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Red Hat Desktop Unveiled
Gudlyf writes "Red Hat announced yesterday that they will be releasing a version of their OS -- dubbed 'Red Hat Desktop' -- targeted at corporations, universities and government agencies, "looking to upgrade their PCs but don't want or need all the features that ship with the latest version of Windows", said Matthew Szulik, Red Hat's chief executive, although it's not targeted at consumers. It will cost on average about $5 a month per machine, with additional support services available."
This one has pictures.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
that they weren't interested in the desktop a few months ago... ?
They were always interested in the desktop, it was just people spreading garbage so you wouldn't use Red Hat, If you'd have looked at thier career oppertunities you'd see they've been hiring / been looking for all desktop people for the last 6 months.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
...Red Hat Desktop includes the Linux operating system, a Web browser and office productivity tools. It's entirely open-source software...
That's what they said in their press release. This is what they include -which is not open source:
Adobe Acrobat Reader and plugin
Macromedia Flash plugin
Java (IBM and BEA) and plugin (IBM)
Real Player
The information page for Red Hat Desktop mentions that it is "attractive for use in small and medium business environments". Two sentences later, it states, "Red Hat Desktop supports single CPU systems".
So no small or medium business environments have dual-CPU workstations? It seems odd that Redhat wouldn't try to cater to that potential environment.
Additionally, Red Hat Desktop is only available in Proxy (10 system) or Satellite (50 system) deployments, which means that if you're a small business looking to set up 35 machines, you're going to have to buy either 4 Proxy packs or 1 Satellite pack. Either way, you're overpaying. Proxy packs are $2500, and Satellites are $13500; not exactly cheap. This means you're paying between $250 and $270 per machine, per year.
And of course, this isn't to be confused with the Fedora desktop, which is meant for end-users, and isn't supported by Redhat. Argh. I wish Redhat would officially support home users, but I guess that's not where the potential money is.
$50-$60 gets you a Lindows/Linspire CD, $5 a month gets you basic suport and the CNR (Click N Run) online storage library to reinstall your paid for programs from and update the OS se the tech forums, etc. For about $25 you can BitTorrent download Lindows/Linspire and save some money. Lindows/Linspire supports BitTorrent downloads for the purchase of their product.
;)
Red Hat, please do try and keep up.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I don't think you read the article. That's $5 per month INCLUDING full support. Not just software licensing - support.
If you don't need support, fedora 2 will be coming out soon! With Gnome 2.6/Kernel 2.6, You can have a 2.6 times better experiance for less! I personally can't wait!
Red Hat has been entirely consistent in their desktop focus, it's just that their words gets twisted by people with their own agendas to push and misinterpretation. They've time and time again said that the time for Linux on the home desktop is not yet, and this is no change. RH Desktop is clearly for business use only. At the same time, they're pouring more money into Linux desktop development than ever before, paying for GNOME hackers, HAL hackers, kernel hackers, Freedesktop.org etc. RH is very much a major desktop driving force with Fedora playing the defacto role of RH10 you so desire. The idea is that one day soon Linux on the home desktop will be reality and that day Red Hat will be ready to sell your grandma a shiny box, but not now.
Szulik, though, was talking about consumer desktops, IIRC (his example was people who just want to plug in a digital camera and have it work*), not about business desktops.
* Please don't go flaming me -- my digital camera works fine under Gentoo, with gphoto and the Konqueror kioslave.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Like f-prot, Clam Antivirus, and Vexira Antivirus?
Here's the scoop. Time is money and in the corporate world, and the time to wade on the .net for answers costs the business money.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Contrary to what the article says, Red Hat Desktop includes non-open-source software (Adobe, Flash, Realplayer, etc). The actual Red Hat press release is here, though it's basically marketspeak...
-- Moderation in all things, exceptions to all rules --
1. A downloadable ISO version of your enterprise server software,
Check
that I can work with but get no support on. I should be able to load this on as many machines as I want to.
Check, and check.
If I EVER need support on these systems OR want to use up2date on them, then I should have to pay.
The upgrade from Fedora to Redhat Enterprise should be quite smooth if you choose to pay for support. But why do you insist that you should have to pay to use up2date, when you can use it for free with Fedora?
