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Ximian Desktop 2 Reviewed
Bruha writes "Lewt over at Warcry News Network has written his review for Ximian Desktop 2 targeted at the home users that are looking for a good desktop solution. He mentions this is a good product that could be bundled with Redhat or Mandrake to provide a one stop solution for the desktop user where they dont have to install any extra software to fully surf the web. Which you do with KDE/Gnome installs of most distro's."
What a horrible review.
This thing was all of 10 sentences, contains no detail, and just plain sucks.
Can we have a _real_ review, by someone competent, please? Perhaps one that actually took more than 3 minutes to write, and has some detail?
Is it just me, or does this review amount to little more than "Ximian Desktop reorganised my menus nicely for me". It seems hardly worth posting on Slashdot at any rate.
It doesn't even have screenshots! I thought it was accepted here that reviews without screenshots are worthless?!
It's more like a long blurb. Where's the beef?
............. kris
"I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me."
You do? I never have.... ALL distros I have ever used that set up a KDE or GNOME desktop for you, have a web browser, normally Mozilla/Konqueror.
Personally I snarfed the Ximian artwork/theme and stuck with my RH9 desktop. It does everything I need, and is pretty well organised. Nonetheless, for business I would definately consider it, if only for the integrated OO and printing work.
I learned more about this product by spending 20 seconds on the ximian.com website than by reading this entire "review". Are the /. editors even bothering to read these stories before they post them these days?
Sadly, that was more informative than the review itself.
For Redhat 9 user, there is a serious problem with rpm db conflict. It has been reported here, so install at your own risk.
I searched for quite a while, trying to figure out how to change the default browser for XD2 from Galeon to Opera. I always like to write up tutorials on little things like this when I come across them, so you can find that info here.
--It's Pimptastic!--
It's new and, uh, stuff.
And new stuff is cool!
Think I could make headlines on Slashdot?
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Geez, something really stinks here.
First, a really lame and pathetic review gets posted to
Then, the same guy that submitted the story makes a lame comment about the review, and gets modded up instantly.
I'm beginning to wonder if someone at
What an abuse of power.
With the recent thread on the decline in white-collar jobs.. I'm not surprised, when they post nonsense like this to some of the world's biggest sites.
I think it's time some of the editors were given the finger and let some nice Indian people give us quality links for $5 an hour. Slashdot would live on, have more money, be of a higher quality, and so on. (CmdrTaco could stay on as general manager though.)
XD2's good. It would be even better if they called up the Opera folks in Norway to make a nice little bundle together. Perhaps even a XD2 Special Edition Opera, with the appropriate style?
to the author of the review, the word is spelled 'definite': does no one believe in spell checkers?
Does anyone know where an ISO image of this can be downloaded?
Normally reviews are cluttered with screenshots or useless information about how a product actually functions and is better than another product. Or even worse where they talk about limitations that a paticular product has over something else and recommend a best fit.
This review was exactly what you want, very little useful information, a claim around it being better without really explaining the short-falls of other options, and a killer feature of recognising menus, which is clearly the most important element of a suite of products that aims to present a user-focused simple desktop solution.
I applaud the Slashdot editors for doing away with reviews that leave us informed or challenged and have instead opted for reviews based just on opinions of someone only a few grades above Joe Sixpack.
This is truly a change for the better on Slashdot and I look forwards to the Windows Server 2003 review where it tells me that installing IIS6.0 was a breeze.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I do not understand the point of buying ximian if gnome2 is just as good. Is there any goodies that are not included in vanilla gnome?
What about FreeBSD and Unix support? So far it looks like a mandrake, suse, and redhat only product. Not even debian support is included.
http://saveie6.com/
Well considering I wrote the review I could of went into all that mumbo jumbo about it had this feature, it lacked this feature.. Frankly my criteria was very short.. Stock install of RH 9 then ran the command to install XD2 and logged back in and performed the baisc things a desktop user would do..
