Novell goes for the desktop [LWN.net]

Novell took advantage of CeBIT to send out an advance announcement for the upcoming SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) release. SLED has the potential to be a relatively interesting distribution, and not just because Novell has backed off and restored the SUSE name. If things go well, SLED might just yet help 2006 to be the year of Linux on the desktop - for real, this time. But we will have to wait until the (northern hemisphere) summer before we can actually get our hands on this distribution.

Desktop Linux efforts are not new by any means. Mandriva got its start as an effort to add better desktop support to the Red Hat Linux distribution. Companies like Corel, Xandros, Linspire, and others have created commercially-supported Linux desktop offerings. While some of those distributions have found some success, none of them have taken the corporate desktop by storm. So it does not require a particularly cynical observer to wonder just why Novell's attempt is destined to be any different.

Whether SLED will ultimately be successful remains to be seen. But Novell is doing some things differently, as a result of past experience and the resources that the company is able to bring to the problem. Even if SLED fails in the market, it will have succeeded in advancing the state of the art and highlighting what really needs to be done to bring about corporate desktop conversions.

Part of Novell's recipe is plain old hard work. From the press release:

Novell conducted hundreds of distinct usability tests and shot almost 1,500 hours of user interaction video that it used to aid the design of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. Each feature of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, such as setting desktop preferences, finding files, launching applications, using external devices like USB memory sticks, working with the Internet, and connecting to local and wireless networks, was rigorously tested and refined for usability to ensure the best possible performance in a business environment.

Much of this work has been posted to the Better Desktop Project site. When it comes to human factors, there is no substitute for watching people struggle with a program and seeing just where things go wrong. This is especially true if one is trying to create a system which is highly approachable for new users. Assuming Novell's developers pay attention to the lessons from this work, the result should be a system which is easier to use.

Novell then throws in some eye candy in the form of its XGL work. Solid support for (some) 3D cards should lead to a desktop with some real visual appeal. For many, a slicker desktop may be the final piece which pushes them toward acceptance of a Linux-based system.

For those with more practical concerns, Novell's GroupWise is, unsurprisingly, well supported. Novell has also added support for Microsoft visual basic macros in OpenOffice.org 2.0. Support for macros has been one of the big stumbling blocks for those looking to exchange documents with heavy Office users. VBA macro support is part of the ooo-build fork, but has not yet found its way into the OpenOffice.org mainline. Novell's work in integrating this support should help to push this feature forward for all users - once Novell releases the code.

Recent experience shows that Novell might be just a little slow to do that - though the release will certainly happen at some point. Novell is, in general, taking a very competitive approach to its Linux releases. And, while Novell is clearly interested in competing with Microsoft, it is also putting an emphasis on standing out from the other Linux distributions. So being the first distribution with important new features has become an important selling point for Novell. This push may make the competition between distributors a little less friendly, but that has been due to happen for some time anyway. With luck, it will also lead to better and faster progress in the area of desktop Linux, with the improved code finding its way to all users.

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security issues with macros

Posted Mar 17, 2006 10:17 UTC (Fri) by kingdon (subscriber, #4526) [Link]

My thoughts too. This is probably fixable, though.
There needs to be some distinction between "installing
software" and "opening a document", with the former
needed to run the macros (no, I haven't thought hard
about how this should be done, but the concept is
something we've seen before on the Linux desktop -
for example in terms of whether to autorun a program
on a CD when it is inserted). Even a dialog box
saying "this document contains macros? do you want
to run them?", which might not be the ideal user
interface, would still be better than nothing.

In addition, or instead, there might be an issue
of sandboxing the macros somehow (I don't know
enough about how they work to comment intelligently
on how feasible that is).

security issues with macros

Posted Mar 17, 2006 13:38 UTC (Fri) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

Even a dialog box saying "this document contains macros? do you want to run them?", which might not be the ideal user interface, would still be better than nothing.

I guess you have not looked at the real MS Office recently... It has precisely this kind of dialog. (I am not entirely sure if it is enable by default, or comes from local default settings used in the company I work at). Anyway, it does not seem to help security much. So many spreadsheets flying around in the company (I suspect in most other companies as well) have macros that people click OK at the "execute the macros" dialog automatically. So it is totally useless.

What is really required is having the macros execute only within a tight securiy sandbox, where they cannot modify anything except the document they are part of. This would be OK for most uses of the MS Office macros. I don't know if Novell plans to do so, but anything else will import the MS Office macro virus nighmare to Linux.

Novell goes for the desktop

Posted Mar 23, 2006 13:20 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]

I doubt you've got that much reason to be worried. Let's take the WordPerfect example (which I think may have been owned by Novell at the time...)

They added VBA support, and said they were planning to drop PerfectScript - well PerfectScript is, I think, still in the new version of WP I bought a week or two ago. And I believe it is still preferred by most users over VBA :-)

People who need VBA will use it, people who don't need it and people who know better will avoid it. Think of it as a legacy feature - we need it for compatibility with LegacyOffice, but as soon as LegacyOffice looks like it's joining the dodo where it belongs, VBA support will die with it.

Cheers,
Wol