Slashdot Mirror
Ximian Partners w/HP; Ximinian Default HP-UX Stations
vukicevic writes "Hewlett-Packard and Ximian have partnered to make Ximian GNOME the default desktop on all HP-UX workstations later this year. HP will also be offering Ximian GNOME on its Linux workstations. The press release has more information."
Step 2 (or 1, if it's a non-Linux Unix company): Company announces its partnership with the Gnome Foundation and that it will be installing Gnome as its default desktop.
Step 3: Company announces its partnership with Helix Code and that it will be installing Helix Gnome as its default desktop.
Step 4: Company announces its partnership with Eazel and that it will be installing the Nautilus desktop as its default desktop.
Whatever the merits of some incarnation of Gnome over the alternatives, clearly there's no technical reason for, say, Dell to announce that they're switching from Gnome to Eazel Gnome. (Or was it Helix Gnome to Eazel Gnome?) I would assume that this is partly just companies with piles of VC money bringing a wheelbarrow of it to computer makers and asking for endorsement.
But I guess what we're also seeing is the emerging fight as to who will collect the tolls on the Linux desktop. Kind of like the fight between MS and computer makers as to what will appear on the Windows desktop, the question is whose desktop configuration will ship and whose revenue scheme will be supported-- Red Hat's subscription service for updates, Helix Code's ticketing commissions and subscription service for updates or Eazel's disk space and, ummm, subscription service for updates.
Ha. It ain't funny until one tries to get various
versions of IRIX talking to various versions of HP-UX, espeacially when NFS is involved. "What do you mean patch level X is incompatible with patch level X+1?" Then its real fun!
There's also Compaq's Tru64 UNIX which they inherited from Digital.
Somebody please tell this machine I'm not a machine -
No, we're assigning Ximian to point to the data formerly known as Helix prior to getting rid of Helix. =P
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
# swinstall -s /tmp/XSWGR1100_11.00.depot -x auto_reboot=true -x patch_match_targets=true
swinstall: no DEPOT found in hpsystem:/temp/XSWGR1100_11.00.depot
#fireaxe -x hit_really_hard=true -x roar_with_frustration=true feel_remorse=false -s hpsystem
SoupIsGood Food
You can get the latest KDE for compaq Tru64 Unix from ftp.kde.org.
You can also find KDE 2.0.1 for AIX, SGI, HP-UX, Solaris, S/390, SCO, *BSD, and ofcourse - all Linux packages...
Donno about Gnome. I'm not following it.
Hetz (Heunique)
This is great news for the everyone but MS. Creating a common desktop interface across all Unicies and Linux/BSD will only accelerate Linux's success. The Unix world tried this with CDE but they over looked one important detail. People have to LIKE the interface, and no one I know who has used CDE likes it. You can fight about Gnome vs. KDE, but you can't argue that Gnome isn't better than CDE. When the other major Unix ventors follow suit (hopefully they will anyway. They said they would, and we all know they wouldn't lie just to look good to the open source community:)), it very well cause a resurgence in UNIX. We'll have to wait a see though.
I have used bootman (the BeOS bootloader) to boot several versions of Linux from both ext2 and ReiserFS filesystems, I've used it to boot QNX RtP from QNX-FS, I've used to to boot NT4 from NTFS, Win98 from FAT32 and FAT16, Win2K from NTFS and Fat32, FreeBSD on FFS, hell, it'll even boot Plan9! And yes, bootman does support adding and removing entries, all you have to do is type "bootman" at the CLI, it detects all your partitions, asks from names for each, and then lets you chose the default one. Much simpler, I must say, than Lilo OR GRUB.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I an tired of these press releases. Every closed source company now thinks it is great to announce a "partnership" with some Open Source company. WHY?!
Don't they realized that the code base is Open Source/Free Software. They can just download the code and then install it as default under HP UX. Why do they feel the need to create a press release and then spam everyone with this information.
The OSS companies like Eazel and HelixCode^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HXimian think it is great because it increases their "value" I guess.
This does not qualify as "news for nerds". Maybe news for marketing droids.
</rant>
One fine day, you will be able to apt-get or rpm -Fvh an HP-UX system...
Until then, there is always Solaris (what is their thing with pkzip anyway?).
When did they change their name?
There was an article on January 10 about the name change.
All 5 of them you mean?
Je t'aime Stéphanie
This is a _very_ good thing!
