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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."
E-Week also has a good review.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Sounds sort of fun, actually.
What a weird-ass system. What the heck does grafting Java images into SuSE's Yast and a bastardized Gnome 2.4/2.2 have to do with a "Java Desktop"?
Usually I wind up spilling my java all over my desktop when I read a particularly inflamatory on Slashdot...
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.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
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?
All's true that is mistrusted
The desktop should have been written in a low level language, like VB. This interpreted language garbage is bad, because you still ahve to load th interpreter into memory, and it isn't buffer controlled against privilege escalations or unauthorized sudo activity.
And that's a Good Thing(tm).
Now, before you flame me, that's absolutely NOT intended as a anti-KDE comment. It's simply that the Sun Java Desktop is not intended for hobbyists who are going to be installing random applications. It's intended to be used by organizations who will install it on everybody's machine (or a central server, or whatever), and that's it. Everybody's got the same stuff, and uses the same tools. Anything else is a support nightmare for a large organization, and eventually for Sun.
Er... did you notice the comment saying 'check this out: Five different java applications, 5 different theme styles...'?
Why does Sun insist on diluting the Java name? A very large percentage of non-programmers who know the term Java don't know the difference between it and JavaScript. Now they're doing it again with Java Desktop. Isn't having Microsoft trying to kill Java enough without trying to do it themselves?
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.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
If you use linux because you don't like msft, then you might want to stay away from sunw as well.
Sunw's involvement with scox has has been absolutely disgraceful. Not only has sunw been funding scox's attack on OSS, but McNealy has taken every oppertunity to squeal his silly lies about sunw having the only legal version of linux. Often, McNealy parrots McBride (scox's ceo) word for word.
I used to like sunw, but not anymore. There are plenty of other versions of linux available.
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.
Gabriel Ricard
Shshhhhh dont tell anyone. What JDS *really* means is that Sun is going to be pushing GNU/Linux (aka Sun's JDS) onto tonnes of corporate desktops... further driving app development, OEM movement, driver development, etc etc etc.
I think this JDS crap is terrific, really, it means SUN is a finally a player in pushing Desktop GNU/Linux.. oh, drats, I mean JDS.
They better address this widespread concern!
You've got to sacrifice a little ease of use for a ton of usability in Linux. Linux is a very powerful OS in the right hands. OS X is less then par in that area, although it is extremely easy to use. The intents of both OSes are different. Anyway..back to the case in point. If you know what your doing in linux, overcoming something like what you cited isn't that big of a deal, but it can be a complicated process. But try installing two different versions of a Mac OS while keeping two separate boot loaders on two separate partitions on your computer and see how easy it is. The guy apparently knew what he was doing, and knew what he was getting himself into. Hate to tell you, but it wouldn't have been any easier to do what he did even if it was with a mac operating system. Anyone can format a harddrive, and install a linux distro from scratch on a clean system just as easy as anyother OS. Sun was correct in saying that his was a very special case.
BTW...watch your language, when you start your argument off like a moron, it automatically discredits anything else you may have to say.
If the sysadmins want to distribute KDE programs, then they'll need to also distribute the appropriate libraries.
See, the thing is, you're thinking about things like "well, what if a particular oganization likes konqueror better than nautilus?", and the reality is that by the time an org has chosen the JDS, that decision has already been made. "We chose the JDS, this is what is." Sun is not interested in selling this to a group of 4 geeks who will spend a week getting the colors just right. They want to roll this out to a thousand people at a time, who will write documents, make presentations, and use the company's internal webapps. If Mozilla ain't good enough to run those apps, they the company will NOT fsck around trying to paste Konqueror into the JDS, they will simply choose a different system that works.
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.
Cheers Koz
In order for Linux to succeed in the corporate/home desktop environment there must be standards. This is exactly what Sun is attempting to do. Don't get me wrong, I love all the choices I have on my Linux box however the average user does not need all the extra features, programs, desktops, ect. Can you imagine if companies like HP, Gateway, or Dell released their own customized version of Windows? Yes Microsoft does allow some flexibility for the OEM's however it only goes so far. The user interface is basically the same on Win 9X-XP. This is why people stay with Windows.
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.
--
make install -not war
Sun chose what they want to support and that is all they are including. There is nothing to stop you or anyone else from adding them in. Don't call Sun for support on them. If they included them, you would expect them to provide support wouldn't you?
They can't print documentation or provide meaningful support if they can't even pick a desktop environment to support. Basically JDS IS GNOME. How do you repackage GNOME yet leave KDE as an option? Sounds like that means not shipping a product at all. Sun wanted to package a (meaning "one") desktop environment, that pretty much implies picking one or the other. Since KDE is basically dead from the perspective of vendor distros, it seems they made the right choice.
Not Red Hat, SuSE. The JDS uses Yast2 as its installer. Of course, please realize that this is a bastardized SuSE.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
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.
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..
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
It's immediately obvious that you have never used OS X. Expound on one of your heartbreakingly intelligent points please:
- How is OS X "less than par" in the area of being a powerful os
What you said about the two sperate bootloaders and partitions... that whole festering pile of dung... just makes it 100% obvious that you've no experience with OS X and have no right to be bullshitting about it.
