A Look at Ximian Desktop 2 [LWN.net]

[This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

With the release of Ximian Desktop 2 right around the corner, I decided to ring up my contact with Ximian to see if I could get a test-drive. By the end of the day Monday I had XD2 installed on my Toshiba laptop running SuSE 8.2.

Before I start talking about the features and such that come with XD2, it's important to note Ximian's target audience. Ximian is not targeting the home user, nor are they targeting long-time Linux users. The Ximian desktop is primarily aimed at corporate desktops. There are a limited number of configuration options, and they're aimed at the needs of desktop workers migrating from Windows. That doesn't mean it's unsuitable for Linux gurus or for the average home user, but I'd say it's less suitable than some other desktop configurations for those users.

The Ximian folks gave me a Red Carpet Express account to test out XD2, so I used the Ximian Red Carpet download installer and went for the full install. The entire install, including the download time, took a little more than an hour over a broadband connection. The public servers might be a little slower, and I'm sure they'll be swamped next Monday for the official release. I wouldn't advise trying to do a download install over dial-up at any time unless you're a very patient person.

As usual, the Ximian Desktop looks fantastic. I realize this is a subjective thing, but I find XD2 to be one of the best-looking desktops on the market -- and that includes the Aqua desktop from Apple. It's not an overly-slick kind of look, that would probably turn off the corporate buyers that Ximian is trying to reach. It's just a nice, clean look that is pleasant to use without being distracting. If aesthetics alone were the deciding factor for corporate desktops, Microsoft would be in deep trouble. Then again, they'd never have gotten where they were in the first place if aesthetics were a big factor.

Speaking of Microsoft, Ximian takes a cue from the folks in Redmond with some desktop icons like "My Computer," "Trash" and a home folder that are all designed to be permanent fixtures. They can be removed, but it isn't as simple as right-clicking on the icon and hitting "Move to Trash." For the corporate desktop, this is a feature -- for the average Linux user, this is annoying. The "My Computer" folder contains the same kind of stuff you'd find on a Windows machine, a printer icon, settings icon, and so on. It's not an exact replica of the Windows setup, but it's probably close enough to be intuitive if you've been using Windows all your computing life.

I found that it's easy to browse to a Samba share using Nautilus, which is a good thing for companies who want to move some users from Windows to Linux. I'm guessing it would have been able to "see" a regular Windows box with file-sharing turned on as well.

XD2 also comes with a brand-new version of Evolution. Unfortunately, Evolution 1.4 is mostly a maintenance release -- there are no new features to speak of, just bug fixes, better integration with GNOME 2 and so on. While I don't want to minimize the importance of bug fixing and so forth, I was hoping for some new features for Evolution. Other than the splash screen, I didn't notice any difference between Evolution 1.4 and 1.2.

The folks at Ximian have done a nice job of sprucing up OpenOffice.org. They've added a whole new set of icons to the toolbars and so on, which isn't a big deal in terms of functionality, but it will probably do more to create a good first impression for former (or soon-to-be former) Microsoft Office users. They've also tweaked OOo to save files in Microsoft Office formats by default, rather than the standard OOo formats. This includes getting rid of the dialog box that warns that you might lose data by saving in other formats. Again, this is a feature that will be a big plus for users moving from Windows to Ximian, but possibly annoying for the average Linux user.

Ximian has also included "Windows metric compatible fonts" in XD2. Basically, this means that the fonts included are supposed to better mimic the default fonts you get with Windows -- making Web browsing and such more like the Windows experience. I don't really worry too much about Web pages looking different, but the XD2 fonts mean that MS Office documents look much more like they're supposed to when you open them in OpenOffice.org and that's a very good thing. Presumably, it will also mean that documents created in OpenOffice.org will look right when opened in Microsoft Office.

Speaking of Web pages. Ximian defaults to Galeon as its Web browser, rather than Mozilla. Since I usually use Mozilla, I wasn't sure I'd like the switch, but I really didn't notice much difference. One nice thing is that Ximian pre-installs the regular suspects when it comes to plugins, so you'd have Java, Flash and the rest from the beginning rather than having to download them separately. This is in the Professional edition of XD2 -- so if you're doing the free download, you're still going to have to go hunting for some of the plugins, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and you won't get the Agfa fonts.

Though I think XD2 is a great desktop, there are some areas for improvement. For example, one of the first things I do when I do a fresh install is to set the resident window manager or desktop environment to move windows transparently. I couldn't find a way to do this using any of the apps in XD2's Personal Settings panel. I'm also puzzled because Ximian installs a "Format a Floppy" icon by default under the "System Tools" menu -- despite the fact that the machine has no floppy drive.

Overall, though, I think that Ximian has delivered a great desktop for their target audience. Whether corporations take it up or not is another story, but here's hoping.

(Log in to post comments)

A Look at Ximian Desktop 2

Posted Jun 5, 2003 10:16 UTC (Thu) by mdekkers (guest, #85) [Link]

"Before I start talking about the features and such that come with XD2, it's important to note Ximian's target audience. Ximian is not targeting the home user, nor are they targeting long-time Linux users. The Ximian desktop is primarily aimed at corporate desktops. There are a limited number of configuration options, and they're aimed at the needs of desktop workers migrating from Windows. That doesn't mean it's unsuitable for Linux gurus or for the average home user, but I'd say it's less suitable than some other desktop configurations for those users."

