Java Desktop System Review

Reader writes "OSNews has the first in-depth review of Sun's Java Desktop System based on the final code. The article discusses the good (stability, Star Office 7, good Java integration) and the bad (no KDE, buggy RealTek driver, shaky Samba) and it includes a number of screenshots. It seems that Sun has put all its attention on Gnome and while this is good for cosistency across their desktop (some of their Java apps use the native GTK+ themeing), it also limits its users from an out-of-the-box KDE and its thousands of apps choice."

Comments

ELQ

[bigjocker]

We have seen a lot of articles here in slashdot pointing to OSNews lately, an all of them are by Eugenia Loli-Queru. Am I the only one who hates her reviews? I can't get any substance from any of the writeups.

RPM downloading bug

[Theatetus]

That Moz problem she mentioned has bugged me for a long time on every platform: the problem is that real player thinks a file with the extension .rpm is its territory. I wonder if Real will keep claiming "rpm" or give it up?

Something interesting I noticed.

[JanusFury]

One of the screenshots in the article ( http://img.osnews.com/img/5286/jds7.png ) is a picture of a few different applications running on JDS, and I thought it was interesting that every single one of the applications in the shot rendered menus differently.
Different colors, different fonts, different metrics and text sizes, even different semantics for shortcuts (one used 'C' for ctrl, another used Ctrl, etc.)

Wrong market

[Tet]

it also limits its users from an out-of-the-box KDE and its thousands of apps choice

You're looking at it from the wrong perspective. The corporate desktop is not a place to be giving the user thousands of applications from which to choose. Nor even alternate desktops. It's about giving them the tools they need to do the job. Locked down, so the user can't tinker with it and screw things up. Including KDE would have been a terrible choice, no matter which side of the KDE/GNOME divide you fall. Sun need to provice accessiblity. GNOME gives that, and KDE doesn't (yet). So they have to ship GNOME. So their choices are to either ship GNOME or to ship both. For the corporate market, they definitely made the right decision on that score.

Re:Wrong market

[Coryoth]

Indeed. Many people have talked about "Just one Desktop Environment" - well, here it is.

As far as I am concerned, having just one desktop environment, just one window manager etc. is the job of the distribution, not of the developer. KDE and GNOME aren't really dividing developer effort. If the GNOME guys weren't hacking GNOME I'm not so sure they'd be busy working on KDE, and vice versa. People will work on what they want to work on.

On the other hand, a distribution can choose to limit user choice as much as they want. That's exactly what Sun has done here. Keep it simple, give them only one desktop option, only one window manager, and one application of each type. Many people have been asking for this - yet they don't seem to notice when it arrives.

I admit, Sun hasn't exactly got it all worked out here, but if you want a Joe User desktop distribution, this is a fine way to so it - just package together the collection of bits and pieces that all go together, and drop everything else.

For those of us that _want_ choice, well, there will always be plenty of distributions around offering that to us.

Jedidiah.

Interface issues...

[gabe]

This sorta goes along with JaniceFury's comment on this article...

What's with the various shades of gray in the interface? Doesn't that make it difficult for color blind folks to use the software?

Also, why are there [at least] 5 different locations one has to go to for various preferences. And why do some preferences show up in various preferences locations? Mouse and Printers appear in two different sections. Go take a look at Windows and Mac OS and notice that ALL of the preferences / control panels are located in ONE PLACE.

One last nit to pick. What's with the various styles of icons? Some are 3D-ish some are just plane 2D, etc. It looks like there were 4 or 5 different artists making icons for various preferences / apps, with no consistency in their styles. It looks like everything was just sorta tossed together.

Re:Regarding lack of KDE

[Negatyfus]

Exactly. Installing new apps is soly the territory of the sysadmin. No employees should be able to install their own software; this *is* a support nightmare, regardless of how you meant your comment

summary and signficance

[penguin7of9]

So, it's basically a RedHat derivative with a Gnome-only desktop, a flaky installer, and Java preinstalled.

Why is Sun doing this? They need a new desktop for Solaris anyway, since what they have is obsolete. But Sun has been unable to hack together a Java-based desktop. So, they took Gnome, added a JVM, and called it a "Java desktop", never mind that almost all of it is written in C. And they ship it for both Solaris and their variant of Linux because that's what they are trying to sell.

None of this is a great advance, it's an act of desparation on the part of Sun. None of the major Linux distributions rely on Java for any desktop applications; in fact, most don't even bother installing it by default. Neither does Macintosh or Windows.

Reviewer lacks credibility

[nzkoz]

This is from the same reviewer who blamed Fedora Core 1 for her problems compiling a new version of Gaim with the wrong packages installed.

I'd take anything said with a grain of salt.

Global Integration thru tiered architecture

[Doc Ruby]

Sun's new customers will be pressuring them to integrate technologies that avoid choices that fragment the platform. Revisions to GNOME and KDE that enforce a 3-tier model will allow them to constructively coexist under the same desktop. Samba, NFS, WebDAV, TCP/IP at the data layer, feeding to Java and GNU/Linux in the business layer, with and GNOME and KDE cooperating under a unified windowing system. That kind of integration might even forgo the "desktop" metaphor, perhaps in favor of something more integrated like a dashboard. Now's the chance to steal the momentum at the human/computer interface, and Linux developers worldwide are just the people to do it.

Why? Just more crap to support

[Ars-Fartsica]

If you want minimal breakage, it just makes sense not to ship (and hence, support) code you don't intend to use. If people want it they can download it...but developers are not the target audience for this product.

Java app inconsistency

[Rinikusu]

A big part of it is that a lot of folks aren't following "platform" guidelines, or don't specifically understand how to properly use the look and feels. O'Reilly has a series of articles specifically dealing with these issues for making your Java apps "OS X" friendly (maybe someone can post a link, I can't seem to find it), but I've yet to see something in-depth and similar for GTK or Win32. It also adds another layer of code to test/maintain, and we all know developers are lazy to an extent (nor can we all afford to develop/target for many platforms), and frankly, for most of us (well, me), as long as it WORKS properly on all 3 major platforms (win, mac, linux), then I consider my job done. Look and feel considerations come last. Maybe that's a flaw in my working methodology, but it sure saves a bunch of time. Now, if I were developing for primarily OS X and not the other platforms, I'm sure my attitude would change (namely, if I ever buy a Mac).

I'm sure that the inconsistency of the appearance can be annoying (just like the plethora of Linux GUI apps that are just as inconsistent), but it certainly won't prevent me from working with the app..