Sun Java Desktop 2 Review

Anon. writes "Linux.com is carrying a pretty damning review of Sun Java Desktop System version 2. JDS seemed to have issues with almost each and every machine the author tested it on, support was quite bad - and to top it all, the software comes with a seven page license document. Something seems to be terribly wrong somewhere - otherwise why would Sun decide to ship JDS with kernel 2.4.19 at this stage?" (Slashdot and Linux.com are both part of OSDN.)

Comments

Kernel versions are very often "behind"

[Anonymous Coward]

Something seems to be terribly wrong somewhere - otherwise why would Sun decide to ship JDS with kernel 2.4.19 at this stage ?"

I dunno. Why are you not asking a similar question of Debian???

Re:Kernel versions are very often "behind"

[elmegil]

Well, I don't know about that. JDS is targeted to corporate desktop users. The x86 hardware we sell is targeted to "edge servers" aka web servers et. al. and is all rack-mount equipment. At least today.

On the other hand, the chances of a corporate entity rolling out a lot of cutting edge desktops like the power users bitching about this are having problems with is REALLY unlikely. Personally, I'm running JDS 2 on my Sony VAIO PCG-K15 laptop which I just bought three weeks ago, and there were two problems, neither of them particularly difficult. 1) to get video drivers for the ATI 354M ICG card I had to download some mods from SuSE which were not terribly difficult to find (and the default drivers worked, they just didn't give me full color depth and resolution), and 2) to use the Atheron wireless chipset I had to use the madwifi drivers available from sourceforge. I bring up the interfaces manually because the stupid dhcpcd when it tries to run on two interfaces and only one is active, the inactive one stupidly copies the "original" resolv.conf back over after it times out--of course this isn't Sun's fault.

I dunno, these power user "negative" reviews of JDS because it's not the latest and greatest cutting edge stuff just don't seem to get it. JDS is (as far as I can tell anyway) primarily targetted at corporate windows users, not Linux power users.

And of course, I'm just speaking off the top of my head; while I do work for Sun, I am not part of the JDS product groups, nor do I speak in any official capacity for Sun.

here is why they'd use 2.4.19

[jbellis]

Corporate clients are far more interested in stability than in the latest & greatest. Look how long RH goes between updates of their workstation and advanced server lines.

Java Desktop R2 seems to be more of an upgrade to the bundled apps. Nothing really major here.

Re:here is why they'd use 2.4.19

[Welsh Dwarf]

in that case use 2.4.26, old tree, stable. Seriously, doesn't 2.4.19 have some serious security bug (read local root exploit)?

Media Bias

[turgid]

Sun isn't flavour of the month in the media just now, and especially in the "Linux" media, where Sun is considered to be in league with Microsoft and SCO. To expect a fair and balanced review from linux.com is therefore misguided.

Re:Media Bias

[KimiDalamori]

It's one thing to assume that us "Linux bigots" are going to tell you that Sun's product is harder to use than Linux, or that their desktop is uglier than GNOME or KDE. But if the product does not install correctly, that's probably a bit more serious than just "media bias".

I tried the OS and...

[pyrotic]

All these distro reviews are so superficial. This one was worse than most. Rather than complain about how his fave window manager isn't included, he complains about how he couldn't intall it on his hot-rodded PC. So having not installed it, he doesn't have too much to bitch about.

I'm probably the only one around here who wants to know how a distro functions for the purposes of doing usefull work. Reviews of the install process are pretty pointless, unless your interest is in cloning large numbers of X clients or servers. Next!

Re:I tried the OS and...

[clk23]

I would generally agree that many distribution reviews are lacking in actual content. However, I don't believe this review is pointless.

The guy tried four different systems, two of which were 'hot-rodded,' one of which was a pretty standard budget PC config, and the last of which as an older laptop. I think it's a valid point to illustrate that he couldn't get the thing to successfully install on any of those systems.

And, further, I think it's a valid point to describe the support structure and quality of support he received when trying to resolve the problem.

The install process is important. I've personally grown tired of encountering install processes which require pseudo-arcane knowledge, loads of custom configuration, and hours of hand-holding. Show me something that offers an install that is functional, intuitive, while still offering options for customization, and I'll be impressed.

