as someone wants to create open source software, there is nothing you can do. The choice is up to the user and not to marketers/managers/financials or whatsoever.

        Of course not. But I would rather see the two teams to join forces, than see companies like RadHat messing with both Gnome and KDE so much by trying to make them one. How is such a design mess going to success on the desktop?

        There has been a lot of good

        • Re:KDE vs. Gnome (Score:2, Insightful)

          by erikharrison ( 633719 )

          Actually, that is enough.

          Frankly, I've had enough of the "if we eliminated competition on such and such a level, we could win the OS war" crap. What OS war? Personally I want a computer that does what I need it to do, does it well, and doesn't leave me at the mercy of a billion dollar company. Why is it that computer geeks can only think in terms of replacing one mind share monopoly with another? Replace Microsoft with Linux is the mantra, and frankly that doesn't make me any happier.

          What I really want i

      • Of course *WE* shouldn't do that! I wouldn't feel right about handcuffng a Gnome developer. That's what government is for: so we can have someone else do the dirty work while we feel all smug about ourselves for our civic mindedness.

        If there's a problem with too many UNIX desktops, then we need a law!

        p.s. The above post is not to be taken seriously. Come to think of it, nothing on Slashdot should be taken seriously.
    • Those who would give up customizability for simplicity, will lose both, and gain neither.

    • Re:KDE vs. Gnome (Score:2, Interesting)

      by RdsArts ( 667685 )
      Only one desktop on GNU/Linux and other free NIXes... I can't think of anything worse.

      It'll also never happen.

      Please remember that all this software is mostly coded by volunteers who do things because they find them interesting, and add pieces here and there.

      Sure, there's been a lot of commerical interest in them lately, but at the core, they're still for the most part "just" things being done for fun by volunteers who do it because they like to code things.

      With the OpenDesktop standards, programs shoul
    • You know how Gnome started, right? KDE was first, but the hippy GNU purists weren't happy with the licensing terms for the QT libraries, so they basically said, "screw you guys, we're making our own."

    • Re:KDE vs. Gnome (Score:3, Informative)

      by David Gerard ( 12369 )
      http://freedesktop.org/ [freedesktop.org]

      Currently verging on vapor, but an idea whose time is very soon if not now.

  • Linux Desktop and the Evolution (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DrugCheese ( 266151 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @12:28PM (#6319984)
    Ive used a SuSE linux desktop for work for years and evolution takes it several steps closer to being perfect for the average office user to use.

    I've already replaced one XP/winroute gateway machine (dont ask me) with a linux box without anyone seeming to notice ... added a backup fileserver share for everyone without anyone asking where it came from ... the desktops are really the only objective left to conquer.

    Squad move out!
    Yes sir!

  • I thought the main reason that Munich went with SuSE is because of cost. But looking at the numbers, I don't see the savings:

    Pricing

    SuSE sells SLD only in combination with a maintenance programme that covers a minimum of five desktops. The five-desktop, one-year maintenance contract, along with an installation kit, runs at $598, with $99.80 for each additional desktop. A 10-client, one-year contract costs $998 with the installation kit and further discounts kick in for higher-volume customers.

    As an e
  • I just checked at at a local store xp home is like 160. and since you have to buy MS office anyway to make good use of this.. not a big difference
  • I'm running 8.2. Downloaded almost 5.4 gigs off of the mirror (no ISO's means i'm forced to do this in case my net connection goes down and is less taxing to download the files multiple times for multiple machines). Very impressed that it mounted a windows share and installed from there. I wasn't sure what directory structure i needed to point the share to but i picked it up. Install went well and fast. My firewall script based on iptables that worked on redhat 8/9, slackware 8/9, and mandrake 8 failed
  • Quoted from the article:

    Linux companies have been releasing supposedly user-friendly distributions for years,... the newly minted SuSE Linux Desktop -- the software the city of Munich will be using

    If the employees of the City of Munich are as humorless as our DMV the user-friendliness or lack thereof will not be apparent to them.

  • linux has a serious binary compatibility isssue. One which linux advocates do not mention but sadly enough has become more an more prevalent these days. It got so bad recetly that i had to reinstall my mandrake 9.0 syatem with 9.1 just to use gaim. Thats pretty bad. Also just try using mandrake 8.x .. hardly any precompiled packages off the web will work fo you.
    Its really sad becasue all of the resinatlling and crashing drove me to the point that i swotched to OSX so i sould use a satble desktop.
    the major

    • Re:linux issues (Score:3, Interesting)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 )
      Please stop spreading FUD.

      It got so bad recetly that i had to reinstall my mandrake 9.0 syatem with 9.1 just to use gaim

      Then you don't know what you're doing. That sounds harsh, and is. It's easy to get confused by Linux software installation. There are people working on making this a lot easier, but it's not there yet. Until it does, please don't extrapolate your mistakes into "problems with Linux" which don't actually exist.

      Also just try using mandrake 8.x .. hardly any precompiled packages off the

      • Re:linux issues (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ceswiedler ( 165311 ) *
        Dude, what he said was, 'binary compatibility is often broken under Linux', and you replied, 'No it isn't, just recompile the applications.'

        Do you understand what binary compatibility is? It's not FUD to say that Linux doesn't support it very well. The mantra of kernel development is that source compatibility will always be maintained, but ABIs will always change. Everyone makes an effort to minimize the problem, but the rapid advance of Linux is partly due to developers being able to break ABIs.
    • Heh. My way to get Linux binaries to work is having both linux_base-6 and linux_base-7 installed in FreeBSD. A better Linux than Linux ;-)

  • 256MB, 500MHz (Score:3, Funny)

    by leomekenkamp ( 566309 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @01:17PM (#6320243)

    Performance, however, was surprisingly snappy, considering we were using an older 500MHz Pentium III machine with 256MB of RAM; opening and moving windows around, for example, did not show any noticeable performance lag.

    Since when does one need 256MB of RAM and a 500MHz Pentium to move windows around? Is the reviewer so brainwashed by wintel upgrade-mania that he/she does not know that you don't need that much power to simply move windows around the screen?

  • SO != OO.org (Score:5, Interesting)

    by b17bmbr ( 608864 ) on Saturday June 28, 2003 @01:26PM (#6320294)
    i ave never used StarOffice. however, my P3-933/512MB running RH9 loads OO.org in about 9 seconds. and it runs fast. and the menus are all anti-aliased. and i have never had a crash. and since i'm a teacher, i use OO.org for tons of things.

    this desktop thing is really getting stupid. linux is so ready for the corporate desktop. and even the educational desktop. and lots of home users.

    if you hired someone who "knows" Word, and they can't figure out Writer in a few minutes, they are idiots, and you hired a moron. this whole retraining things is pure bullshit.

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