2. A desktop version of your software, that is also a free download or a boxed set. Not Fedora!!! This should also have the ability to load on as many computers as I would want to. Again this version would have no support or up2date functionality unless I pay you.
Again, why do you insist that you should have no up2date funtionality unless you pay for it? Do you really not like getting things for free? Does it feel more valuable to you if you paid for it?
This version, unlike Fedora would actually have vendor support from companies like Oracle, Borland, IBM, etc.
Sounds great, but unfortunately, Redhat doesn't get to decide what other software vendors choose to support, that is up to them. There is nothing preventing these companies from supporting their software on Fedora.
I would have NEVER done that before you "tweaked" your licencing.
Tweaked? The GPL is still the GPL as far as I know...
So why not Fedora?
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Are you sure about this? I don't think the submitter knew what he was talking about. The press release actually said:
Szulik said Red Hat Desktop is less expensive to administer and more secure than Microsoft's offerings. It will cost on average about $5 a month per machine, with additional support services available, he said. (emphasis mine)
It sound so me that the $5/mo is just their estimate on how much it would take to administer a linux desktop, and does not include any purchase or support costs.
Take a look at the prices given for this new desktop. That is a hell of a lot more than $5/mo. The cheapest option is the Extention Pack (50 seats/ no extra administration tools), which comes out to $70 per seat, and you only get 30 days of telephone support with any of them.
Microsoft rules as an employer. They treat their employees soooo well. I have some friends who work for them.
Me: "You work for the Evil Empire!"
Them: "Making half again as much as you, with software discounts, and more vacation, and shiny work environment, and better equipment, and better bosses, and..."
Me: "I hate you."
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
quoting parent:
Excuse me, but 99% of the population where? Here (Paraguay, South America), it is extremely easy to have judges and state prosecutors on corporate payroll, and the BSA mobsters use them to exploit loopholes in our legislation so that they can extort full time a lot of small companies.
For example, here you are mandated by tax law to keep all receipts for five years. Now, a newer "anti-piracy" law requires everyone to produce on request of law enforcement authorities not only the license for every software package you're running, but the receipt also. And many companies here are running Win95, Win 3.1x, or other aging software. Some months ago, the BSA got into a company, and the company was forced to pay for some old but licensed software, simply because the receipts were destroyed, being older than five years. Of course you could theoretically fight this in court, but many prefer just to pay knowing in advance that legal fees would be a lot higher.
Because of these strong-arm tactics of the BSA mobsters, in many companies down here you are expressly forbidden to install anything.
The company I mentioned later initiated a company-wide switch to GNU/Linux, just to be safe, and several shops already switched in both servers and desktops.
So yes, a LOT of people (especially those in businesses) do care about software freedom here.
-- Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow..."
Talk about FUD... +5 insightful my arse.
What do you get from Red Hat, a single point of contact for support or RTFM from people in the community?
Yes, yes that is exactly what they are selling - you call them up and they tell you to hop on #linuxn00bs on DALNet and ask one of the FAQs. Don't be ridiculous - they are selling support for the packages that they ship with their distro - as in you call/email them and they help fix your problem. You know - the same kind of support that IBM and HP sell for Linux too.
If I were to purchase a desktop OS purely on the idea of support MS products would be top of my list due to the fact they actually might be around for awhile.
More classic FUD. RedHat wasn't incorporated yesterday, and I don't see them going away tomorrow. If we go with your logic then we should all be buying from IBM instead.
Didn't Red Hat say a few months ago that they were not going to compete with MS at the desktop level?
No, they said that they were not going to compete with them for consumer desktops. Can you comprehend the difference? In the corporate desktop world Microsoft does the same thing - charge a subscription for support/licensing. The free KB articles and windows update plus a 1-800 number so Microsoft can charge you $200 to report a bug is for consumer desktops, which is specifically not what is being discussed.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Do you know what's funny? I just finished a project at a client that ran a citrix client XP for some of their applications. I interviewed at a company last year that ran their business app on a citrix client on XP. And I worked for another company a few years ago who ran their financial app over a citrix client on ME.
The funny thing is, I'll bet those apps would have ran just as well on a citrix client on Linux.
-Brent