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."

Comments

A day late and a dollar short.

[gumpish]

Red Hat Global Desktop 'would be sold with a one-year subscription to security updates.'

Hmmm, let's see... on the one hand I can start paying for updates after 12 months.... on the other hand I get free updates for 18 months (or 36 months for LTS releases).

Maybe the execs at Red Hat need to update their hat size as whatever they're wearing appears to be cutting off circulation to their brains.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[rudegeek]

Hmmm, let's see... on the one hand I can start paying for updates after 12 months.... on the other hand I get free updates for 18 months (or 36 months for LTS releases).

Yes, but maybe, just maybe, you'll get some form of support except packages update? You know? Ability to call call center or whatever? I was never a RH follower but I say, give them a benefit of doubt in their desktop market reapperance.

I want to see more good offering on Linux desktop. And RH has muscle to push some changes. They have quite a good brand and following of loyal customers in a business setting.

Maybe the execs at Red Hat need to update their hat size as whatever they're wearing appears to be cutting off circulation to their brains.

I invite you to do grep -r "@redhat.com" . in few bigger FOSS projects. Yeah, I bet they are all stupid. Running so big FOSS-based company. How do they feed them self? Amazing!

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[mikael]

Hmmm, let's see... on the one hand I can start paying for updates after 12 months.... on the other hand I get free updates for 18 months (or 36 months for LTS releases).

Business people like accountability, and the ability to see that a problem is under control. Being able to
tell them that you have arranged for a field engineer scheduled to visit, or that the support team is working on the problem, is more reassuring to them than saying that that you have sent out an E-mail to a discussion group to see if anyone else has had a similar problem. To them, either you are the person to fix the problem or you can't.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[squiggleslash]

That's right. We should all try to price everything identically and then somehow end up with choices of different products and services that cater to different needs despite all of that.

Well, maybe not. Perhaps we should see what RedHat plans to produce that justifies the expense. Me, personally, I've subscribed to pay services in lieu of free services because I felt the pay service was worth spending money on, it wasn't excessively priced, and I'd rather support an organization dedicated to providing me with a service than one that ultimately is responsible only to itself, or to a myriad of advertisers with their own agendas.

I'm not knocking Ubuntu, and without seeing RedHat's product, it's impossible for me to judge as to whether it'll be worth the money, but the notion that we can make that judgement right now purely on the basis of cost per month of service is ridiculous.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please explain why businesses use windows then. There is ZERO accountability for microsoft products, you agree to hold them harmless and agree that the software comes with no warranty or accountability when you install it.

Are you telling me that businesspeople are not reading that and are operating under the false assumption that there is accountability with microsoft products?

there is MORE accountability with Ubuntu than there is with windows XP or Vista. Just because most It support companies (Like Next IT, Geek Squad, Geeks on site) have incredibly under trained staff does not mean that they are the only source for support. Before I left comcast we were actively looking for Linux trained and experience, and we were getting lots of people with linux abilities applying. Most of the mpeg2 digital equipment in the head ends runs linux. from the combiners to the routers to the encoders for local off the air. All of it runs linux, which upset the heads of IT quite a bit.

Linux skilled techs exist out there for support, yes they are more expensive than the barely capable larger IT support companies that can install virus scan and spend 2 hours fixing a simple networking issue. but you get what you pay for.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[josephdrivein]

Red Hat Global Desktop 'would be sold with a one-year subscription to security updates.'

Hmmm, let's see... on the one hand I can start paying for updates after 12 months.... on the other hand I get free updates for 18 months (or 36 months for LTS releases). I'm a Linux user, I've been using Debian for quite a long time.
I don't use Linux because it's free. I use it because I like it, I think it is rationally organized - well at least most things are - and it makes me more productive (than Windows).

If I think of the time I spend in front of a pc, I have to admit I'm willing to pay to support the developers, even if I'm a student.

A very cheap OS may be fine, but an effective one is better.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[notjim]

Are "people who don't pay for support" such a profitable part of the Ubuntu user base?