Sun doesn't know how to approach this

[ChiralSoftware]

Rolling your own desktop distro is a subtle thing. Sun has always been a hardware company, and so they have always had control over the hardware their OS runs on. They have never yet had to deal with the tangled mess that is PC hardware, with conflicts, obscure devices, and all the rest of it. And the one thing missing most from the Sun Java desktop is Java. Where are all the Java apps? Sun should be all over this: "The Sun Java Desktop is a collection of apps, protocols and file formats which let you run your desktop environment anywhere that runs Java. We have partnered with Suse and Redhat to provide an environment which we certify is Sun Java Desktop compatible, but any Java 1.4 environment will work." What about doing that? But Sun is not doing that. Is anyone? Yes. But if you look at their website, you see that they are backed by American investors, but not Sun! What's going on? Sun should buy them and make that the cornerstone of the Java desktop.

In future, if Sun really wants something it can call the Sun Java Desktop, it would have all the applications in Java, and a Java runtime which is perfectly integrated into the OS, like OS X's Java environment.

-----------
WAP Apache software

Re:A bit irresponsible

[slamb]

I guess Sun deserves what it gets, but I think the reviewer was a bit irresponsible. Perhaps he had a deadline and couldn't wait around for replacement media (assuming that you still couldn't rule out defective media) or for Sun support to resolve the issue.

He did everything right.

First, he made a reasonable attempt to install it. He tried several computers; he tried both the graphical interface and the text one. If there had been a "check media" option (like RedHat's installer has), I'll assume he would have used it, given the other steps he took. Defective media is understandable. But we don't know that's the problem, because they didn't provide a way to check. Why not?

Then he called support. He didn't use any special reviewers-only support channel. He called the normal number like everyone else has to. He got the same horrible support experience. And he criticized them for it. Why do we just let large companies off for having horrible support? Why don't we yell and scream until they do better?

Re:This begs the question

[mcc]

Do we really need another distro?

A few years ago when Gentoo popped up, a lot of people said "Do we really need another distro? We already have RedHat, and Debian, and SUSE."

Now, a few years later, RedHat has abandoned its consumer line to a group of volunteers (Fedora), Debian is just.. years behind the other distributions in terms of installed software and catching up at a snail's pace (leaving its excellent toolset and great stability a bit frustratingly useless in practice for the main distro), and SUSE has been purchased by Novell (which has turned out to be benevolent, but it might as likely have turned out not to be). Meanwhile Gentoo, while still not yet a general purpose solution, is maturing at a great rate and is currently a far more attractive solution for many people's purposes than any of these.

I'd say then that the answer to "Do we really need another distro?" Is always yes. The more the merrier. Choice and redundancy are good things.

Re:A bit irresponsible

[LuxFX]

I guess Sun deserves what it gets, but I think the reviewer was a bit irresponsible. Perhaps he had a deadline and couldn't wait around for replacement media (assuming that you still couldn't rule out defective media) or for Sun support to resolve the issue

Whether or not you think the reviewer could have done more -- the reviewer definately did more than Joe User would. If a reviewer 'only' tried installation on three or four computers, that's still three or four more than most people have access to.

Sun installations suck for technical workers

[The OPTiCIAN]

If you want the system management utilities and development tools they must be installed afterward.

I wonder when Sun are going to get their act together and start fixing the basic toolchains available on their environments. We work on Sun slices at work, and we're prevented from having access to all sorts of basic tools we need.

Now I can understand wanting to restrict access to compilers, scripting languages, etc.

But perl *is* available on the environment, yet the halfwits who set policy in our server sections prevent us from having access to tools like less (yes, we have to use more, tail and head forall of our gigabyte-log-scanning needs because the version of vi on these environments won't read long lines or too-long files); vim (sigh) or (perhaps less controversally) lsof.

And the reason?

These are disallowed for 'security reasons'.

This is the second place I've worked at where my team has been limited like this. When are Sun going to get a clue and learn to install the basic tools geeks need to be happy?

Until they do - avoid Sun.