Novell Linux Desktop 9 Vs. Redhat Enterprise WS?

amorelock asks: "I manage a small group of 4-6 Linux software engineers / developers that are part of a larger engineering organization. Our IT department has finally, after several months of pushing-back, decided to support our Linux workstations. The have requested that we use an off the shelf distribution that will be fairly easy to manage and maintain (we're talking about Microsoft folks with practically zero Linux experience). We are evaluating both Novell Linux Desktop 9 and Redhat Enterprise WS. Have any fellow Slashdot folks had experience with either of these two distributions, and if so, what did you like or dislike about either of them?"

Comments

Re:definitely go with Redhat

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I always had 3rd party package and compilation problems on SuSE. If you wanted to select from their recipie, it was the best thing going. Try and "roll your own", then you wondered why it was made so non-obvious.

I hope this has changed in a year as Novell - but I'm guessing prolly not.

Having used both...

[HexaByte]

I prefer SuSE, hands down over RH.

However, if I were looking for a WinDoze replacement, I think you should look at Xandros for the desktop.

Having Used Both

[thegrassyknowl]

Having used both RHEL (albeit only for a few days) and Suse recently, I can say that I feel RHEL is the better distro.

Actually, I was looking on the Suse website and somehow ended up at a German page. Clicking back loaded the previous page in German as well, and so on. That made it even easier to justify downloading the RHEL evaluation.

RHEL installed with minimal fuss. All the hardware in my PC was picked up, including the wireless networking and bluetooth. The installer is pretty-much Fedora but RedHat branded. The whole thing feels much like Fedora, but obviously there are some improvements and proprietary parts.

We are trying to get ClearCase installed on RHEL ES4, but it's proving to be ellusive even though Rational claims it's fully supported. I'm going through the second round of ClearCase patches now to try and fix the userspace and stop the kernel panics (it is a ClearCase problem - doesn't do it until clearcase is installed).

All I can suggest to the OP is download both the evaluations; Suse/Novel have a DVD download and RHEL comes as 4 CDs. You have to register with the respective companies and you get a 30 day trial. Run them on two similar machines, side-by-side and see how they stack up in terms of a few criteria that are important to you.

NLD rules

[libra-dragon]

YAST is a kickass tool for newbies to manage linux. I personally think the curses version is nearly identical to managing a NetWare console --as elegant as it is simple. NLD has a very easy installation.

The integration work that Novell has done with the UI is quite nice. Novell has provided some nice OOo integration with network file access, dialog boxes and improved printing. Additional plusses include the fact that they aquired Ximian which means full Evolution support. I'm not sure how RH supports their bundled apps.

RHEL/WS is probably a well supported OS from a system standpoint, but I just don't see them to be serious about the desktop. Security patches is probably the most you can expect from RH. Although, their organization has been very responsive and helpful to anything I've needed.

Regarding pricing, Novell seems to have RedHat beat.

IMHO, NLD has a product that can enable them to lead the linux desktop movement. Now they just need to work on the marketing piece.

And now for something completely silly

[Degrees]

With NLD, you can get these

Well, you can get them anyway - just send a SASE. But it would be kind of silly to put a NLD sticker on your RH box...