Novell chooses streamlined Linux desktop (vnunet) [LWN.net]

Novell chooses streamlined Linux desktop (vnunet)

Posted Sep 14, 2004 16:36 UTC (Tue) by remijnj (subscriber, #5838) [Link]

Games, Toys and basically everything which doesn't qualify as "Office" i think.

Novell chooses streamlined Linux desktop (vnunet)

Posted Sep 14, 2004 16:45 UTC (Tue) by elanthis (subscriber, #6227) [Link]

Just 'cause it doesn't come on the install CD doesn't mean you can't install it yourself.

Granted, it'd be nice if SUSE/Red Hat/etc. has a Click-n-Run-ish service; i.e., a web site and repository with semi-official add-on packages that can be installed with a nice point-n-click GUI. (And no having to open up a shell, try to find/guess which package name you need, etc.)

Novell chooses streamlined Linux desktop (vnunet)

Posted Sep 14, 2004 17:07 UTC (Tue) by utidjian (subscriber, #444) [Link]

It is called Synaptic... available for (at least) Red Hat, Fedora and Debian and the appropriate repositories.
http://www.nongnu.org/synaptic/

There may be other such applications, Yast, Urpmi?

-DU-...etc...

urpmi, gurpmi

Posted Sep 14, 2004 18:06 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Mandrake's urpmi is a great tool, and the graphical client gurpmi is very nice. However, the lack of official repositories is a shame -- you have to hunt for them, as they may change structure, change location and so on periodically. It may be due to my limited knowledge, but it's a tedious process to keep them working.

With Cooker, you are supposed to rsync the whole tree each time you update to it. Not funny.

I completely prefer apt, since the repositories are official and do not change location. And dselect is a very nice tool.

Novell chooses streamlined Linux desktop (vnunet)

Posted Sep 14, 2004 17:59 UTC (Tue) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link]

Just 'cause it doesn't come on the install CD doesn't mean you can't install it yourself.

Sure, but realistically, how much of that do you want to do? What's the point of using a distribution at all?

Novell chooses streamlined Linux desktop (vnunet)

Posted Sep 14, 2004 18:40 UTC (Tue) by AJWM (subscriber, #15888) [Link]

If it's like previous SUSE releases, everything will be on the install DVD (or CD set), it will be just one more "install profile" -- basically a named and clickable collection of preselected packages.

If you want everything, just select that instead of "office desktop install" or whatever.

(Of course I'm just guessing here, but I have been using SuSE since about 6.1)

Novell chooses streamlined Linux desktop (vnunet)

Posted Sep 15, 2004 19:05 UTC (Wed) by erwbgy (subscriber, #4104) [Link]

> Just 'cause it doesn't come on the install CD doesn't mean you can't
> install it yourself.

Doing so will probably violate the support agreement, which is a big no-no
for corporate desktops. Many companies refuse to use anything without a
support contract, hence the reason I just had to arrange for Apache
support for our production environment (over and above my team which are
already on call 24/7) and why they insist of running F-Secure SSH rather
than OpenSSH.

Novell chooses streamlined Linux desktop (vnunet)

Posted Sep 14, 2004 18:27 UTC (Tue) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

" Large organisations tell us they want a well-integrated and supported product,... "

Wonder if any large organisation ever told anyone that they wanted to use a Desktop OS that goes down every 30 minutes, and that is the most susceptible possible to "outside" hacking (i.e. no security measures what so ever)!?... like the win9x!?...

Yes, it could be considered a gross illustracion above, no intention to offend nobody, though... i just wanted to illustrate that what is missing is a Standard Desktop Open Source view,... and inspite freedesktop and other iniciatives, if different commercial pushes or flavors dont come from a commun *view* they are only contibuting to the defeat of all...

All this as little to do with if the a distribution is streamlined or not,... its the details behind marketing buzzwords that are of the most importance,...

So why can't Open Source just agree *BEYOND THE PAPER* on a Standard, like in the Microsoft world ?...because it voids the use of commercial buzzwords to advance users?... geez,... in Microsoft world, Microsoft internal design teams decide and they already got a standard, no really mattering what else, inspite those design teams are under the marketing one.

In Open Source "we" have standard bases, fredesktop iniciatives, etc etc,... that are supposely technical merit based different approaches waiting for general adoption to became a standard !!?... and are always pushed around by marketing offerings that in order to diffenrentiate themselfs, the last thing that they want is to be in a general view,... so standard bases never get to have general adoption!!?...

Cant "we" get out of this movie please... Open Source business model is supposed to be around services, remenber ?