:)
You cannot do that with a stock install of RH 9 with the KDE/GNOME interface at all.. you've got a ton of 3rd party utilities you may or may not have to install depending on your use of the web.
If you want something detailed then instead of taking 3 hours I'll put in a weeks worth of the freetime I do these things in and prove something useful to you.
Or perhaps everyone's complaining becuse the word Microsoft or SCO was not included here.
But all this feedback is quiet useful since everyone can learn from critics
Thanks
Bruha writes "Lewt [THAT'S ME!!!] over at Warcry News Network has written his [MY] review for Ximian Desktop 2 targeted at the home users that are looking for a good desktop solution. He [I] mentions this is a good product that could be bundled with Redhat or Mandrake to provide a one stop solution for the desktop user where they dont have to install any extra software to fully surf the web. Which you do with KDE/Gnome installs of most distro's. Thanks for reading my crappy so-called review, boosting my site's traffic and increasing my Karma, my pageviews and my ad revenue.''
On all those screenshots there are many "holes" in the words, as if the layout engine had trouble figuring out glyph sizes. What is that caused by? Did they get signs wrong in the kerning tables or something?
for the 99 dollars it really stands as very affordable for the home user also.
If you value 10 minutes of work for installing java and flash to $99, then it's definitely affordable.
Since many of you do not have the time to read such an elaborate, sprawling column, allow me to summarize:
"0MGz!!!1! X1m14N 1Z t3H r0X0R!!!1!"
You will note that, in summarizing, I have attempted to remain consistent with the author's breathtaking command of the English language, meticulous attention to detail and stunning grammatical prowess.
It seems to me a trifle thing to use the same package names your vendor does and work within how things in your distro are already done.
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
I stronly suspect Ximian marketing pay /. to post articles about XD2, mono, etc
/. editors searched long and hard and eventually found a positive (but unfortunately lame) review (DEF positive review: a review that doesn't say something along the lines of "gnome is just a dock, XD2 is an expensive dock with a better default theme")
the
right now Ximian PR persons are composing angry emails to cmdr'taco, demanding a refund.
DISCLAIMER: this is only a conjecture
Before adopting WHATWG, read the moonlight.NET EULA [http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/moonlight.mspx]
I love the (insert failed human interface device here); It's so bad.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
I don't even have animated GIFs or JavaScript enabled on my web browser. The web is much less annoying that way.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
>> ....this is one of the worst and least informative reviews of anything I have read...
Just wait....Reviews are getting progressively worse around here.
Readers deserve reviewers who are literate, who place their review in context (is the reviewer an adolescent gamer or a corporate exec?) and actually demonstrate enough competence to warrant our time and attention.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Spell checker?
We don't need no stinking spell checker.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
I was at work maximizing shareholder value ;)
Nice. You'd think if someone was going to hype his own review to /. he'd at least manage to use an email address that didn't identify him as the review's author.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
GNOME 2 however doesn't have a browser, unless I add something like Mozilla, so this Ximian Desktop 2 idea is great. KDE has Konqueror and you can install Konqueror on top, but I think OpenOffice and Mozilla are more powerful. KDE 3 needs its competition, that would be XD2.
Problem with XD2 is that its really only available for a few distros.
==========
There are two types of people: those who are in the world, and those who aren't.
First, a really lame and pathetic review gets posted to /., while countless other, more complete and competent reviews do not.
That's hardly new. Pathetic and lame reviews are common.
Then, the same guy that submitted the story makes a lame comment about the review, and gets modded up instantly.
Oh no, he posted at a 2 and got modded to a 4 right away. Again, that happens all the time. It's the "groupthink" mod feature. Don't like it? Try metamodding.
Also, he's right. I agree with him, and and some of the mods also agree with him.
In the past, I have made almost the exact same comments regarding Ximian's advantage over Vanilla Gnome, and got modded up quickly.
I think this means that there are many people/mods who agree with these statements: Gnome's packaging is lacking, Ximian's packaging is better (for some people).
