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Novell Linux Desktop Released
KingDaveRa writes "Novell have just released Novell Linux Desktop. Its based on SuSE Linux, but is cut down quite a bit to just include essential apps - perfect for a corporate environment. Novell claim to not be going directly after Windows, but rather pushing this as legacy Unix users. The Register has a take on this too."
Hmm... Nicely timed with Chris Stone leaving...
*tinfoil beanie on*
I've got a system at home that I installed with the SuSE personal ISO image, and then upgraded by downloading SuSE professional RPMs to have all the useful stuff.
Is this going to be the same? Or have they stopped you from doing this?
Luis Villa's blog has some more interesting information and links as well. (He's a Novell, former Ximian guy).
You can download an "eval" copy, after some registration, it's 3 ISO files, but is the full version according to Luis.
Novell has also released the source.
Unfortunately, it's still Gnome 2.6 and some updated KDE stuff, but one of the most interesting things built in is Novell's new iFolder, an interesting way to share folders remotely, including over different OS's.
It's based on Suse 9.1, but it will be interesting to see what changes the Ximian guys have added to it. The timing seems a bit weird though as Suse 9.2 just came out. Novell's strategy will be something to watch, to see how they position Suse Server, Suse 9.2 and Novell Linux between homes and offices.
There should be more versions of the kernels and so on, with almost no packages to download of all the *nixes, those large ISOs are a big turn off.
It may not be. One problem plaguing distro's is that they throw so much into the distro that QA is sacrificed. This is true for SuSE as well. I've been using SuSE for about a year now and see many of the same issue I saw with RHat. There are menuitems that don't work, configurations that won't take, and clutter. A slimmer desktop might be in order. I've said for years that a distro company would do well to have a group sit down and actually test each feature and app that they include on a distro but evidently few do. Maybe someone has with Novell Linux and this is the result. We can hope!
Why do you say that? I see nothing in Novell's documentation that suggests you need a "Novell network" (by which I presume you mean a NetWare server) to take advantage of this.
... freshly installed evaluation copy of Novell Linux Desktop 9. Well, nice startup screen, nice Ns everywhere.
Uhm, and Firefox came with Slashdot already bookmarked.
Yeah, from the screenshots, it looks an awfully lot like a hybrid between Windows, MacOS, and MacOSX.
I wonder what that means to those folks who claimed that "Novell is placing their bets on Gnome! KDE is going down!". Open mouth, insert foot, eh?
Well, the people who made those claims seemed quite often to be connected to Ximian... Either they were astroturfing/spreading FUD, or they didn't know what their company was doing.
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not the consumer version. This version is for use in big business by general knowledge workers. It's features are maintainability and stability of pachages, not end-user featuritis. In other words, it's for corporate desktop drones. It's designed to work best in a corporate environment, of course complementing Novell's upcoming Open Enterprise Server. It's timed to match the upcoming release of that product.
SUSE Linux 9.2 Pro is the geek version, for home and mobile users mostly.
Unless I'm overlooking something that's a very attractive package. Anxious to see how it sells. If this takes off it's going to hit MSFT's pricing model fairly hard.
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does novell linux have YaST and if so can I install packages from SuSE ftp sites?
I thought Suse was supposed to be a KDE distro. The swf animations shows a Gnome desktop.
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A trim desktop for the corporate drone is exactly what the market needs. Sun is sort of trying to do it with JDS, but they're selling it as one desktop for every kind of corporate user. The lean desktop with only necessary packages that's easily maintainable is what a lot of companies need if they're going to slowly switch away from Microsoft. It eases headaches and drastically cuts administrative costs. I hope Novell is very smart in the way they market it.
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Anyone who has used Novell much has noticed how Novell has had to remake every Windows version to even work as a network enabled desktop should. Because Windows is so not network enabled it isnt well suited to be in a network period. The amount of work they have had to put into Windows just to get it to log into a Novell server is staggering for anyone who has used pam_auth_ncpfs on linux. A linux desktop is ready today for Novell, all its lacking is zenworks like features with centrally managed menus and common login scripts. The profiles bit is really easy on linux and just needs some simple glue to work seamless.
Linux gives Novell what it wanted back in 95 when it instead got the steaming pile of sh*t called Windows 95. I really hope they get it toghether and working perfectly real soon because of the breathing room given by MS eternal vapourware called Longhorn.
I run all my linux servers against Novell for user managment and it works perfect today, this gives the same advantage to the non techies.
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The corporate world started way back when with Windows PCs and Microsoft Office. Any Unix desktops are specialized applications, such as Graphics Design and Virtual Simulations (Unigraphics, HP-UX, SGI, IBM AIX.) They pay for these systems (in the 10 thousands each) because they are good at what they do and there is a company that stands behind them. If it weren't for these systems, everything would be running MS Windows. And it would be safe to say, any company running Macs will not migrate to Linux, because Macs are now more affordable (as compared to their Unix counterparts,) Unix based, and are already in niche markets.
So I would say, if they are going after corporate desktops, they are going after MS Windows, because this is where the PC is. Linux will also allow better integration with existing and vested Unix and Mac systems.
No, they are going after MS Windows. Their "not-going-after-Windows" statement is for investors and people who manage tech, but not into tech and understanding tech from the ground level, so as not to still certains waters that Microsoft is monitoring.
I am a true Gnome lover, and of course hope that Novell will go for Gnome in the long run.
BUT, Gnome and KDE need each other in order to improve, just like Linux need MacOSX and Windows.
Gnome and KDE steal idea from each other, and often improve them in someway.
Think if we only had Mozilla and IE. Oprea invented tabbed browsing, and the idea to have search bar in the toolbar among MANY other neat features, that FireFox now have.