For one, the guys at Ximian have now replaced a highly visible proprietary piece of software with an open one. Secondly, the direction of GNOME is controlled by the GNOME Foundation, a group comprised of Sun, IBM, HP, Red Hat, VA Linux, Ximian, and many others. This makes it nearly impossible for one or even two corporations to try and hijack GNOME. Furthermore, the software you use will never be completely free of large corporations, Sun, IBM, HP, AT&T, Compaq, and Nortel Networks are just a few of the companies that contribute numerous resources to open source projects.
You make it sound like Mozilla was successful and then Netscape stepped in and messed it all up. The truth is it was messed up from the start because Netscape started it off that way. In this case GNOME is already a successful project and it would take a serious effort by more than just one corporation to derail their momentum.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Another firm files for class action against VA Lin
Wouldn't it be easier to post a list of law firms that haven't filed a CA against LNUX? :) Slashdot did post a story about the first one, but since then there have been at least a dozen "me too" filings. Yahoo! stock message boards are a better way to keep track of it for those who care.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
As I understood it the Pinewood office did localized HP/UX devel for Europe and all the devel on Openmail and Change Engine. At least until 99 or so, then a lot of odd and ends seemed to be going to India.
I thought the training staff there was pretty bright too. Far more involved with the product then I saw with the US trainers (Dallas and Minneapolis).
Then it would be Ximian=&Helix.
;)
Yea, just showing of my god-like coding skills
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Exactly why I have just replaced NT4 for all my 3D modeling, 2D graphics needs. You really need to get something called "perspective."
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Another problem. Why should the bootloader even be an issue? I have no clue what version of bootman I'm using, and I won't ever need to. It just works, it configs easily, and it never breaks. If you have to get tech support for your *bootloader* than your OS has some serious usability problems.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Monkey. That source was released only recently and you know it. There is still a difference between GNOME and CDE, despite the corperations. If anything screws up GNOME, it will be the fact that the developers have no perspective on what priorities are important in a desktop environment, and the temptation for the developers to do stuff just because it is cool.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
There are several reasons why crashing X is as bad as crashing the OS. Not everyone uses Linux for servers, and not many servers run X (all the time.) Thus if X crashes, the person most likely loses the work in the X program that he/she was working on. On a server, its good that it drops back into the command line, because most services are run from there. On a desktop however, most stuff is run from the GUI (even CLI apps are usually run from Xterms) and when X goes down, they all dissapear.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
This is one of the reasonings for Free Software in full effect: hardware companies have an interest in the availability of software to their platform.
As a side note, I wouldn't be surprised if they timed their release with GNOME 1.4's.
I had a colleague at Ford (in Germany) who once said: "They should not let amateurs like HP make their own UNIX" (he had to switch from DEC Unix to HP-UX because the HP workstations where so much cheaper).
I for one, was always happy with HP since their workstation delivered good UNIX performance for just a little more than a PC.
This was till I started working for them. What a joke! I have never seen such a poor service. They probably treat their big customers (like FORD) better than they treat their own employees but I have never seen such a bunch of incompetent people. I left HP (and the country) thinking, I never want to work again for such a bunch of amateurs (it was in France).
On an unrelated note, what you say about Elm does not surprise me... Remember that the STL were made by HP labs in Paolo Alto and that for years C front (their C++ compiler) was not able to handle the STL. Only a few years ago, they switched to aCC and were able to use their own code.
Juju
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
My experience: On Mandrake 7 KDE is noticeably more stable in default configuration (Gnome was running with E for a memory manager, which is certainly at least part of the reason.) On Slackware 7.1, with Gnome running with Sawfish, it seems about equally stable to KDE. Changing window manager to WindowMaker helps stability a bit and gives it the edge, though not by much.
That said, both have stability problems. Not on the scale of Win 9x by any means, but not much better than NT... the only real advantage stability wise is that problems can only dump you back to the command line, not actually reboot the machine. Which I think is a pretty big advantage really, but I know a lot of people that disagree. Don't ask me why.
Disclaimer: These experiences are with earlier version of both Gnome and KDE. Hopefully both have gotten better, but I work through a modem at home and can't just reflexively update every time a program revs - particularly extremely large programs like these.
Sorry, never happened to me. Just a wild guess, but are you running X as root?