There is no conspiracy here folks, move along.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
And, I imagine any redhat based distro would also do the same (along with Mandrake and SuSe).
Can't speak for Debian (but come on, apt often still leads to dependancy hell, which means that things don't get installed). I'm using RedHat 9, and I had to install Java, Flash, etc by hand in order to get them to work with the default install of Mozilla.
My experience with Mandrake (9) and SuSE (8) has been similar.
I don't understand it when people pretend that the dependancy problems don't exist.
There are many levels to these dependancy issues: Your system could be customized, the people who provided the packages messed up or didn't test fully, etc.
Right now, I can't install the updated foomatic ("Perl x.y.z is already installed") or ghostscript ("something is already installed") because of wierd dependancy problems.
I haven't tried XD2 yet, but in the past Ximian 1.4 solved many many dependancy problems vs. vanilla Gnome. I'm assuming that XD2 does the same.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
it's somewhat close to the redhat trick of replacing the rpm module redhat_release. /etc/SuSE-release to "8.2"
A quick googling brought me this and this.
looks like you can just change the version number in
(the better way would probably be to install a new suse-release RPM, though I can't seem to find one)
I'd had to say I agree with the comments from "A look at Ximian Desktop 2" @ lwn.net. LWN look
.rtf. Contrary to the Ximian marketing and PR until OO can perfectly edit and decode MS Office docs its simply not ready for Enterprises that need to constantly exchange MS docs with other companies.
While this type of lockin and setup is fine for the home user I don't see this fitting into the corporate environment at all. First off OO simply CANNOT import all word docs correctly. Basic text is does fine, but as soon as you add a bullet point or any other basic formatting OO chokes on it. Sure the person who recieves your editted file can do some tabbing and fix some messed up spacing but how unprofessional is that? I wouldn't return a MS word doc that I had editted in OO to anyone using Word. I'd make sure and tell them I only do
Another point which someone at lwn made as well was the lack of "corporate management tools" to go along with Ximian. This is something that I think KDE is starting to have and shipped with Windows 95 eight years ago. You can't just call something enterprise ready and then not measure up to the products that were released almost a decade ago. Looking at the local security policy tool in Windows XP shows just how featurless XD2 looks in comparison
So basically you have a word processor and office suite that can't reliably exchange docs with the most widely used Office suite and you have a desktop that has none of the management features that Enterprises need. Like I said this isn't what you need to play with the big boys.
Another thing I question is with the advent of Gnome 2.2 is there even a need for a Ximian desktop anymore? As someone who has used Red Hat 8 and up I just don't see the value in letting Ximian take over my already excellant desktop.
In the end I think Ximian is fine for home users and possibly small businesses who dont' need to exchange docs with the outside, but its not the Enterprise Windows Replacement just yet.
I continue to be a fulltime desktop linux user and strongly belive in its future, but when you compare reality with what XD2 offers XD2 really comes up lacking. Possibly its just one of those beginning milestones where we can say "see look how polished linux is", but beneath the surface there are still a ton of issues that need to be addressed before you can expect to just plonk a linux desktop in front of a someone and expect them to be able to function just as well as they did with Windows and MS office.
* Fulltime RH 8.0 and OpenOffice user who wishes MS Office formats weren't hidden.
I installed it the day it came out. I've been mucking with it for a week now and have some observations.
1) What is the "integration" with OpenOffice? Aside from a different splash screen? OK, my theme fonts come across to the user interface, and it uses Ximian icons now, but it loads (the first time) as slowly as ever.
2) They should have left the GDM splash screen scheme alone. It took a while to figure out how to replace their splash screen with my old (custom) one.
3) Mozilla is broken and shouldn't have been released. When on a page that uses javascript to open a smaller window (like TV Guide listings is where it can easily be reproduced) then sometimes the text in the child window is randomly truncated. There are other bugs but that's the most glaring.
4) Ximian cripped Galeon so that it can no longer use themes!!! Bad Ximian.
