Red Hat 8.0 For KDE Users (And Newbies)

pantropik writes "OSNews has been giving quite a bit of bandwidth to Red Hat's newest offering lately. This article, which generated quite a bit of controversy in the comments section, detailed a new user's 'frustrations' with the new release. The latest article, written by yours truly, is rather lengthy, explaining such things as adding 3D drivers, missing MP3 functionality, DVD decoding, using APT with RHL, and customizing Red Hat's modified KDE. At the end, I wrap up with my impression -- as a simple user -- of this 'crippled' KDE implementation. Of course, you can also check out this story, which takes a look at RH 8.0 from 'Joe and Jane User's' perspective."

Comments

An OS for all occasions...

[Coplan]

It sounds to me that the problems are the same problems held Linux-World wide. These are common, and not necessarily specific to Red Hat 8.0. I'm a firm believer in using the best OS for the task.

As the writer wrote:
I was excited to see all the positive, glowing reviews of the latest version of Red Hat Linux. I thought, "finally, I can get away from Windows 98." "It just works" is the mantra. Unfortunately, this was not the case for me.

If the goal is to simply get away from Windows while still maintaining functionality, and you're just a hack user, I would recommend Mac OS X. If you don't have the money to buy new hardware...then I don't know what to tell you.

At this point, Linux is still not going to replace Windows or Mac OS X. And you can't expect REd Hat to solve all the problems in one release. It's a step in the right direction, but this isn't the miracle that Linux needs to attract joe-user.

Don't be so critical.

This is what is really needed

[carlmenezes]

Sorry to say it, but it's high time the KDE - Gnome squabble stopped and both teams started concentrating on a unified desktop.

Consider this : given the fact that both are so refined already, if both worked together, you'd have a UI that easily bypasses anything MS can come up with and Linux becomes a viable desktop for Joe and Jane user (it already is for Joe and Jane techie).

Again, Linux NEEDS a unified desktop. I can't say it more. It may sound sad, but it has to be done.

Re:This is what is really needed

[FattMattP]

Again, Linux NEEDS a unified desktop.

Linux needs a unified cut and paste first.

And 'select + middle mouse button' doesn't cut it (no pun intended). When I select something doesn't mean that I want to blow away what's in my copy buffer. I might just want to delete it or replace it with what is in my copy buffer.

I feel for the writer

[Lumpy]

Yes, Linux is becoming bloatware. there is not one of us who can deny it. A Celeron 500 with 64 meg of ram is more than enough to run an OS, X server, desktop and browser+office suite. Why it doesnt? the only reason is feature bloat.

I just recently tried RH8.0 (I support RH in a corperate environment) and liked how it looks, but am appalled that in order to deploy it I have to replace all the workstations with new just to keep everything feeling right in speed. (WE have aincent P-III 866's here with a paltry 128 meg of ram... I know... I should be killed and eaten for using such old and outdated hardware.)

Redhat 7.3 is the last stage here.. and if Linux desktops in general keep getting feature bloat and exrta slow-down added... I may have to stand up with egg on my face and reccomend that we switch back to Microsoft in a few years.

KDE and Gnome... they need stop all development and focus on getting a 50% speed increase. If they have to cut and slash to do it, then do it. Mozilla needs to do this as well as Open Office.

everyone is sitting behind the excuse that "processors are ultra fast now and ram is cheap." Linux is not the big fish... we must be faster and sleeker than the big fish to survive and overcome.

Re:I feel for the writer

[Ektanoor]

Bloatness on Linux is a question of administration and not a distro problem. Distros are for features and for the laziness of building everything nearly from scratch. On Celeron 500 + 64Mb maybe RH 8 will slow down as you may have installed everything you could... On PIII 866 + 128Mb? Well I've just 2 months ago switched to 256 and I don't get where you could have had problems. For a simple office task the machine was ok. However it was hard to work on a destkop and having 3-4 servers working on background for good. Yes, for good, as one of them was no one else than the video broadcaster from mpeg4ip which loads the machine very well.

