Slashdot Mirror
Mad Hatter Preview - Sun Java Desktop System Demo
bengine writes "According to this article, Sun Java Desktop System is a good product overall, built on the well-established SuSE system with integration from Sun. It delivers what appears to be a very useful desktop OS and it has the chance to make a dent in the Windows monopoly. But Sun will have to differentiate itself on its quality, hardware, services and reputation. That means a lot of hard work, so the key questions will be how well they execute their strategy, how much public acceptance they gain and what message they convey through public venues." This makes a good companion to the earlier story linking to Mad Hatter screenshots.
I finally received the Mad Hatter Preview in the mail this weekend. I couldn't wait to get this demo out and actually test the software, hoping that this would answer some questions that I had about the product. I was somewhat surprised to find a Live CD version of Mad Hatter instead of an actual beta, but that's okay, I could still see what it was, even if I cannot truly install it. The truly nice thing about Live CD's is that they don't require that much space to get the flavor of the system. In other words, you really do not make any significant changes to an existing machine.
The folks at Sun were even nice enough to name the files that are created on your machine in the C: drive (for Windows types) or your Linux / partition. The files can be deleted when you are finished navigating the demo CD, which makes this a handy demo for anyone wanting to show the system to someone without having to carry a computer around to demo the product.
The demo is only available in English, but that is not a real problem for a native speaker. I suppose the foreign markets will see other versions become available when the Java(TM) Desktop System reaches GA. The functionality of the system is somewhat limited because it is a demo, but there are some interesting things that have been added to the GNOME2 based desktop.
The obvious additions include the Star Office 7 Office Suite, Sun Microsystems latest version of Star Office - the product which led to Open Office (actually I think it Was Star Office 5.2 originally). The Open Office Team and the Sun Microsystems developers must be working in Tandem to make their suites more accessible to the public. The only problem I have with the Live CD is that I cannot install the Star Office 7 product to demo it (it takes more space than is allocated for the install in demo mode). Other than this minor annoyance for demo purposes, the system works well.
There are several things that Sun has added into their desktop that are not standard and are third-party add-ons. For one thing, they do install and integrate many of the commercial plugins that most Linux distributions do not install by default. Among them are the Macromedia plugins, several music and audio plugins as well as Real Player plugins. All of these plugins are integrated with Mozilla 1.4 and work out of the box (or in this case, on the Live CD).
These third=party add-ons or add-ins (however you wish to say it) are licensed and those licenses are described within the Third Party License README file. The various license for each piece of the puzzle are there, and given in full, for your reading pleasure. For those of you that thought there might be some license from the SCO Group for whatever they are claiming - they are not mentioned at all (enough said about that sore subject).
The Sun team has done a polished job of integrating their software into the GNOME2 environment, and has made some very nice changes here and there. Some of the third party Java(TM) add-ons are rather "nice to have" if not fully functional on the Live CD. Among these is JDisk Report from JGoodies as licensed from the Karsten Lentzsch and included within the Live CD environment (though not functional there).
The effect of that product was viral, I did go out and download JDisk Report 1.1.1 for myself (it is Freeware) for my own disk analysis on my machines. It is a rather nice thing to have.
The desktop is nothing unfamiliar to anyone who has ever used a Linux system before, and I don't see it as a giant hurdle for anyone who is used to a Windows environment. Heck, if my wife can pick up a Linux box running with GNOME2 and not have a problem, I suppose anyone can. My wife has never considered herself a computer whiz, but she did appreciate the fact that Linux doesn't crash and for the most part is just a "pick up and go" OS that remains available. The only downtime we experienced this year has been due to outside factors. We have lost our cable several times due to the virus outbreaks that really slammed
Thats not the only mistake in the article. He at one point talks about browsing and such, but yet mentions Thunderbird (a early version Email Program)
"I did test out some Flash-enabled web pages and found them to work flawlessly as well as any Java applications and web pages (as you would expect from Sun). The choice of Mozilla is good, but I would also like to see them try Thunderbird (it is just a tad lighter than Mozilla and does rock),"
I have the odd feeling this live demo might have been taken for a spin, but overall it smacks of just a quick overview, with no real guts to the test (understandable in some respects, its not an install environment). Still it would be nice to get a proper guts and stuff review of it.
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
My experience with Java is that it rarely works like it was originally intended. The write-once, run anywhere philosophy is certainly dead with almost all major applications that use it as the language. Version incompatibilities, platform GUI differences, and broken browser plugin capabilities all lead to Java applications being just about the most horrible experience I have on the web. Almost all non-trivial java apps I've come across have required me to use Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows running inside a VMware window to work properly. For example, Ciscoworks 2000 works... sort of. Until you start certain components like Campus Manager and the topology services. Big red X instead of the app coming up. Inconsistencies like this make everyone's view of Java lackluster at best.