5) Ximian's installer destroys a users custom menus even when told to leave them alone. My RedHat "system tools" menu is gone, along with my Crossover Office menu. There's got to be an easy way to restore my old menus but I haven't found it yet.
6) The RedHat "alert" icon no longer works. I miss it - it was a nice way to tell instantly if there were any updates (yeah I know, RedHat sends out emails for their updates, but I still miss it).
7) There are some nice improvements like the "network proxy" setting that doesn't workin the default RedHat 9 install works now, so you only need to set the proxy once, and panel applets that need network access actually work now.
8) I know this sounds harsh but overall I do like it. Bugs have been filed so we'll see how it goes in the next few weeks...
Thanks! Peter
Come again? I'm using KDE 3.1 and Konqueror right now as I write this; I didn't install Flash or Real or even Java at first. It ran just fine without 'em (unless I wanted to view a Flash site or run a Java applet of course - the same deal as with any other browser).
... does no one believe in spell checkers?
A resounding 'know, of coarse knot!'
If you don't know debian, why bother criticzing apt/dpkg?
Sorry if I don't know all the details. Guess I'm not an expert like you. I approach these things as a regular user would, which means I never type or see 'dpkg' anywhere.
I've used apt/dpkg a couple of times on a Debian system. During half of these occasions, I would type 'apt-get install foopackage', and the install would fail due to wierd depandancy problems.
To resolve it, I would need to remove files from my system, change my apt sources install new packages from a different site, change the apt sources again, and finally, download the first package.
In my view, this isn't much better then running up2date or red-carpet on a RedHat system, or the SuSE package manager.
From my view, all package managers run into similar dependancy problems.
I wish more Debian users would get off their high horse and quit saying "Your package manger sucks, you should use Debian. Apt fixes all the problems for me", because it's more bull from the other side of the fence.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I've used nothing but Debian for years and I've only had dependency issues in two situations:
- First install on a new system, when apt is still trying to get a working base config.
- Installing packages from unstable, which is always caveat emptor.
Not that apt is perfect or anything - some people will happily tell you it shits roses, which ain't the case. But I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to manually mung a package or any other files apt controls. Files which control apt - sources.list and whatnot - I do change every now and then, but mostly as mirrors appear and disappear.Not that it doesn't have a bit of a learning curve. Apt sometimes isn't smart enough to figure things out on its own and needs intervention. But in those cases you can nearly always use apt's (or dpkg's) public interface to solve its own problems.
So
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
It's not very in-depth, but I posted my thoughts on XD2 the other day on my weblog.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
Lewt: Hey Taco, we need some traffic over to 'warcry'.
Taco: Slip me a couple of G's and I'll put something up at the weekend - do you have any interesting content?
Lewt: Nah, any old shit will do. I mean, we don't really have a life - we're too busy playing games. Hey, I suppose I could review the 133t new Ximian Desktop that my older brother's using at work.
Taco: Err, that'll do. If anyone complains I'll say Katz did it.
Taco, you're the man. Maybe soon we'll be more famous than our namesake
Seriously Taco, how much did they pay? Or is your ability to spot good copy really that bad?
.02
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
I wish more Debian users would get off their high horse and quit saying "Your package manger sucks, you should use Debian. Apt fixes all the problems for me", because it's more bull from the other side of the fence.
Wtf are you on about? How can Debian users be on their high horses? Are you talking about Debian developers?
Dependency problems like you describe there suggests that your sources.list or something were faulty. Debian is great, but it's not for idiots.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
I'll definitely support them with my money and you can download and install it free over the internet if you have wget installed open a terminal su to root and type in ... without the periods of course :) and their sleek installer will download and launch.
Ok, now... breathe...
ad revenue ?
:-)
I didn't I used lynx
New things are always on the horizon
Wtf are you on about? How can Debian users be on their high horses? Are you talking about Debian developers?
Sorry, that should be "some Debian users". Not all Debian users are on a high horse.
