Red Hat Plans Linux Desktop Offering 'for the Masses' (eWeek) [LWN.net]

eWeek looks at Red Hat's plans for an Enterprise Desktop. "Red Hat is planning a packaged Linux desktop solution that it hopes will push its Linux desktop offering to a far broader audience than exists for its current client solution. The move is designed in part to compete with Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 platform, which includes SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, which were released in July 2006."

(Log in to post comments)

Red Hat Plans Linux Desktop Offering 'for the Masses' (eWeek)

Posted Mar 20, 2007 4:17 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Sounds like it to me.

Sounds like they want to elaborate on the Desktop offering by also using Samba as a "Active Directory"-style server.

If you check out the features of Samba 4 (which currently has technology preview release aviable for testing and evalulation) they have put work into making "CIFS" much more Linux-friendly and making it more on par with Windows 2000/2003 features.

One of the things I think they've been working on is if both the client and server are identified as Linux systems it will by-pass all the Windows-compatability crud and get better performance. CIFS is a very loose specification, so I am told, so it's easy to add Linux-specific features to it and yet retain compatability.

Also one of the big big things for it is that they are getting proper kerberos-based authentication support and support the MS-specific extention for kerberos that they use for logins and other such things. Since then it's kerberos then there is already all sorts of support with it for Linux.

I think that Novell was working very closely with Samba to get these sort of features enabled for their desktop. But obviously Novell has seriously pissed them off with the whole horrific Microsoft-Novell patent deal. Redhat, it seems this article is hinting at, is looking to pick up the slack and integrate this stuff into their own Redhat directory services and their stateless Linux project.

Effectively what you'd have is a competitive Open Source/Free software alternative to Novell's closed source eDirectory setup and Microsoft's Active Directory, with Windows-compatability included.

That is my guess about what they are talking about.

Red Hat Plans Linux Desktop Offering 'for the Masses' (eWeek)

Posted Mar 19, 2007 23:57 UTC (Mon) by kirkengaard (subscriber, #15022) [Link]

My first thought: "Wow, Red Hat on the desktop? For normal users? Now *that's* a novel approach!" ;)

Seriously, though, is this a return to labeled general-use Red hat, since Fedora has been spun out into community, or is this just emphasis on user-terminal workstation desktops for enterprise bundling?

Red Hat Plans Linux Desktop Offering 'for the Masses' (eWeek)

Posted Mar 20, 2007 0:09 UTC (Tue) by kirkengaard (subscriber, #15022) [Link]

Yes, I can read, never mind the question. Just have to read *first*, comment second. Sorry.

Red Hat 'for the Masses'

Posted Mar 20, 2007 14:31 UTC (Tue) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link]

I don't think Red Hat has any master plan for a desktop for the masses... but they are offering the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Basic Subscription for $80... which is only $20 more a year than RHL was several years ago.

If I understand correctly, SAMBA's Active Directory support comes at the expense of having their own LDAP server implimentation... and do we really need another one of those? Red Hat needs to integrate RHEL and Fedora better with RHDS and FDS... and both are said to have good integration with Active Directory already. I don't think Red Hat is going to have any significant voice in Samba development. If we are talking Active Directory integration, what home user uses that?

In and of itself, the $80 price point for their entry-level desktop is the heart of this story.

Red Hat 'for the Masses'

Posted Mar 20, 2007 19:26 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

If the whole thing is about a simple price drop.. Then it's a pretty boring non-event. It's like having a press release on a shoe sale.

Oh well.

Red Hat 'for the Masses'

Posted Mar 21, 2007 22:34 UTC (Wed) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link]

I don't know about that. I mean... Red Hat has had a "corporate desktop" for quite a while now... and even though they sponsor the Fedora project... they are that horrible company that abandoned the desktop.

Just saying they have a desktop product that is affordable for home users seems to be a big change.