A First Look at Turbolinux 10 Desktop

Turbolinux, established in Japan in 1992 under the name of Pacific HiTech, is one of the oldest surviving Linux companies. Like many others, it started by publishing a monthly CD-ROM containing the latest Linux software, before creating its own RPM-based Linux distribution in 1996. The company moved its headquarters to the United States in 1999, but returned to Japan some two years later when it was sold to a Japanese software firm called Software Research Associates. Turbolinux is a founding member of the United Linux consortium.

Turbolinux 10 Desktop is the company's first desktop-oriented release in over a year. Although the product is currently only available in Japan, Turbolinux also plans to introduce its "Basic" edition to the English-language audience next month. Those readers familiar with the distribution might be surprised at the complete change of focus in this release - instead of continuing to develop a general purpose distribution for Linux enthusiasts, Turbolinux 10 Desktop is designed for complete novices to Linux. Its target market is the average Windows user who is interested in migrating to Linux with as little pain and learning curve as possible. It attempts to compete with products such as LindowsOS, Lycoris Desktop/LX or Xandros Desktop.

The most controversial aspect of Turbolinux 10 Desktop is the fact that it is the first Linux distribution to ship with a 2.6 kernel (2.6.0-test5 development kernel, to be precise). Some might question the wisdom of this decision, which seems to have been based on the desire to increase the product's marketability, rather than on solid technical reasons. Nevertheless, Turbolinux 10 had undergone two months of beta testing prior to its release and the company promises to supply a new stable kernel as soon as it becomes available. But while there are many nice new features in the 2.6 kernel series, not everyone will be happy using it at this time. As an example, NVIDIA has yet to produce a graphics driver that would compile cleanly under it. A wiser option would have been to give users a choice between a stable and a development kernel, rather than forcing everyone to the bleeding edge.

Installing Turbolinux is one of the more pleasant aspects of the product. The distribution's "Mongoose" installer is not only extremely functional, it is also aesthetically well-designed. It is loosely modeled on Red Hat's Anaconda, except that the choice of languages is limited to English, Japanese, simplified and traditional Chinese (Korean is gone from this release), while the selection of journaled file systems include ext3, JFS, ReiserFS and XFS. Raid arrays and logical volume management can also be set up during installation. The installer is able to configure Samba-based networks automatically, so that all networked computers are immediately browseable after first boot. This, together with flawless hardware detection and configuration contributed most to the overall positive experience with the installation program.

Turbolinux 10 comes with KDE 3.1.3 (default), GNOME 2.4.0 and XFce 3.8.18 as choices of desktop environments. The menus are greatly simplified and made to resemble Windows menus wherever possible, while hiding more advanced options and more obscure packages deeply inside menu structures. Some other aspects designed to make Windows converts feel right at home include the "My Documents" folder and the My Networks-style "Windows Network" icon on the desktop. The distribution also comes with CD and floppy automount support, as well as Turbolinux-specific "Dynaplug" tool for accessing USB flash memory and IEEE-1394 removable devices. 802.11b wireless network cards and advanced power management for notebooks are also supported.

What does Turbolinux supply in terms of configuration tools? A new "Turbo Update" is a graphical utility for security, bug fix and product updates directly from a remote FTP server or local file system. Other tools include package administration, language selection, daemon configuration, window manager selection and some Turbolinux-specific hardware configuration utilities. All of them are integrated into the KDE control panel, although they can also be launched independently.

It is important to note the differences between the Turbolinux 10 Desktop edition ($143) and Desktop Basic edition ($29). In terms of value, there is little comparison as the Basic edition lacks some proprietary applications as well as an office suite. On the other hand, the more expensive edition includes Sun's Star Suite 7 (the Asian equivalent of Star Office) and Acronis Partition Manager, as well as printed documentation and 3 years of free Turbo Update service (1 year for the Basic edition). It also comes with a proprietary ATOK Japanese input method.

While all of the above sounds fairly impressive, no distribution is perfect and Turbolinux 10 is no exception. The Turbo Update service came with misconfigured defaults and, while entering the correct path to system updates fixed the problem, the new configuration did not stick between sessions. Worse, the program kept reporting available package updates even after they had been updated. All errata information is only given in Japanese, and don't expect perfect English in system dialogs either. But possibly the worst aspect of Turbolinux is lack of any online documentation as well as an absence of English language support services, such as community web sites, user forums or mailing lists. Unless the company makes an effort to create a solid English documentation and support infrastructure, the product will only be really useful to those users who can read Japanese and who need good Japanese functionality in a Linux distribution.

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