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[kklein]

You spelled "ridiculous" correctly? 'Round here we definately spell that "rediculous." You know, because we're illiterate.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[JimDaGeek]

There is accountability because managers and execs can bypass blame and point right to Microsoft or another vendor. If they were to do that with a Free OS like Ubuntu, the blame comes back to them for "using something that was free to try to save money". Note, I don't agree with this stupidity, but it seems pervasive in American management.

I cut my teeth on Red Hat and like the way it is set up. The only reason I started to use Ubuntu more is because of how vast the repository is and how well all the packages play together. With Fedora, you can add 3rd party repositories, but you will run in to conflicts. This is the only reason I dropped Fedora for Ubuntu.

I say give Red Hat a chance and wait and see how it turns out. If they include LEGAL codecs, that could be huge. With Ubuntu to play proprietary audio/video codecs you have to use unauthorized software. To a home user this isn't a bid deal, but to companies it is a deal breaker. Most license holders won't go after Joe Linux User for using an MP3 codec. However, with a company, that could lead to some nice cash for infringement.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[Etyenne]

According to TFA, Red Hat is targetting public administration and small business in developing countries. This is a very price-conscious market. If the only competitive advantage they have over the competition (Ubuntu, pirated Windows, etc) is that they offer some warm-and-fuzzy feeling that the product is supported by a corporation, they are doomed to fail. Canonical already offer support à la carte (you buy support only if you need it), which make Red Hat Global Desktop compulsory subscription a fairly though sell.

Red Hat (and Novell) strategy of charging per-seat "subscription" is doomed to fail on the desktop. Really, this is paramount to the proprietary software business model of charging licensing fees per seat. And why would anybody choose to engage a recurring cost for an *operating system* is beyond me (but then, people flocked to "Software Assurance", go figure). To have any chance, they would need to charge very little for this "subscription", which raise the question of profitability. Maybe they would have a chance if they where giving away these desktop "subscriptions" to existing customers of RHEL as a perk.

Red Hat never understood the Linux desktop market, and apparently never will. It is a good thing they dominate a profitable niche in replacing Solaris as a platform to run Oracle and other enterprise software, because they completely suck at market development. I would hate them to go away; they are very goods corporate Open-Source citizens that contributes significantly to key Open-Source project, so I hope this niche will not dry up in the near future.

As a side note, if you think Red Hat can afford to dispatch a field engineer for desktop problem on the premise of a small business customer, your expectations need a little adjustment.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[init100]

Canonical has done a great job of building a community that is loyal

A community that happily piss on other Linux users because they are not using Ubuntu. That is quite a strong turn-off.

It would be one thing if they were few and far between, but every time there is a story about a non-Ubuntu distro, there are a whole lot of comments like

Are they still alive? Why the heck are those users not using Ubuntu instead? Ubuntu FTW! Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu!

and

The problem with <distro XXXX> is that it isn't Ubuntu.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[Gregb05]

People who don't pay for support are the advertising department of Ubuntu.
so... yes.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[init100]

the Fedora project with its insanely short release cycle.

I guess that you don't use Ubuntu then, because it has an equally long (six months) release cycle.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[Repossessed]

Um, the non Free (as in freedom, not price) MP3 packages aren't infringement. MP3 patents (and as far as I know, most multimedia patents) are set up with a royalty basis. The people that own MP3 are quite happy to let you obtain free ones, because it standardizes the format, and lets them get a royalty out of MP3 players and windows.

The legal problem actually comes in because of the patent's conflict with the GPL (IE, you are supposed to be able to charge for a copy of Linux if you feel like it). The solution then becomes to distribute multimedia packages though a different repository. It's an annoying hassle, but it works.*

The only format I see a particular problem with is the WMA and WMV formats from M$, since as far as I know, you're not allowed to use those outside of windows period. But well, there's 233 other patents M$ has Linux infringes upon anyway.