One thing that turns me off about helix/ximian is the lack of packages in standard tar.gz formats - what's up with that? Seems very unprofessional of them.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
AFAIK 4dwm (I think that's what its called) is still based off of Motif, which is slowly dying. Given that, coupled with the fact that SGI itself is slowly dying (and has been "embracing linux" in the process) I would be at all suprised if they switched to Gnome/KDE/Something else very soon.
You forgot IBM's AIX, although I don't see that on a desktop or using X in any way. Still, they're a UNIX vendor.
Two things. First, AIX comes with CDE as standard running on X, so it does get used on a desktop (mine for example) by virtue of remote access through an X server.
Secondly, IBM has already announced that the Linux Toolkit for AIX (versions 4.3.3+ and 5L) and this contains both GNOME and KDE2 ports, so for those of us who make extensive use of AIX life just got a lot easier.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Weren't both CDE and Motif controlled by a "foundation"? And, well you know...
And the source to CDE and Motif is available where? Now do you see the difference? Additionally, the GNOME Foundation does not do the coding, nor implement the current ideas. It is a talking shop for where to go next and to raise the visibility (and funding) of GNOME. It does not dictate the GNOME development decisions
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
I really don't like Gnome. It looks too much like Windows. CDE may suck, but at least it has its own flavor, and it's Unixy. It seems like nobody has a good vision for the future of Unix desktops, so they'd rather copy Windows.
It was cool when HP had VUE. There was a feeling of integration, of a finished product, somewhat like Macintosh. I guess every Unix workstation will be a wannabe PC. More expensive than Wintel and lacking the latest dancing puppydog, they'll watch their market share erode. They don't have the vision or boldness to promote a truly Unixy desktop.
A desktop can be a kind of battle flag, as Mac users know. The Unix vendors are discarding the opportunity to define themselves visually in opposition to M$.
But the workstation market is probably doomed anyway. It will be crushed between Linux and W2k.
And of course then you can get this set of patches but that means you need this other set of patches and don't forget to apply these boot patches and these patches that fix those patches. And if that breaks anything well you should not have been patching your system in the first place. :)
If you have used or supported HP-UX you will understand the above and find it funny. To those of you who don't know HP-UX the above is *very* ontopic
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Okay, we have Sun using Gnome as the default.
Now we have HP using it as the default for both their linux stations soon, and their HP UX machines.
Who all does that leave in the Unix world? SCO, I think is all thats left, and didnt they go under or something?
Granted, OSX is sorta unix, and does use it, but with their exception, now you can go from bsd->unix->linux and always have the same desktop??
Did I miss someone?
Cause if not, WOW.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Yay for taking metaphors too far...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I for one prefer that the software I use is free of large corporations. That's why my X is now ximian free!
If you want a perfect case study of how large corporations screw up perfectly good open source projects, why don't you take a look at Mozilla?
ben.
Ben Schumin :-)
Did UnixWare have CDE?
Most of the commercial UNIX people charge big bucks for anything better than 8bit graphics.
In IBM's case, they just ship you a Matrox PCI card for which they overcharge you by about a billion percent.
I do hope that CDE gets open-sourced soon. I kinda like dtksh.
PH-UX.
I get paid a nickel for every email I read!
This from Sun's Site
Who is using GNOME?
o Generally shipped with all Linux & BSD distributions
o Will be the default Solaris and HP-UX GUI
o GNOME Foundation includes Sun, IBM, HP, Compaq, Helix Code, Eazel, RedHat, VA Linux, and others
SGI is still using their own IRIX front end last time I checked. No offense to the Gnome zealots, but I've used both and SGI's blows the rest of the window managers out of the friggin' water. I doubt you'll see them on the boat any time soon.
HP-UX has it's quirks like any OS, but it also has a very good set of unix developers. If you ever go to a HP/UX class held in the Pinewood (U.K) training and development centre you'd hear a lot of interesting stories. The developers have been pro-linux for a very long time.
One little note is that Elm was originally created by an HP engineer, although it was a long time until it made it's way into HP/UX.
Duh, I hear you say, but I had to visit helixcode.com to figure it out... just in case anyone else was wondering who the heck Ximian are :)
Do you not know how to read? Damn, we need to fix these inner city DC schools! Their students can't even recognize the difference between the character patterns "BeOS" and "NT4" I mean, even if they had some basic counting skills they could see that one had four letters and the other three.
PS> Of course, this message is wasted anyway. Its not like you can read it...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...