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Brainshare Reports: NLD 10, Novell's Linux Switch
An anonymous reader submits "Computer World has an article about Novell Linux Desktop 10, which was just announced at Brainshare, that it plans to compete directly with Windows. One of the biggest things about NLD 10 is that it will have the desktop search engine Beagle as a feature." Also from Brainshare, Joe Barr writes on NewsForge about the significance of Novell's ongoing (multi-year) transition to Linux for all of its 6,000 desktops. Consultants and software sellers of all stripes won't soon run out of TCO arguments for the products they want to push, but Novell claims to have saved $900,000 last year in Microsoft license fees alone.
Can anyone explain to me this hype of meta-data searching. I for one do not understand the benefits of it one bit. When I saw the Microsoft demonstration video of WinFS it did not seem revolutionary or impressive. I don't understand why we would need beagle either. And if beagle every does take off will it run on other Linux distributions.
Personally I just store my files in My Documents folder and directory on Windows Xp and Linux respectfully; I have no need for a fancy search and when I do, find and Window's Find are adequate.
...the lists are active (and questions actually get answered authoritatively), the IRC channel is lively, and the development is in the open. They've even got the logs of the team meetings on line.
PLUG: I'm working on a Ruby wrapper for Evolution. Good times!
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I don't agree. I'm a Sys Admin, but I only use Windows and some Netware. I have almost no experience on Linux. The NLD was east to install, It was loaded with apps and it found all my hardware. You also have a choice of Gnome or KDE (I prefer the Gnome)during the install.
The included Citrix Client just worked out of the box.
I can see NLD being a real challenger for Uncle Bill.
There is an eval of 9 on the Novell site, try it out.
It will be interesting to see what obstacles Novell encounters compared to IBM. The last thing I heard about IBM's transistion was that they are rewriting all their internal web applications to no longer require Internet Explorer.
Up to date, latest and greatest ones.
I don't care if they are bnaries, the important think would be that any Linux user could get hold of one.
With Novell, RH, Sun and IBM pushing for commercial Linux desktops we may get this more often thatn we currently do now.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
IMHO, it's pretty clear that TCO is lower with a partial or total switch to linux. There are exeptions, like small businesses without IT resources, but by and large, IT costs go down.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
This is great news for Lucene, which is what's at the core of Beagle. More specifically, it is the port of Lucene (Java) to C# and .Net, which can be found at http://www.dotlucene.net/.
Simpy
since I'm using Linux/BSD/Mac, is called locate.
Yes, it's not integrated into the OS as Spotlight on the Mac will be, but it does a good job.
No fancy bloated technology for me.
and I just heard from a guy working for Blackberry that they're working on making the Blackberry Enterprise Server work on Novell Groupwise Linux boxes. Oh happy day, when I can dump Exchange :)
Thanks for talking the talk and walking the walk, Novell. IBM, when are you going to switch the corporate desktops?
This guy is way out there
At any company time is money. It's impossible to switch a corporate desktop with no cost whatsoever. Even a competent SuSE person is going to spend at least a little time installing and setting up a desktop. Time spent on that is time not spend on other corporate work. Even 5 minutes per desktop is a lot when multiplied by 6,000. Hence it costs in terms of man-hours (i.e. productivity not used towards making the company money). And it directly costs money if that person's time is billable to a customer.
Developers: We can use your help.
This probably makes the least amount of sense to me. Anytime I'm using a mac and need to find an application I have to go through a long list of mostly crap I don't need or will never use in the applications folder.
Windows has pretty much the exact same problem and setup... what is the difference between going through the application folder or a start menu...
On linux in both kde and gnome the applications are sorted into groups. "Internet", "Office", "Graphics" etc. etc... and it takes half the time to find any application you want to run. Also, oddly enough everything that I've installed on my system always shows up in these menus... I'm not sure why others have problems.
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The funny thing about this was that in the past and at last year's Brainshare, Novell had stated that they had no intention of competing directly against Windows. They even insinuated that attempting such competition was madness.
That was probably Messman talking sensibly before. Now, as you can see:
Currently, Linux on the desktop has been adopted primarily by technology groups and the public sector. "The next release of [Novell] Linux Desktop will be ready to compete with Windows," Friedman said.
...this time it's Nat Friedman, a person not exactly known for being tactful. Witness how he single-handedly alienated half a dozen well-established projects last month when he declared Hula to be a category-killer and that there was nothing else in that space. (The developers of Horde, eGroupware, Citadel, and a few other projects just kind of stared gapjawed at their screens, wondering whether the entire previous decade had been mere figments of their imaginations.) This is essentially the same thing: the Ximian people (Nat and Miguel) have a habit of alienating people. It may very well be that they are among the few who did not learn from the lesson of Mark Andreesen: don't moon the giant. The giant will become cross and will squash you like a bug.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Friedman found himself in Jack Messman's office getting verbally bitch-slapped for making that comment in public.
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I wonder if this means Novell is any closer to releasing a Novell Netware Client for Linux? In our shop, lots of people use Fedora Core 1,2,3 - but everyone needs to have access to files on the Novell Netware LAN. Scripts that use NCPFS get us there, but it's kind of a hack (i.e. you need to change the script if we change the server, ...)
Releasing a full Novell Netware Client for Linux has been a planned thing for some time. Maybe NLD 10 will finally get us there?
Name 376,000 apps that are best of breed for Windows.