*IANAL, and I do not know about all multimedia patents, I've only looked closely at MP3,

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[bwanagary]

*LOVE* the 'slash' comment in the signature.
There is also no such thing as a 'computer virus', only a 'microsoft virus', because UNIX doesn't have'em, LINUX doesn't have 'em, FreeBSD doesn't have 'em, VMS doesn't have 'em, MVS doesn't, TANDEM doesn't ..... ONLY microsoft. That makes it a 'microsoft virus'.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[morcego]

Considering the number of people using RHEL (and CentOS) on the Desktop, I think this will be well received.

I for one use CentOS on my machines. Which is ok, since I do have to manage a lot of servers. But I also have my wife's machine to consider. And while I do want something that will be easy for her to use, I also want something as close as possible to what I use and that requires little or no maintenance.

Maybe you don't like RedHat, or you simply don't have that many machines to administer. Maybe you simply think that "information wants to be free", or whatever. I, for one, welcome this new member of the RedHat family with open arms. Specially if it is anything close to the stability of RHEL, and the way things "just work".

Considering the "basic subscription" version of RHEL Desktop goes for $80, I expect this Global Desktop Linux to sell for the same price (or less). Sounds like a good deal to me.

And even if that is too expensive for you, we should get a CentOS Desktop (or something like it) very soon.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[Sillygates]

Red Hat developers contribute to various open source projects and make almost half the patches to the kernel.

Ubuntu on the other hand doesn't even make their own packages: They repackage debian ones in most cases.

If you want to get phone support Canonical also charges money, but very little of that goes to bettering open source projects.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[init100]

I'm sorry, but I don't get the connection (with my post). I use Fedora btw.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[theshowmecanuck]

They said security updates for one year... not support. I know some people like Redhat support... but I was no fan of it. Mind you, aside from installation support, Microsoft doesn't really do anything for their customers. Except let me see... FREE security updates for their products. hmmmm... yes I think Ubuntu does that too... free security updates. Ah well... nice try Redhat.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[jotok]

You don't pay for the updates. You pay for support. No corporation is going to populate a 10k seat network with Ubuntu because when Ubuntu breaks you have to go to the Ubuntu forums and beg for help. But they will consider a desktop solution that has significant support.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[VON-MAN]

Red Hat developers made almost half of the kernel patches? Well, that's stretching it a bit.

Luckily, Jonathan Corbet did two excellent pieces on this matter on LWN:http://lwn.net/Articles/222773/ and http://lwn.net/Articles/224244/. These show that Red Hat is there in the top with Intel, IBM, Novell and the Linux Foundation. FYI

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[Hucko]

no. $AUD40

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[mlts]

There is another reason too, and one that is a major factor of why Windows is a corporate staple: Due diligence with corporate regulations.

Windows is certified, both in FIPS and Common Criteria. This allows corporate legal, should something happen, show the auditors, press, and possibly law enforcement (as some SOX or HIPAA violations mean prison time) documentation that every piece of the system, from the OS on up, is certified secure.

Few operating systems have these certifications other than Windows. Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX do, because it costs a lot of cash to pass the OS in front of certifying bodies for approval. Even fewer operating systems intended for the desktop have this.

Redhat does. This positions Redhat in a place that very few desktop operating systems are qualified (and this is not a technical or quality item, but a presence/absence of very expensive papers with signatures. I'm pretty sure that any UNIX variant out there can easily qualify for FIPS 141-1 certification.) Apple states on their website (http://www.apple.com/itpro/federal/) that they have Common Criteria validation, but FIPS certification is still in the works. Even though pretty much any UNIX based OS can technically support FIPS, its having the certification that is critical, so companies can show to their internal auditors (and the SEC) that due diligence is being followed.

Regardless of which distribution of Linux people advocate, having another option on corporate desktops is a plus for everybody.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[ricegf]

@jotok: "...when Ubuntu breaks you have to go to the Ubuntu forums and beg for help."

Or you purchase a service contract from Canonical - exactly as you would from Red Hat. The actual differentiators are likely to be price, and quality of enterprise management tools.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[JimDaGeek]

Um, the non Free (as in freedom, not price) MP3 packages aren't infringement. MP3 patents (and as far as I know, most multimedia patents) are set up with a royalty basis. The people that own MP3 are quite happy to let you obtain free ones, because it standardizes the format, and lets them get a royalty out of MP3 players and windows.