I frequently hear things like "I just use apt-get, it does all the work for me" or "Apt just works" or "You should just use Debian" when I describe an rpm/RedHat install problem. Apt may be superior to anything on a RedHat system (And is much better then up2date), but Apt doesn't always "just work". Somtime it fails miserably, just like any solution on RedHat (I've tried up2date, apt-rpm, and RedCarpet). Debs can be mispackaged, just like rpms.
Not too long ago, I tried to install Gnome on a Debian Woody system via these instructions. I don't remember the details, but I had to fix at least a dozen problems by hand before apt would download and install everything automatically. Most of the problems involved an old package on the sytem preventing a new package from being installed. It didn't automatically remove the old package like I expected. Sometimes, I had to fiddle with the sources list and download alternative packages.
describe there suggests that your sources.list or something were faulty.
So how is that different then my RedHat rpm's requiring the wrong dependancy?
Look, Debian is a great distro. Apt/dpkg is a good packaging system. I'm going to install it on my second system here when I get the chance.
But apt is not without it's own problems.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
where they dont have to install any extra software to fully surf the web
Good point, where's the equivalent of kppp in Gnome? Having searched high and low i can't find it.
worse yet: distro's. what languages use the APOSTROPHE TO PLURALIZE? none i'm aware of.
Not too long ago, I tried to install Gnome on a Debian Woody system via these instructions
The instructions you were trying to follow describe how to install an unofficial (i.e., not-supported-by-the-Debian-project) backport of Gnome 2.2 to woody and, in fact, the the page containing the instructions also contains feedback from a number of other users who attempted to follow them and ran into dependency problems.
Your criticism of the distro and the packaging system seems a bit unfair, since (1) it was clear going in that other users had been having problems with the packages and (2) the (unofficial) packages hadn't been subjected to Debian's usual quality-control process.
Yes, its nearest competitor on a RedHat based system is apt, which works just fine with debs and rpms (although not, I think, both on the same system).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Um... isn't the ENTIRE point of this desktop to make it easy to use for people who don't understand what compile means? Matter of fact, they likely wouldn't understand source, comment out, recompile or dependency either.
Do not make the assumption that the user is intelligent... he will hate you for imposing your unrealistic expectations upon him.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
BTW, I've never had any problems with apt not updating old packages (except in a very few cases with broken packages, and even then never from official mirrors), but I do always do a apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade before I install anything new.
Yes, its nearest competitor on a RedHat based system is apt, which works just fine with debs and rpms
It's a great attempt, but it still has problems.
50% of the time when I try to install Gstreamer (Per their instructions at http://gstreamer.net/releases/redhat/), apt-rpm freezes (after installing the last package?) and locks the RPM database.
Same thing happens when I download RPMs from freshrpms.net, so I assume the problem is with apt for rpm, not with some wierd package from gstreamer or freshrpms.
Still trying to track down info to enter a bug...
This has not happened yet with up2date or red-carpet so far.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
The problem with apt or all package dependency tracking systems in general is that they only work smoothly when all packages come from a single official source, as soon as a unofficial rpm, deb or tar.gz enters the place since are starting to break on all fronts, either you can't compile stuff correctly since its picking includes from /usr/local/ and libraries from /usr/lib, package versions from different sources doesn't match leading to unresolvable dependencies, files from one package overriding another or binary incompabilities arise. Sure there are workarounds and fixes for all these problems, but they all require quite a lot of knowledge about what is going on and they all require time to apply. No matter how much knowledge you have, such stuff wastes a lot of time until you finally figured out what went wrong.
As long as Linux Systems install all stuff into a single directory tree none of these problems is going away. Adding dependency trackers to software doesn't solve the problem, but simply works around it, the solution would be to get rid of most of the dependencies and make software independent of the underlaying system as much as possible, which wouldn't even require any bloat if done correctly.
After all I would like to install two versions of a single package parellely one day without messing with --prefix and miles long PATH variables...
