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Sun Java Desktop System Release 2

Posted by michael on from the java-desktop-still-a-stupid-name dept.

Jahf writes "Sun is putting out Java Desktop System Release 2. Some overview information is in this article while more technical information about the new management solutions are in this one. Quickly: the desktop environment is essentially the same, though Sun has added support for GIMLET (allows one to change the current input language on a per-window basis), officially supported Japanese and Korean translations, and is including a Java-based online update client. The bigger changes are management items that are normally hidden from the end-user but valuable to the Admin. Configuration Manager allows admins to setup client preferences for remote desktops and 'protect' those settings to create policies. Sun Control Station (the last remaining Sun product from the Cobalt acquisition) can work as a network imaging server, can monitor remote desktops, and can work as a patch server (both by pushing patches out to many desktops and by serving as an online update server for clients who need to pull additional packages)."

12 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Attention to user experience is good sign by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am glad to see that Sun is stepping up the features long touted as superior on Windows machines, that is the ease of modifying user parameters based on some policy or other national/language based settings -- it sounds like this setup is geared towards that rising Asian marketshare, as well as towards those Wal-Mart customers. Lest anyone think selling PC's at Wal-Mart is dumb, just count the zero's on Wal-Mart's revenue stream... they aren't #1 on Fortune 500 for NOT selling things!

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  2. Although it's fun to joke about Java... by Meat+Blaster · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Its biggest perceived flaw (slow execution speed) is largely a thing of a past. Properly engineered Java applications run smoothly, especially when they take advantage of native display rendering speedups as Eclipse does.

    In an entire environment based on and tailored toward Java, such as Sun's Java Desktop System, the language really shines. Rapid setup and deployment benefits system administrators, while developer productivity is enhanced by the optimization of the develop, execute, debug and deploy cycle.

    This type of setup just makes sense when you're dealing with a network of disparate hardware and software. The more that can be made common and interoperable, the easier it is to get things done. And it looks like Sun Java Desktop System has only gotten more affordable and easy to use.

    1. Re:Although it's fun to joke about Java... by Jim_Maryland · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Its biggest perceived flaw (slow execution speed) is largely a thing of a past.

      Just to back you up, my group does some pretty extensive image and dataset processing using Java based code. While most of the images are a couple hundred megabytes in size, it's not unusual for a several gigabyte image to to be processed too. Processing time is definitely a concern of ours and we've found the more recent Java versions to perform quite nicely.

      As for the Java Desktop System, I think the bigest issues it faces are related to hardware support (device drivers) from the various vendors.

      For as much complaining people here seem to do against Sun, remember how some of the popular open source projects got large chunks of their code (Apache Jakartaand Open Office are two that come to mind). I know that Sun hasn't open sourced everything, but at least they follow open standards.

    2. Re:Although it's fun to joke about Java... by Moraelin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Let me just say two things:

      1. Java's main flaw is that it can't be swapped out (or it can, but the garbage collector brings it all right back in) and takes a shitload of memory. I.e., it's ok for small utilities, or small games like MegaMek, or a single IDE loaded on a 1 GB machine. But try loading even 1 MB more java stuff than the machine has RAM, and it'll crawl.

      We actually have to develop server-side java stuff here, but the catch is that we also get to test them locally. Between a local copy of WebSphere, Eclipse, and a few other utilities, you'd be surprised how easy you can get a 1 GB machine to thrash through swap. (And that's more RAM than Joe User would have.) Most of us have learned to get around that by not keeping too much stuff loaded. (Already an exercise that with C programs would not be necessary.)

      A coleague obviously hasn't, or rather can't. He also has to keep a Java based XML editor open, and stuff like that. His machine always feels slower than an old ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64. He and another coleague had, last I've heard, requested permission to buy their own computers with 2 GB RAM for work.

      Yeah, that't gotta be the future of desktop environments to inflict upon Joe User.

      2. Again: Sun's Java Desktop, is _not_ a Java based desktop. It's a bog standard Gnome desktop with a new theme and the exact same JVM that you'd get with any other Linux distro. It's not more geared towards Java than any other Linux distro you could buy.

      Now I can see some advantages to it, but "geared towards Java" is _not_ one of them. "Java" is no more than a marketting buzzword there. It's just like Intel's bunnies telling you that a Pentium makes your Internet go faster.

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      A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
  3. Isn't this just plain ol' linux? by broothal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So what does the Sun Java Desktop gives me if I buy it? These are the key features:

    Desktop Features
    o A GNOME desktop environment
    o StarOffice Productivity Suite
    o Mozilla web browser
    o Evolution mail directory and calendar clients
    o Instant Messaging support for multiple services
    o Linux operating system
    o Java System Update Services
    o Globalization, Internationalization and Localization Support
    Developer Tools
    o Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) v1.4.2_04, including the Java SDK
    o Sun Java Studio Standard 5 update 1 Technology Preview
    o NetBeans IDE version 3.6
    System Management Tools and Client Configuration Tools
    o The Java Desktop System Configuration Manager
    o Sun Control Station 2.1
    o The Remote Desktop Takeover

    With a few exceptions, such as the System management tools, most of these features can be found in a normal linux system. I'm obviously missing something here? (I hope - enlighten me please)

  4. Wow, a "twofer" in the omelette today by eltoyoboyo · · Score: 0, Interesting

    And in this corner we have the Red Hat desktop release May 4th 2004

    But the Java Desktop requires Redhat Linux 7.3?

    I am not trolling, I am genuinely confused about the offering. The Red Hat desktop appears to be a distribution of Linux with all the PC-type goodies, much like Fedora core or previous Red Hat versions. The Java desktop, with which I am not familiar, only appears to be the desktop PC-type goodies. Java Desktop needs a Linux OS, specifically Red Hat, and an older version at that, to run.

