RHEL 7 and Gnome extensions

Posted Jan 9, 2013 15:37 UTC (Wed) by tetley80 (guest, #88691)
In reply to: RHEL 7 and Gnome extensions by marduk
Parent article: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 released

Then why do so many Red Hat employees work directly on Gnome as well as the graphics stack infrastructure (X et al) ?

Furthermore, Red Hat does offer a desktop product:
http://www.redhat.com/products/enterprise-linux/desktop/

RHEL 7 and Gnome extensions

Posted Jan 9, 2013 15:57 UTC (Wed) by marduk (subscriber, #3831) [Link]

I have no doubt that some do, but as I said I believe that *most* don't, at least not in my experience. I do know of their desktop offering and employees working on desktop stuff, but it is relatively small compared to the number of employees working on other Red Hat products and services. Think Apple and their "server" offerings.

RHEL 7 and Gnome extensions

Posted Jan 9, 2013 16:33 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (5 responses)

> Then why do so many Red Hat employees work directly on Gnome as well as the graphics stack infrastructure (X et al) ?

Few people want to pay for a Linux Desktop because it's always really sucked. Traditionally speaking (past decade or so) you have always been far more productive in the majority of corporate environments by using a Windows desktop, installing a bunch of unix-related admin tools, and then having a separate Linux node you did your Linux/Unix hacking and administrative tasks from.

I expect that Redhat is interested in changing this. (I have found that Windows in VM on Linux provides good productivity) I also expect it's a difficult to allocate resources due to lack of current financial incentive.

RHEL 7 and Gnome extensions

Posted Jan 9, 2013 17:29 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link] (2 responses)

> Traditionally speaking (past decade or so) you have always been far more
> productive in the majority of corporate environments by using a Windows
> desktop, installing a bunch of unix-related admin tools, and then having a
> separate Linux node you did your Linux/Unix hacking and administrative
> tasks from.

This isn't so anymore. I'm not talking about RedHat releases in particular (which aren't too suitable for desktop usage, since they are too far apart and fall behind rapid desktop advancements). In general however, any modern and up to date Linux distro can feel way more productive to use than Windows.

RHEL 7 and Gnome extensions

Posted Jan 10, 2013 14:56 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

> In general however, any modern and up to date Linux distro can feel way more productive to use than Windows.

Unless you need Active Directory integration, Outlook support, and 99% of all applications developed anywhere by anybody that are used by professionals.

RHEL 7 and Gnome extensions

Posted Jan 10, 2013 19:08 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

you are speaking for yourself.

Many professionals are able to operate quite nicely with Linux desktops.

If what you were saying was correct, none of the professionals would be able to run Macs because they have the same problem as linux for most of those applications that you are referring to.

RHEL 7 and Gnome extensions

Posted Jan 11, 2013 0:17 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

Traditionally speaking (past decade or so) you have always been far more productive in the majority of corporate environments by using a Windows desktop, installing a bunch of unix-related admin tools, and then having a separate Linux node you did your Linux/Unix hacking and administrative tasks from.

Speak for yourself. In the (mercifully brief) period of my life when I was forced to use Windows at work, I hated it. I found the Windows desktop annoyingly unproductive and full of stupid design decisions that made my workflow intensely painful.

I'm lucky enough now to own my own company, so I have no concerns with Exchange integration, MS Office compatibility, etc. because the gold standard at my workplace is Linux on both server and desktop.

RHEL 7 and Gnome extensions

Posted Jan 11, 2013 21:48 UTC (Fri) by Jandar (subscriber, #85683) [Link]

> Traditionally speaking (past decade or so) you have always been far more productive in the majority of corporate environments by using a Windows desktop, installing a bunch of unix-related admin tools, and then having a separate Linux node you did your Linux/Unix hacking and administrative tasks from.

There are yet 80 days until 2013-04-01, so this joke is premature. Traditionally a Linux/Unix desktop was *far* more productive for Linux/Unix admin and hacking only since 7 a Windows desktop comes closer.

Our main admin has problems to install NX on local diskless clients so he installs diskfull Windows as substitute. The drop in productivity is staggering. Fortunately I have enough influence to prohibit such nonsense at my desk.