I have been following the debate about more or less options and configurabillity for some time now, and think the approach the GNOME/Ximian people are taking is seriously wrong. I architect corporate desktop environments for a living, and the code-imposed lockdown makes it so much harder to design a GNOME environment then a Windows or KDE environment. There is a flawed, underlying assumption that all corporate users have the requirements, require the same configuration, and have the same needs. Whereas the "less is more" philisophy may have its merits, the "we know best" philosophy is too reminiscent of the bad old Microsoft days. Bringing a product to market that is aimed at the coporate desktop, without *any* of the corporate management tools that would be required to make this work is something I don't really understand.

Some of the stuff they did to OpenOffice.org, for example, is seriously without thought. Making all documents save in MSOffice format by default is stupid in so many ways, it isn't even funny anymore. Ximian states that this reflects "corporate reality" in some way, which to me shows they have little grasp of corporate reality. If I am standardised within my firm on OOo, and a co-worker needs the file (the vast majority of Office files are shared internally, not externally), the co-worker will also have OOo. Those times that I do need to send out a file, I could either send it in OOo format (an OASIS XML standard) or in MS Format (non-standard binary). The ximian way of thinking about this seems to indicate that to them, "looking to use MS for the outside world" is vastly more important then what goes on within the firm. Moreover, sending out your data in MS Format perpetuates a bad habit. Sending it in OOo formats means I am furthering a standard, educate my peers, and send a strong message about standards adherance to the outside world.

Just my 2 p.

A Look at Ximian Desktop 2

Posted Jun 5, 2003 12:04 UTC (Thu) by DaveK (subscriber, #2531) [Link]

There is a further very serious flaw in Ximian's thinking on the subject of OOo.
Making it save in M$ formats by default with no warning that there imay be format/data loss by saving in foreign formats is extremely dubious, as in my experience OOo itself often doesn't render the same document consistently if it is saved and reloaded - but I get a warning, and save in native format too.
Someone who is trying out Ximian, and discovers this 'feature', and is not told that there is a native format and using it is preferable, is likely to assume that it is OOo or the Linux system at fault, despite all the hype etc. to the contrary, and go back to their windows desktop never to return.

On the subject of 'locked down' desktops, there is a definite blurring in the GNOME/Ximian camp over what is funcitonality (code) and what is policy (configuration, setup - call it what you like).
I strongly agree with the above comments that not all corporate (or home users for that matter) have the same requirements, and its a lot more difficult to restore, or customise functionality that has been removed removed from code, than it is to disable/tweak that which you don't want by policy.

A Look at Ximian Desktop 2

Posted Jun 6, 2003 7:21 UTC (Fri) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

> Making it save in M$ formats by default with no warning that there imay be
> format/data loss by saving in foreign formats is extremely dubious, as in
> my experience OOo itself often doesn't render the same document
> consistently if it is saved and reloaded - but I get a warning, and save
> in native format too.

It is also sadly the case that an arbitrary OpenOffice word-processor
document almost always loses stuff when saved as DOC and then viewed
with MicroSoft Word or Word viewer. Some examples of basic glitches:
cross-refences disappear, and bullet symbols come out funny, unless you
use a non-default character for the bullet symbol in OpenOffice.
(Curiously, compatibility with Excel and PowerPoint is much better).

I now have used OpenOffice on Linux for a while now as my main word processor
in a "MS Office shop", and have learned the hard way to ALWAYS check an
exported result in a MS Word viewer before sharing an OpenOffice-generated DOC
file with a Windows user. The formatting glitches this reveals can
usually be worked around by using OpenOffice features in a slightly
different way. (For example, my workaround for the bullet symbol problem
is explicitly selecting a bullet symbol for bulleted lists from the
Wingdings font (from the "free-as-beer-but-must-install-yourself" M$
TrueType font collection, which unfortunately is essential to install
to get any kind of visual compatibility).

OpenOffice is a really fine piece of software and works for all normal
office needs - as long as you can primarily use its own formats!
Pretending it is a totally plug-in compatible replacement for MS Office,
like Ximian appears to do, is a really bad idea, that will alienate
new users when they find the quite real gaps in the document-format compatibility.

A Look at Ximian Desktop 2

Posted Jun 12, 2003 23:21 UTC (Thu) by dash2 (guest, #11869) [Link]

Unfortunately, it is just a fact that in vast amounts of the business world, Microsoft is the standard. Also, very few corporations will switch over to Linux in a single move - they'll dip their toe in the water with a department here, an office there.

In these circumstances, making MS formats the default is probably quite sensible. It is no different from what MS itself did in order to gain market share: providing lots of compatibility with the existing market leaders. Like them, we can move away from this once we have a greater market share ourselves (although unlike them, we'll be moving towards open, freely documented standards). But there is no point sending someone a document in a format their word processor cannot read, no matter how many standards that format complies with.

As for configurability... well, let the best desktop win. I am a long-time KDE fan but I do look with envy on the cleanness and simplicity of Gnome.