Just because I enjoy wasting my time, I'll explain how it's done. You run the OS X install CD, run the OS 9 CD, and then choose which system you want to boot from via the control panel. I know you'd love for it to be difficult, but it's actually not.
Yo d00d.
when you start your argument off like a moron, it automatically discredits anything else you may have to say.
he didn't really have much to say - the paragraph he quoted is EXACTLY why Linux is not on every desktop.
You've got to sacrifice a little ease of use for a ton of usability in Linux.
You must mean flexibility. There is NOTHING "useable" about messing with boot loaders.
Linux is a very powerful OS in the right hands. OS X is less then par in that area, although it is extremely easy to use.
Linux is just as good as the next *nix or BSD. It's not better, or worse. As far as OS X goes, it is also equally as powerful as Linux, and I'd say more so considering that it has a very coherent set of development tools available for it AND it is extremely easy to use. Clearly you have not spent any length of time using OS X.
Oh, BTW, using "then" instead of "than" tends to "discredit anything else you may have to say."
The intents of both OSes are different.
As it stands now, Linux is an OS X wannabe. Linux wants to have a nice UI, Linux wants to run games, and Linux wants to have a web browser that isn't slow as balls or, how about iTunes?
But try installing two different versions of a Mac OS while keeping two separate boot loaders on two separate partitions on your computer and see how easy it is.
While I'm sure this can be done, HELLO - why on earth would you need to?
Hate to tell you, but it wouldn't have been any easier to do what he did even if it was with a mac operating system.
Are you KIDDING ME? Have you installed OS X? Honestly it doesn't get any easier than OS X.
Sun was correct in saying that his was a very special case.
And this is no damn excuse. Special cases should be accounted for, and corrected! Just because it is Linux does NOT MEAN that it is magically exempted from NOT WORKING CORRECTLY.
If this system is targeted into corporate use, it need consistent clipboard support. Ctrl-c ctrl-v must work between all apps. Your typical Joe or Jenny Officeworker dont have patience or skill to play with X clipboard, he need easy way to copy pictures from his browser into spreadsheet, and spreadsheet into word processor.
Without this, most people will stick with their windoze boxes.
The Smurfs got so popular because they stuck the word "smurf" in their vocabulary as much as possible. As a result they made a smurferrific amount of money smurfing every kind of merchandise smurfable.
Sun has obviously Javaed the smurfs, and wants to make a Javalicious Javatop that will make them Javatastic sums of money.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Let's see if I got this right...
Yeah, seems to work. Besides, what some people said about the corporate desktop having to be standardised: I only know university and research surroundings, but those desktops have to individualised at least for every workgroup. Yes, it does take a lot of admin work, but the needs are just too diverse. Medics want their CT analysis programs, voice recording (and recognition), biologists have their own brand of software, physicists want Maple/Mathematica and mathematicians will kill to get their Scilab. You could try to include everything, but judging from both reviews, JDS is anything but overfeatured.
All this said, for the needs of an insurance company or some such it might be okay; but I don't see how it's better than SuSE, Redhat or Mandrake.
PS: What's wrong with the YaST installation? I like the way it's a 3-click install for newbies, but can configure everything for experts!
Divide et impera!
Several other language-specific distributions have been released in recent weeks, including the CPAN Perl Desktop, the Ansi C++ Suite, and the Pure C Distro.
C++ creator Bjorne Strausoup noted that many Linux apps are too "C-heavy" and binaries generated from C++ code would benefit from being executed in a sky-blue themed environment.
Meanwhile, Larry Wall of Perl fame pointed out that worker efficiency will be at an all-time high for users of Perl applications now that the turquoise-themed Perl distro will ensure applications point to the correct bin/ directory for perl upon installation.
The Pure C Distro dream has been thwarted by the widespread adoption of C precompilers among projects seeking to attain compatibility with the new neon pink distribution.
...since I got my Mac.
Most windows machines came with a JVM. XP initially came with it, then didnt then didnt again. And most large manufactures who sell XP preinstalled have it on their images, the Sun JVM that is.
None of my Windows machines have come with Java preinstalled.
Java is far from dead.
Of course, Java isn't dead. Even client-side Java and Swing aren't "dead". But Java started out promising to revolutionize application delivery, and that dream is dead. Client-side Java is a niche product now. And Sun's claims that their Java desktop is what Linux has been waiting for are bogus.
And why shouldn't sun do this. Take the best of the OSS community and embrace and extend, that is what it is all about.
And you say that with a straight face? Embrace and extend is Microsoft's traditional strategy for creating proprietary platforms and monopolies.
Why shouldn't they call it the "Java Desktop"? Because it's mostly written in C and mostly written by people not working for Sun, that's all. Calling it the "Java Desktop" just isn't honest.
Of course, as far as Gnome is concerned, this doesn't matter much either way. But it tells you where Sun and Java stand.
And solaris, does it really need a desktop?
Like a lame horse, Solaris needs a bullet to put it out of its misery as far as I'm concerned. But traditionally, Sun workstations actually sat on desks and were used by people, so that's why Sun probably still has some nostalgia about the desktop.
Unless I'm mistaken, they could easily burn their presentations using Nautilus.