No, not really. Most/all proprietary codecs require a license for playback. However, the way they are licensed are to developers and manufacturers of software applications and hardware devices. So if you are using a product that did not legally obtain a license, then you are infringing. End of story. Saying things like "they don't mind because it helps create a standard" doesn't seem to make the cut to me.

IANAL, and I do not know about all multimedia patents, I've only looked closely at MP3

Do you have any links from Thomson the holder of mp3, mp3PRO and mp3surround patent and licensing stating that they don't mind if end users use mp3, etc with a non authorized implementation that did not pay for such usage rights?

Note, I have used VLC and MPlayer to handle all my Linux audio/video needs. I doubt Thomson or others would come after individual infringing users such as the RIAA have done. It would push users to other formats and not do anything to make them that much more money. However, I am willing to bet they want every user of their codecs to be using a player/device that is legally licensed to play said format. This is why I would love to see a good Linux distro like Ubuntu (possibly the up coming Red Hat) to have a paid version that includes the proprietary audio/video codecs. I would certainly pay a fair price for that.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[jZnat]

Ta-da! It's even free of charge. The other codecs (other than MP3 I mean) cost money, but you can get them legally via that. They work using the GStreamer framework (commonly used in GNOME multimedia applications).

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[Repossessed]

My source is this: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/08/29/1 633205&mode=thread&tid=17

Which supposedly contains a link to the part that says you can use it for free with freely distributable software. The link is to a MP3liscensing page, which, at the time of this writing, appears to be down. It also has a quote from Thompson on the matter. As far as everything else goes, it's my understanding that this is standard practice. Or that a different method of free decoder, charged for encoder, is used. I haven't looked into it too much for other patented formats though.

There's also this: http://web.archive.org/web/20000818191854/www.mp3l icensing.com/royalty/swdec.html which represents the old policy page. This has been changed to remove the free-for-free-programs clause apparently, though it is also said that this change does not represent a change in policy. So I dunno hat exactly that's supposed to mean.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[Swampash]

A choice between a system with apt package management and a system with RPM package management is a no-brainer. RPM is so horrible I'm breaking out in a sweat just remembering it.

Please, just let it die.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[juhaz]

The people that own MP3 are quite happy to let you obtain free ones, because it standardizes the format, and lets them get a royalty out of MP3 players and windows. That may be status quo. It may even be officially unofficial policy.

But unless you have a contract saying otherwise, it's still an infringement, and nobody is going to risk it. Especially anyone who is, in effect, selling the "free" player as part of distro.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[jotok]

Mea culpa--for some reason I constantly forget that Canonical is available to support FOSS solutions. I think that this is really the key to getting FOSS into the corporate world.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[JimDaGeek]

Ah, thanks for that. Last I checked Fluendo, I only read about the mp3 codec. About $38 USD doesn't seem to bad for all the audo/video codecs. Have you tried it with GStreamer? I dumped GSstreamer a while ago because of issues with it not working well and since have stuck with VLC.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[lsatenstein]

Actually, saying that UBUNTU is the only player in the field is like Henry Ford saying that the only car you could buy was a black Model T. The later kids on the block outdid the Ford Company production volumes and profitability. Competition will make both distributions try harder.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[theshowmecanuck]

Nice try dope. Next time try using that mushy grey stuff in your head for more than stopping your skull from imploding. Saying I was no fan of Redhat support implies that I had tried it. Having tried it implies that I paid for it because they don't give it for free.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[modernbob]

Red Hat never understood the Linux desktop market, and apparently never will. RH9 really pissed me off. Even though I use Fedora and not for desktop use I don't want to go through switching to something else on several machines when RH decides that RH desktop doesn't taste good again and we all get spit out. Loyalty was important to me as I wanted to keep running RH, but apparently it was a one way street.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[Burz]

Windows is certified, both in FIPS and Common Criteria. This allows corporate legal, should something happen, show the auditors, press, and possibly law enforcement (as some SOX or HIPAA violations mean prison time) documentation that every piece of the system, from the OS on up, is certified secure.