On what relates to Windows. Do you wanna tell me that you can find a Windows good enough to hang on the configurations you pointed? Even NT had trouble working on the Celeron you pointed out. With only a browser it managed to eat up all memory and permanently require some 20Mb swap.

Or are you talking about the "new" Windows? This new XP crap needs no less than 256 megs to live relatively well on a PIII 900MHz. On that same machine I'm able to use a full-featured Mandrake 9 and have always some 100Mb free for something else, Quake III for example...

Keep the FUD for yourself while you can't switch from Windows Help to man rtfm

Re:That title is double-redundant!

[Raven42rac]

This is one of the main reasons that GNU/Linux is so slow to grow. The condescending attitudes of people like you. What did you start off using? debian? suse? or did you just write your own flavor. jesus man, thats why people are so scared to try it out, because if they ask a question of SOME people, they get laughed at and made to feel stupid, and get stuck. Maybe these "newbies" just want their system to

• just work

maybe they dont want to compile everything, maybe they are just converts that want to email websurf and do light gaming. Give people a little slack. Just a thought.

My mini RH 8.0 review

[bogie]

Let's see if RedHat 8.0 works as a business desktop, its STATED target.

Easy for admin to deploy. check
Easy to use desktop even for a windows user. check
Comes with a great Office Suite and email client. check
Comes with a fast stable web browser. check
The best fonts and font tool ever for a linux distro. check
Absolutly 100% free to download ISO's. check
A billion times more secure than Outlook/IE. check
Responsive on modern(1GHz 256MB) machines. check
Companies has given/gives back a LOT to the community. check

I've been using Redhat since 5.0 and I've also pretty much every distro under the sun. For desktop linux this is a high wark mark. It still has a few rough edges when it comes to consumer usage, but really for the business desktop this is deployable NOW. If I were starting a company today there is not doubt RH 8 would be my choice regardless of cost. Also remember this is Redhat's FIRST attempt at the desktop. I can only imagine how good Redhat 8.1 or 8.2 is going to be.

I can't read rh related post on kde mailling lists

[imr]

nor suze posts because I've setup filters to trash them.
Why ?
Because many of those many posts come from users having difficulties with choices the heavy thinkers of those distros made. And I got fed up of reading the same problems all over again. And the same answers, to the point that some day those lists look like a big huge faq.
"This a suze related problem. The solution to this problem can be found on suze forum "...etc ...etc...
Most of the times, the initiative was good and those people are quite eager to do the right thing, they just seem unable to do it THE RIGHT WAY.
In the KDE case, it would have meant in order to do the right thing (desktop appearence unification): to talk with KDE people to warn them and have feedback from them, to show respect for their work and project (leave the small about kde box in the app they put aside anyway) and to show that they have heard their concerns about a supposed preference toward gnome and that they're not funded (because they are not, right?).
But NO, they had to push it under the hat(!) and suddenly, flamewars everywhere, like we need them.
And in order to do it the right way for end users (because they are target for desktop unification, right? I mean, who ELSE need it?), that would mean a little less twinked systems which will behave a little more like everyone else's. If you don't believe me, go and check last transgaming release and see what systems have kernel related issues with last winex release.
If the real issue behind all this was to do the best desktop for end users, they certainly did it the wrong way.

Re:Some thoughts and specific user experience item

[cr@ckwhore]

One more thing to add to my list...

Regarding browser plugins, the default netscape location for plugins (/usr/lib/netscape/plugins) should be a symlink to the mozilla plugins directory. When some popular "netscape" plugins are installed, such as realplayer, it automatically puts itself in the default netscape location.

For a "joe user", this would probably be a big problem because after installing a plugin, realplayer, flash player, etc... it doesn't work unless the user manually copies the files from the netscape plugin directory into the mozilla plugin directory.

Huge problem, with a simple solution.