    I have totally failed to understand Sun's marketing strategy here. It seems to me that Java Desktop is the same concept as Windows 3.0: A GUI program manager on top of an operating system. And it lists for $100! The interoperability with the servers must be the key.

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    Have you Meta Moderated t
  5. Funny and right on... by hot_Karls_bad_cavern · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Parent is both funny and right on. i've run the Java Desktop on a 600MHz machine...i'll just be kind and say it's less than snappy. i've not gotten ballsy enough to load 'er up on my 2.8GHz at the house yet...maybe when i get it all backed up, but i spose it would be hella snappier and perhaps enjoyable!

  6. Broken GNOME by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    That's quite an facile editorial but you can't expect better from normal users. My screenshot looks better than yours. Evolution is better than KMail, GNOME looks more polished than KDE and so on. I do use XChat, Abiword, Rhythmbox.... ...usually you get stuff like these from normal users. And this is ok since you can't blame them for stuff they simply don't know about or don't have a slighest knowledge about.

    Such editorials are hard to take serious since they are build up on basicly NO deeper knowledge of the matter. Most people I met so far are full of prejudices and seek for excuses or explaination why they prefer the one over the other while in reality they have no slightest clue on what parameters they compare the things.

    If people do like the gance ICONS over the functionality then it's quite ok but that's absolutely NO framework to do such comparisons.

    I do come from the GNOME architecture and spent the last 5 years on it. I also spent a lot of time (nearly 1 year now if I sum everything up) on KDE 3.x architecture including the latest KDE 3.2 (please note I still do use GNOME and I am up to CVS 2.6 release myself).

    Although calling myself a GNOME vetaran I am also not shy to criticise GNOME and I do this in the public as well. Ok I got told from a couple of people if I don't like GNOME that I simply should switch and so on. But these are usually people who have a tunnelview and do not want to see or understand the problems around GNOME.

    Speaking as a developer with nearly 23years of programming skills on my back I can tell you that GNOME may look polished on the first view but on the second view it isn't.

    Technically GNOME is quite a messy architecture with a lot of unfinished, half polished and half working stuff inside. Given here are examples like broken gnome-vfs, half implementations of things (GStreamer still half implemented into GNOME (if you can call it an implementation at all)) rapid changes of things that make it hard for developers to catch up and a never ending bughunting. While it is questionable if some stuff can simply be fixed with patches while it's more required to publicly talk about the Framework itself.

    Sure GNOME will become better but the time developers spent fixing all the stuff is the time that speaks for KDE to really improve it with needed features. We here on GNOME are only walking in the circle but don't have a real progress in true usability (not that farce people talk to one person and then to the next). Real usability here is using the features provided by the architecture that is when I as scientists want to do UML stuff that I seriously find an application written for that framework that can do it. When I eye over to the KDE architecture then as strange it sounds I do find more of these needed tools than I can find on GNOME. This can be continued in many areas where I find more scientific Software to do my work and Software that works reliable and not crash or misbehave or behave unexpected.

    Comparing Nautilus with Konqueror is pure nonsense, comparing GNOME with KDE is even bigger nonsense. If we get a team of developers on a Table and discuss all the crap we find between KDE and GNOME then I can tell from own experience that the answer is clearly that GNOME will fail horrible here.

    We still have many issues on GNOME which are Framework related. We now got the new Fileselector but yet they still act differently in each app. Some still have the old Fileselector, some the new Fileselector, some appearance of new Fileselectors are differently than in other apps that use the new Fileselector code and so on. When people talk about polish and consistency, then I like to ask what kind of consistency and polish is this ? We still have a couple of different ways to open Window in GNOME.

    - GTK-Application-Window,
    - BonoboUI Window,
    - GnomeUI Window,

    Then a lot of stuff inside GNOME are hardcoded UI's, some are using *.glade files (not to mention that GLADE the interface buil

  7. what i don't understand is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's for the Desktop, "Java Desktop", so why does it require such steroid-induced hardware specifications?

    Seriously, how can they expect desktops to have this much power? You only have those kind of specs on small servers or gaming machines, and if you have a server I don't think you'd go with Java on the desktop, and if you're into games you'd go with Windows.

    Not to say it might be a good OS (I haven't tried it) but it just seems far too heavy for their target market.

  8. Nothing Minimum about it... by WarriorX99 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That's one of the most insane MINIMUM system requirements that I've ever seen. It's probably a good thing that it's a corporate desktop solution. Could you imagine the requirements to run a game on top of that?

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    Life today. Uncertainty tomorrow.
  9. Re:Last gasp by dasmegabyte · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And yet, Led Zepplin still rocks. Harleys are still pretty cool. The fact that your dad's a goof doesn't change these.

    Same with the Java Desktop. Java is AWESOME. A Java Desktop is a Cool Thing. Whether it helps Sun or not is meaningless.

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    Hey freaks: now you're ju
  10. Different experience... by sczimme · · Score: 2, Interesting


    I'm currently running JDS on a ThinkPad T20: PIII 700 w/ 256MB RAM. I don't play games or watch movies on it - DVD playback is choppy (go figure) - but it works very well for everyday office tasks and as a portable network assessment platform. Even StarOffice seems to run smoothly and without undue delay. *shrug* I wouldn't want to compile anything large on it (so gentoo is not an option (zing!)) but smaller sources (like Xine) take only a couple minutes.

    Before some goober snorts "a couple minutes to compile Xine!!11!oneone LOL", said goober should keep in mind that this is designed as a desktop system - think Joe and Jane EndUser (or Joe and Jane Sixpack if you don't get along w/ the EndUsers).

    Customers also appreciate the fact that it is backed by a reputable company.

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