Then Windows proves the worthlessness of FIPS. Thank you for making that abundantly clear for me: a datum I will keep filed in my mental rolodex, so that the next time FIPS comes up I can remind myself how much time/money I should spend on a meaningless standard.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[Etyenne]

Except, in this case, Red Hat *is* the incumbent offering a single one-size-fit-all product, and getting its ass kicked by up-and-coming competitors.

Ubuntu is not the only player in the field, but it will stay the only player with a chance to succeed as long the current incumbents (Red Hat and Novell) continues with their completely inane strategies of charging yearly subscription fees for their desktop products.

And Ubuntu's competition is not Red Hat, it is Microsoft and Apple.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[lsatenstein]

I believe that Red Hat, Novell, and even others that are European or Asian based will share the up and coming linux market with UBUNTU. It is even possible and in my mind, it makes sense that MS would eventually buy a linux distribution and use it to compete in the linux marketplace.

What augers well for Canonical is that they are there first, and they are relentless in making improvements to the product.

That said, I reviewed a distribution from Italy, which was gentoo based, and I was impressed with performance and functionality. Compared to all the above mentioned, I can say it was faster between mouse clicks when a window or session had to be opened.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[stry_cat]

I don't think RH is competing on price. I'm using their RHEL 5 right now. No one in their right mind would think their RHEL product is competing on price. RHEL is competing on quality. You pay a little extra and you get a whole lot more.

They've got IMHO the best distro by far. Almost everything works and for the few things that don't, their support actually fixes the obscure problems. I've tried most of the major distros except gentoo and nothing really compares.

I've been using RH since 6.2. I know they took a lot of flack for the RHEL/Fedora split after RH9. However I think in the long run this was best. I use Fedora at home and yeah it is more like beta testing a lot of times. However what makes it into RHEL is bug free and well integrated into the distro. This makes RHEL just top notch. Most distros are trying out new stuff like Fedora and are still trying to work the bugs out and smoothly integrate all the parts. Others are a little too slow to adopt anything or have some kind of ideology which makes them do weird things.

From the RHEL/Fedora split, what you end up with is what I think debian was trying to accomplish with its testing, unstable, and stable branches. The main difference is that RH seems to get it right, plus you RH support for RHEL. That's something any PHB as well as many good CIO's will think is worth paying for.

I expect their new desktop offering be just as wonderful. It might cost more, but the extra cost will be worth it. Like a good business they'll compete on quality since in the end you can never be successful competing on price alone as there is always someone with a lower price out there somewhere.

More choice

[bvimo]

Another quality distro for the desktop is good news.

Re:More choice

[ettlz]

The only people stuck in RPM Hell are those too ignorant to learn how to use rpm or yum.

Re:More choice

[siride]

Compared to DEB, RPM is a much superior format. The problem with RPM is not RPM itself but the idiots who try to use the rpm command-line tool like apt-get and then complain when it doesn't do what they expect it to do (because that's not what it's supposed to do). You are supposed to use "yum", which works just like apt-get. It even lets you install RPMs that you've already downloaded. E.g. "yum localinstall foo.rpm". It will even download dependencies for you! It's also really fast in fc6 and f7.

The only negative I can see is that there aren't as many packages available in the Fedora repositories. That's hardly a fault of RPM, though.

Re:More choice

[rudegeek]

RPM is not a distro, for fuck sake. It's a package format. You know? Files and metadata? Can we stop this 'RPM is bad, think about children!' stuff?

Old RPM tools had problems, sure. But new package manager was developed past last few years. They do mostly what APT do. Yet, you're still confused abut APT/Yum(or whatever) and .deb/.rpm

/. should be filled with people aware of difference between package format and package manager, or am I wrong?

Re:More choice

[marcello_dl]

And both ubuntu and red hat desktop linux having no pact with microsoft is good news too.

Re:More choice

[free space]

[rant]

The last desktop version I used for RedHat was 8.0
It was horrible. While SuSE and Mandrake were becoming more and more desktop friendly, RedHat was still stuck in the late 90's era look and feel.

