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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."
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.
I think this is a much bigger step than what it is being given credit for at first glance. It looks like the default desktop environment is Gnome instead of KDE. I, for one, am extremely happy to see that.
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.
Yes, it costs money. $59 USD. There IS an evaluation version available for free. From their site:
NOTE: The only limitation of this evaluation software is the duration you will have free access update.novell.com. Should you choose to license Novell Linux Desktop, you will be provided with a new registration code, which you can easily update in your desktop in order to re-enable access to update.novell.com for product patches and updates.
Let's all try the "eval".
Yes, let's all reward Novell's efforts in releasing a new Linux distribution by simultaneously attempting to download 2 Gb of data.
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.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
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.
The last version of SuSE had a "personal" edition, which was 1 CD including source. Very cut down. Had OO.org, Firefox + Thunderbird, KDE but no GNOME, very limited dev tools, but adequate for web browsing & basic office work, which is what I assume this is aimed at.
Perhaps Novell can help in providing more legitimacy toward linux desktops to the Corporate World. It's not that linux desktops geared toward corporations haven't been around, but more the lack of a Name Brand company to trust purchasing it from. I'm being hopeful, but any amount this release can cut into Microsoft's market share is good for us all.
Steal This Sig
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.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
If Mandrake is working for you, why switch?
Meh.
Does anyone have a mirror or a bittorrent tracker? The site was sort of okay before 12:00 GMT+1 but now it's rather dead...
When you do things right, people won't be sure if you've done anything at all.
Celebrate the finer things in life
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.
Developers: We can use your help.
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.
uhhh
wtf makes this FUD post anything more then a troll attempt to bash MS??
"Novell has had to remake every Windows version "
since when did Novell make Windows at all??
"Windows is so not network enabled it isnt well suited to be in a network period"
guess you never RTFM...it is very network enabled...
lets see, Linux is ready... "its lacking is zenworks like features with centrally managed menus and common login scripts" Zen has been linux for some time now, but it is a sepperate tool. "The profiles bit is really easy on linux and just needs some simple glue to work seamless" ya, profiles in Novell and Windows are sooooooo hard to do, but Linux is ready as soon as they fix it...
Windows has these abilities, has had them for some time (linux has them too, but some zealots are not as knowledgable as they think)
Stop the bashing, try being constructive.
Stop spouting FUD, try the truth or be silent.
Stop jumping on a hate-wagon, since you have no clue why you are on it other then to "belong" to something (like the majority of hate groups, KKK, White Supremist, etc, etc...).
Slashdot mods and editors should strive to discourge this behaviour, instead of encouraging it. It can only serve to alienate others, and discredit the site as "extremely biased".
Yep, using pam_auth_ncpfs to get a Windows desktop to login to a Novell server would be crazy amounts of work. Fortunatly, they have this thing called the "Novell Client" which is for windows. It takes all of about 5 minutes to install. Windows 3.11, Windows 95, and all later versions, are specificlly built to accept network client drivers, like say, those from Novell.
Or do you mean it is crazy amounts of work for Novell to write a widows client? I doubt it. For Windows, Novell currently has two clients, one for 95/98 and one for NT/2000/XP. The "log into the server" part is a minor component, trivial in comparision to every thing else it does, ZENWorks integration for one.
And this is not Windows NT or Netware 3.12 days. You login to the network not into a server.
While not preinstalled, Windows has come with a Client for Netware Networks for as long as I can remember. I know that Novell recommends its client, but I have not had any issues with the MS client whenever I have used it.
Anyway, Novell was king of the network hill for a good while. It should have leveraged this position while it had it to put out its own desktop back then. It will be an uphill battle now.
I hope Novell is very smart in the way they market it.
Yup, they are -- if not marketing, at least sales.
We're probably going to switch to it at my workplace -- we're certainly going Novell's SLES9 on the servers we ship, as soon as I finish handling the technical headaches involved with getting off of RHEL3. (For the workstations, they're currently a very aging, heavily customized RH9 environment -- no longer supported, so we're moving them over too).
And why? Besides the price point, and the goodies SLES9 comes with that RHEL3 doesn't, there's one huge advantage Novell has:
Their "sales staff" has technical people too, and they're helpful and available. We were feeding money into Red Hat, and getting practically nothing back by way of support. Novell, on the other hand, is giving us all kinds of support (and access to goodies like the NLD beta) -- and we haven't even paid them yet!
I have no doubt that Red Hat would do the same thing for a big enough shop -- but right now we're a small, cash-impacted startup. The level of support they've given us already shows an impressive level of dedication. We're impressed, anyhow.
(The first time they visited us, they brought along one employee who was formerly Ximian, one who was formerly SuSE, and one who was a Noveller all along. I took that as Good Tidings as to their directional change, as well).
I tried Xandros Open Circulation on the weekend and this distro is the closest to what a home user would expect from a "windowed" OS.
The install was FLAWLESS. Truly. Network setup a breeze and it even found my Windows shares and an OLD SoundBlaster 16 ISA sound card. I haven't had any problems with it since installing it.
I've tried many of the other distros and they are just not ready for the home or small business market. Its like the Linux community can't bring itself to simplify the environment in case they be compared to oh no... Windows.
Xandros is my new preferred distro and I'll certainly give NLD a try.
I can just imagine the fit Ballmar must be throwing about now in Redmond. I can just see his fat sweating body jiggling down the hall screaming at the top of his lungs while spitting on all those poor, developers, developers, developers.
Redmond's response should be VERY interesting indeed!