I'd been waiting for XD2 impatiently - after all, XD 1.4 was such a big step over what was bundled with Red Hat at that time. So when XD2 finally came out I immediately installed it.
.openoffice directory tree before it'd work again. The help browser would not work either, which is a pain since I find that a preferable way to read man/info pages. Additionally, the Ximian menus seem to be missing a LOT of programs (in comparison to Red Hat).
My impression, summed up in one sentence: I've now gone back to a stock Red Hat install.
Slightly more information:
The bundled fonts were certainly superior to Red Hat's. I do like Ximian's file selector. But that's about all that struck me as being better.
On the downside, my RHN applet suddenly refused to work - not sure why since it didn't look like Ximian did much with my Python packages. Also, after I tried to back out of Ximian's version of OpenOffice I found that "regular" OpenOffice wouldn't work - I had to delete my
Ximian's shining jewel, Evolution, no longer seems to be a superior e-mail client. Mozilla Mail or Thunderbird are just as fast and work better. As Mozilla has been adding features, Evolution seems to be removing them.
Final summary: I'm not sure why this took a year to produce. It's just not worth it - there's not much value added in XD2.
#DeleteChrome
.. completely community driven? /. article goes, it made me think of defection to that imaginary world where so called "editors" would not push to me either pimp-for-money articles or digest of recent edition of "Wired".
Since this "review" represents a new alltime low as far
# Config sarcasm=m
All these years, I had no idea that my RH installs needed another package to "fully surf the web".
# Config actual_commentary=y
Nothing against Ximian, I've used it myself; but they deserve more thorough reviews than that sort of shallowness, IMHO.
C|N>K
Dutch uses apostrophes to pluralize some words.
...Words such as essays, jockeys and sprays do not take an apostrophe, because the y is preceded by a vowel. Hence the distinction [in Dutch] between Scottish whisky's and Irish whiskeys.
For all those interested in Dutch apostrophes. I'm quoting (translating/paraphrasing) from Jan Renkema's book 'Schrijfwijzer' (= style guide), published 1995 by the Dutch Government Printer (Sdu) in Den Haag, pp 174-176, in which he gives the following rules for the use of the apostrophe to form plurals. My comments appear in square brackets.
1. To avoid inappropriate pronounciation when adding a plural s. So words ending with a, e, i, o, u or y preceded by a consonant or a syllable boundary: collega's, alinea's, ave's, taxi's, foto's, paraplu's, hobby's. [Note that most of these words are borrowed from other languages: Latin, English and French. ]
2. The apostrophe is not used for words that form their plural with an s if these words end with an e with an acute accent, an ee, or an e that is a schwa. Hence cafes [accent on the e!], dominees, garages.
3. [Renkema's rule 5: the intervening rules have nothing to do with forming plurals] To form plurals from acronyms: cd's
4. [Renkema's rule 7] To disambiguate unusual plurals: al die ach's en oh's, duizend misschien's, vele dank-u-wel's.
Dutch authors have problems with the plural apostrophe and frequently transfer it into English.
Amen. This was truly the worst.
this is the worst review i have ever read in my life.
and this comment just astounded me:
The OpenOffice.org office suite included is supposed to be even more compatible with Office documents though I did not really do any testing in that department since Iâ(TM)m focusing on the desktop user.
so, right, desktop users don't use office producivity applications? right.
To do printing, it installs cups. Unfortunately, it seems unwilling to recognize the "allow raw" option, even after restarting cups, even to the point that a printer configured with the "raw driver" doesn't take raw input. I haven't tried rebooting, but c'mon, this isn't Windows here; /etc/rc.d/init.d/cups restart should suffice!
Fortunately, the -oraw option mentioned in the comments does work.
I also have problems with drag-and-drop items hanging around, esp. trying to drag links into a Mozilla menu...
This guy is not the real miguel, just an imposter. this is the real miguel. Notice the uid.
Celebrate the finer things in life