The problem? RedHat was the defacto Linux standard and every Linux advocate I know recommended it instead of the more friendly options. I believe this drove a lot of potential Linux users away and gave the idea that Linux was ugly and unusable.

[/rant]

I haven't used later versions of RH or Fedora so all this might have changed. But if RH want to get back to the Desktop game, I hope they learn a lesson from all the other user friendly distributions and provide something more than a sever OS disguised as a desktop OS this time.

Re:More choice

[KingSkippus]

The only people stuck in RPM Hell are those too ignorant to learn how to use rpm or yum.

Because, of course, average computer users who just want to check e-mail, write a few letters now and then, and browse the web should be proficient at using a tool that, although created with the best of intentions, is still pretty onerous even to more experienced users in order to install and update software...

With attitudes like this, it's no wonder Microsoft is still the desktop leader. Say what you want, but except for DRM, at least when they see a usability problem in their software, instead of sitting back and talking about how ignorant the users are, hoping that someday maybe the users will be more motivated to learn something they shouldn't have to, they actually work to make their software work the way people expect it to.

Re:More choice

[siride]

No no no. You don't get it. The average computer user wouldn't be installing RPMs from the command line. They'd be using the graphical tool which does the right thing. Rather, the complaints are from the people savvy enough to use the command line, understand package managers, but who won't bother to do one ounce of research to realize that the yum command line tool is preferred (in other words, people [geeks] who honestly SHOULD know better -- I'm talking about the Linux afficionados who are convinced that RPM sucks). Grandma won't be using the command line. Grandma will click on an RPM link in Firefox and it will open with "Software Installer" and everything will work fine. Or she will go to Add/Remove Software and click on checkboxes. At no time will she have to touch the command line or use the RPM tool.

Re:More choice

[cheater512]

Compared to Portage (ignoring compiling), its seriously out of date.

Re:More choice

[siride]

Care to explain how? Have you ever actually made an RPM? I mean, opened up a specfile in an editor and made a piece of software to be packaged as an RPM? As someone who has, I can say that RPM is VERY full-featured. I suppose RPMs lack USE-flags, which is about the only thing I can think of that RPMs lack compared to Portage. But it's really easy to just download the source-RPM, edit the specfile and then rebuild it. Or, since it usually doesn't matter, just use the RPM as is. USE-flags often just bring in more complexity than benefit. And half the time, I end up having to recompile with new USE flags anyways because I realize that one USE flag I had disabled I actually ended up needing.

I'm a Gentoo user, BTW. Use Fedora and CentOS at work. Portage is frustrating. You can download a random RPM and have it work. You can't just download an ebuild and have it work.

Re:More choice

[KingSkippus]

Well, that's true, but I also think that part of the problem is people who create packages that don't understand how to use RPM. I can't tell you how many times I've seen installation instructions that include things like "use --force to bypass the version checking..."

Of course, then we get into how complicated RPM is for normal software developers to use. I mean, just because I write awesome nifty C++ code doesn't mean I'm an expert in RPM. (Nor should it, really.)

What we need is a way for installation configuration to be simplified both for end users and developers. I can't tell you how many times I've churned out some widget to do something and ended up spending more time tweaking installation packages than I did on writing the thing it was installing.

Re:More choice

[juhaz]

It wouldn't be particularly hard to implement something like "USE-flags" either, just have a convention for the macro name that all spec files look keywords from, and you could pass flags to rpmbuild with --define.

Re:More choice

[cheater512]

Your overly simplifying.

USE flags dont always simply match up to configure flags.

Re:More choice

[siride]

Yes, they don't. The problems are either that they don't use autotools, or they use some ass-backwards build/install system that doesn't allow for relocatable builds and configuring options. I found one package that required you to manually copy files and modify the system JRE to work! That's just ridiculous. If they used normal source packaging conventions, making an RPM would be a breeze. I made an RPM for a nicely autotooled package in a matter of minutes. And I'm not THAT experienced in RPM.

