Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN) [LWN.net]

OEM install mode?

Posted Aug 24, 2006 15:02 UTC (Thu) by jabby (guest, #2648) [Link]

Test Center engineers focused on what aspects of a Linux desktop would most benefit system builders, including installation, setup, support, feature set and usability.

I expected to find at least some mention of the distributions' support for an OEM install mode (allowing the "system builder" to do the base install and ship a product which would then present the customer with a configuration wizard on first boot). Windows has had this for ages, but the only distro I've heard of that touts their OEM install option is Ubuntu. I imagine Linspire (Freespire) also has this feature, since their business plan is/was based on getting OEM install contracts. Not sure about OpenSUSE, but being the basis for an Enterprise product, you would expect that to be a priority. There's no mention of it in their documentation, though.

Needless to say, I was disappointed to see that this was just another desktop OS comparison. Can anyone comment as the OEM install capabilities of these and/or other distros?

Thanks,
Jason

PS: This also affects people who are trying to heal the digital divide. Being able to send out systems that present a pretty welcome screen and a friendly configuration wizard on first boot goes a long way toward getting new computer users comfortable with and invested in a new system.

Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN)

Posted Aug 24, 2006 15:02 UTC (Thu) by horen (subscriber, #2514) [Link]

I dislike desktop managers. What I really mean is that I hate desktop managers. They suck-up system resources, install tons of files in often obscure places, make arbitrary assumptions about what where to place programs in menus, and are generally a pain-in-the-ass. The only one I ever liked was XFCE, but not enough to "get married" to it.

Me? I like lightweight window managers. For years, I used FVWM95; now, I use JWM (Joe's Window Manager) -- here is a screenshot of my desktop. One of it's selling-points is that it permits modular construction of its configuration file (.jwmrc) -- which, by the way, is its only configuration file.

Yeah, my setup is pretty M$oft-centric in appearance. Well, I've always felt that the look-and-feel of their GUI was great, and only got better over the years (with the glaring exceptions of no virtual desktops and only minimal user-configurable menus).

YMMV; count on it. But I've turned lots of people with low-end PII/PIII (and K6II/III) workstations and laptops into happy Linux users; users who would be otherwise unhappy with system responsivness if they were running the Gnome, KDE, or XFCE desktop managers, rather than a frugal window manager.

Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN)

Posted Aug 24, 2006 15:54 UTC (Thu) by louie (subscriber, #3285) [Link]

Wow! Everything in that post was so original and informative! Never heard anything like it before! Glad you posted it! Really added to the quality of the discussion of the article!

(Did I forget a sarcasm tag in there?)

Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN)

Posted Aug 24, 2006 23:53 UTC (Thu) by horen (subscriber, #2514) [Link]

"(Did I forget a sarcasm tag in there?)"

No, but you were nonetheless correct. I should not have published that comment; if there were a way for a poster to remove his/her comment(s), I would do so.

OT comments

Posted Aug 25, 2006 15:59 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I liked your comment. It was informative, not very new and a bit off-topic; still, having a peek at somebody else's desktop is always fun.

And where does it say that all comments have to stay on topic? Your comment may help other people with strict resource constraints and who cannot afford a complex desktop environment. It has also sparked an interesting conversation. It would be a pity if you deleted it.

Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN)

Posted Aug 24, 2006 18:32 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]

I tried JWM a couple months ago, but I couldn't get it to compile. The Configure script insisted that I didn't have X installed! I assume it is referring to xlibs, which I do have installed, but I didn't take time to pursue it further.

Does it support mouse-based window lowering and vertical/horizontal maximization? If it does, I may try installing it again.

Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN)

Posted Aug 24, 2006 19:05 UTC (Thu) by frankie (subscriber, #13593) [Link]

If you need a really innovative approach to window management, I would suggest wmii (http://www.wmii.de) instead.

Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN)

Posted Aug 24, 2006 20:46 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]

Well, I'm not really looking for anything that far from mainstream. I prefer the Windows UI with a few enhancements, such as the ability to lower windows with the mouse.

But I like their "10,000 lines of code" philosophy.

Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN)

Posted Aug 25, 2006 7:17 UTC (Fri) by micampe (guest, #4384) [Link]

But I like their "10,000 lines of code" philosophy.

That's just dumb. How can you preemptively decide how much code a solution to a particular problem needs? In which language? Which platform?

It might be an interesting experiment, just like when people optimized every single bit on old 64k machines, or like (but certainly less so) how they do now on embedded systems: "Let's try to implement everthing we need in 10k LOC!" But that just doesn't work in general.

Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN)

Posted Aug 25, 2006 8:47 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

It might be an interesting experiment, just like when people optimized every single bit on old 64k machines, or like (but certainly less so) how they do now on embedded systems.

Old 64K machines are HUGE when you are comparing them with modern embedded systems. I've seen AES implementation squized in 256 bytes! Of course it's very expensive and just stupid to do so when you are working with full-sized system with megabutes of RAM, but it's still good idea to limit amount of code (and features) as much as possible... Today KDE and GNOME are using 10 times more resources then Windows95 used - and offer very few exhancements over it. It's just stupid. Yes, M$ also does it - but that's not the point...

Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN)

Posted Aug 25, 2006 14:33 UTC (Fri) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]

That's just dumb.

Compared to, say, this?

Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN)

Posted Aug 25, 2006 9:28 UTC (Fri) by frankie (subscriber, #13593) [Link]

The 10k lines claim is not of my interest, but the possibility of reducing almost to null the use of mouse without annoyances, as well as having full screen use for applications, without unuseful icons/menus/applets floating around is a must for me. Surely I'm not the typical desktop users, but that kind of wm for a developer is the silver bullet.

Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN)

Posted Aug 24, 2006 23:50 UTC (Thu) by horen (subscriber, #2514) [Link]

/usr/lib/libX11.what.ever.else

check if you have an LD_LIBRARY_PATH (or other environment variable) which might override what's in /etc/ld.so.conf. Also check /etc/ld.so.conf to see if /usr/lib is listed. If it isn't, add it and run "ldconfig".

Mouse-based window lowering: YES

Vertical/horizontal maximization: NO (if this is important to you, suggest it to joewing@joewing.net, and he might just incorporate it)

Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN)

Posted Aug 25, 2006 0:40 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

More likely is that libX11 is installed (it's a rare non-headless system
that doesn't have that these days, and even most headless ones do) but the
X11 header files and .so symlink (the development packages) are not.

Which Free Linux Desktop Is Best? (CRN)

Posted Aug 26, 2006 1:58 UTC (Sat) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]

Yeah, I was missing something. I thought xlib11-dev would be sufficient, but it's not. I installed the (Ubuntu) xlibs-dev transitional package, and everything is fine. Thanks.