What counts are the extra customizations that's done to it. It may be small things here-and-there, but overall, it may differentiate a distro significantly than others.
If you aim at Windows desktop, you need to make the transition as painless as possible.
The list is long - relevant right-click menus, copy/paste that works across all apps, ability to create shortcuts on desktop easily, consistent drag-and-drop, etc, etc.
Also for corporations, there are other things that counts.
Some companies may already implemented centralized workstations management - ZENworks, MS-SMS, etc. These software enable IT depts to efficiently manage thousands of desktop with minimum number of staff.
I've personally used ZENworks and I can say that I haven't found anything similar on Linux - CMIIW.
You can kinda centrally manage your workstations by implementing LTSP (and others), but this tops out at 150 workstations per server. When you have 15000 desktop, the last thing you need is additional 100 servers to manage.
Also it may prove too bandwidth-intensive for WAN-wide deployment.
Another issue is authentication.
For example, for Novell customers, they'll have problems. There are various Novell client for Linux, but they may only work using IPX (IPX is all trouble on WAN), and/or still in beta version, and/or doesn't provide access to printers, etc.
Also authenticating to the latest version of ActiveDirectory - I don't know if SAMBA support it, but I don't think so.
Etc.
If a company can provide the solution to these kind of issues, especially since Sun is aiming at corporate market (I believe), then they'll have a winner.
a) Major non-trivial application: Check. (Educational software for text exploration composed of two pieces, an almost full-fledged editor and an "investigator", interface fully graphical, localized for five different languages)
b) Write once, run anywhere: Check (Covers the three major platforms - Windows, Linux and OSX. Ok, write once, compile and run anywhere - the sole major problem was with text format in OSX)
The inconsistencies you point are development process, not tool, problems. Testing does not go away because you use Java. Our software does have minor inconsistencies across platforms, and some (20 or so) lines of code that will execute only in a given operating systems - I would call this cross-platform. The performance is also a non-problem after some targeted tunning.
So, from personal experience, I can say Java is now a viable desktop developement platform.
It's still WAY better than Microsoft's offer: US$ 199 for OS and US$ 499 for Office suite.
I know, it's list price, and corporations will get discounts. But let's compare apple with apple, ok.
So corporations will get deep discounts from Sun, there's no doubt about it. When you're buying in bulk, you'll enjoy deep discount - as simple as that.
> Thanks to Sun contributions, GNOME 2 is less usable. Of
> course, Sun's "proprietary" fork doesn't fix the usability
> problem either.
This has *got* to be a troll. Sun's GNOME is the only one I've found that works right out of the box. Just try to make use of a vanilla GNOME 2.x. All kinds of weird problems (like the inability for normal users to edit their own menu items, package incompatibilities, crashes, the forever unchangeable desktop background, etc.) crop up to make your life full of pain and anguish. None of the distro GNOMEs are much better. RedHat 8, for example, looks good, but if you try to install a menu icon for a single user, it wipes out the entire system menu! ARRRGGHHH!!!
Sun GNOME OTOH, just works (TM). The system that is installed is about as simple as can be, yet feature rich. And ALL features that are included actually work (such as FREAKING MENU ITEMS!). Now if you want to talk vanilla KDE, we can talk about how it just works(TM) out of the box without support from big Unix vendors like Sun.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Not to start a flame war, as both desktops have merits, but I still think that in a business KDE Is more interface consistent and 'business looking'. Plus its got a useable integrated office suite.. not a 3rd party add-on..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Nah, Sun already payed their Linux tax (second largest 'contributer', next to Microsoft). They're maybe not buddy-buddy with SCO, but SCO won't mess with them.
Get your facts straight. Sun bought a perpetual Unix license which gives them the right to do whatever they want with the Unix System V code. They are legally the only company that can sell a Linux distro right now, according to SCO.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
So le me repeat myself. This link (can you see it) point to a RealOne video of a presentation demoing new stuff from Sun. If you skip to 1:01:00 (approx), the guy gives a demo of Java 3D desktop where you can see many video stream displayed in a 3D desktop. You'll see the guy rotate the window in "3D" without missing a single frame. At the same time the clip is displayed in it's window, you have a 3D icon displaying the same clip at the bottom of the screen (think Aqua zoomable icons on steroids).
For sure the whole code is not pure Java. They use Java 3D which itself sits on OpenGL (on Linux).
As for large Java application that are not slow and that do not crash, I can think of many : Eclipse, JBuilder, WebLogic, JBoss.
As of now the only people who think that big, stable, fast Java GUI apps do not exist are the people who don't see anything else beside C or C++ due to technological blindness or other reasons of having very closed mind.