Slashdot Mirror
Red Hat to Enter the Desktop Market
head_dunce writes "It looks like Red Hat is going to release their Global Desktop Linux in September and give Ubuntu a challenge for the Linux desktop market. Red Hat Global Desktop 'would be sold with a one-year subscription to security updates.'" It looks like another choice for the proverbial Aunt Tillie. The release is being delayed in order to provide greater media compatibility, "to permit users to view a wide range of video formats on their computers."
This is the biggest problem with Red Hat in my eyes.
Yes, you can pay for support, but you HAVE NO CHOICE. There's no free version of the same system that they distribute, sans support, with security updates and such.
And yes, I know about Fedora. Their release cycle, however, is too short to use in a serious environment. Within a year or so the release is desupported and open to any security problems that may arise.
Of course, CentOS may pick up this desktop version of Red Hat Linux and release it just like they have with RHEL, but it'd still be nicer for Red Hat to provide their OS free to the community like they used to before they split off the Fedora project with its insanely short release cycle.
I love to bash Microsoft as much as the next guy, but have you ever used or setup a windows/citrix terminal server?
Terminal services on Windows is stupidly easy to install, setup and run. Not only that but i've never had problems with it. If you honestly think LTSP is easier to install and setup than then explain this long winded installation guide. Then install say windows server in a vm and run terminal services and compare how easy it is to install and setup.
People like you screw up the cause of Linux advocacy by lying through their teeth, because all it will do is people will try it out, get frustrated then go back to Windows and complain about "how much linux sucks" to their friends.
Lying or sugar coating it simply screws it up for those of us trying to gently push people away from Microsoft and other expensive solutions.
Yes, but maybe, just maybe, you'll get some form of support except packages update?
And probably - just likely - you'll need that support line to find someone to help sort out the breakage from the last updates via the STOOPID^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hlovely RPM package manager.
Redhat might have something to offer server jockeys, but I've seen nothing it offers the desktop that hasn't already been done better - having now to face an uphile climb against all those existing Ubuntu installs.
Everyone I know who uses Ubuntu does so not because it's linux, but because it's ubuntu. Canonical has done a great job of building a community that is loyal in a way the corporate geeks at Redhat could never muster.