I think it's part of a larger problem that software developers often don't want to, or care to, do things the right way. And so they end up spending more time fighting with the system they are using than just taking 5 minutes to do some research. At my place of work, we have had a lot of hackery to force Java components to be of a certain size. This involved overriding setSize(), setBounds() and making hacks into layout managers. All of that could have been avoided by just using Java's layout management system as it is intended. We're in the process of undoing that mess now, fortunately.

But maybe I just care too much about the technology as a thing unto itself, instead of something I have to fight with for 8 hours a day so I can get a paycheck.

Re:More choice

[siride]

But he never said that they would have to with RPM either. All he said is that they could use --define on the rpmbuild command line to pass in information to the specfile, which is free to interpret that information however it wishes, including, but not limited to, modifying configure flags.

Re:More choice

[level_headed_midwest]

RPM dependency hell is generally caused by the manual installation of third-party RPMs. That used to be rather common a while ago when the official RPM repositories had something like 2000 packages while Debian and the DEB distributions had 20000 or so packages and largely skirted around this as you'd be much more likely to find what you needed in the repos rather than having to get it yourself. Now that the RPM repos have about as many packages as the DEB ones, the dependency issues are largely gone and it's very similar to use an RPM vs. a DEB distribution.

Re:More choice

[level_headed_midwest]

Installing the RPMs using rpmbuild and compile flags/options set requires that they be compiled before install. That would work, but doing that would pretty much defeat the advantages of using a binary distribution in the first place- speed of installation of packages. Alternatively, an option could be to have a few different options be able to be passed to the RPM installer and it would then pick one of a few compiled binaries to actually install, ignoring the rest. That would preserve the speed but lead to less choice than a real compile-your-own system and much bigger binaries than a one-size-fits-all method.

Re:More choice

[ChrisMaple]

It's not so much that Microsoft is doing things right, but a combination of things that make the Microsoft world easier for users.

In the Microsoft world, there are maybe 5 active OSs, or about 15 counting service packs as different OSs. Most Microsoft users have learned not to install free software because so much of it is malicious, so there's less variety. Most non-free software pretty much plays by the rules, doesn't change Microsoft-supplied DLLs, etc.. Most Microsoft users are less adventurous, so they haven't installed hundreds of programs. The net result is an environment that has a fair amount of predictability for the installation of a new program.

In the Linux world, there are many (>100?) distributions, each with many versions, more than 40 kernels (in 2.4 and 2.6, not counting sub-sub-versions, patches, and modules), libraries that need to be updated (sometimes breaking other programs), and inconsistent locations for binaries and libraries. Much software is free and non-malicious, so there's a lot more installed. Sometimes rpm is onerous, so programs are installed via tarballs, which rpm can't track. There's no overriding authority saying "this is how things must be done", and many writers wouldn't pay attention anyway. In short, the environment is much more diverse, so it's much harder to make installations "just work", and in many cases there's no-one paying a salary to make it so.

Re:More choice

[itlurksbeneath]

Because, of course, average computer users who just want to check e-mail, write a few letters now and then, and browse the web should be proficient at using a tool that, although created with the best of intentions, is still pretty onerous even to more experienced users in order to install and update software... Technically, the average computer user you mentioned above should just click on the "you've got updates" button when it says there's something new to download.

Re:More choice

[Phoobarnvaz]

that part of the problem is people who create packages that don't understand how to use RPM. I can't tell you how many times I've seen installation instructions that include things like "use --force to bypass the version checking..."

I may be missing something...but if PCLinuxOS is successfully using apt with their RPM-based Linux distro...wouldn't this be an option for this version of Red Hat?

Re:More choice

[teg]

Why would they? Yum is more capable then apt, already included. Apt doesn't work properly with 64 bit systems either, when done the Red Hat way: Colouring (which is very nice in some ways, and utterly messy in others...).

Re:More choice

[init100]

Fedora is still horrible -- this typed in Fedora7.

Horrible in what way? I use it on both my work laptop and my home desktop, and I can't see what you find so horrible. I like Fedora 7, and I think that it is a really nice operating system.

Re:More choice

[BokLM]

That would work, but doing that would pretty much defeat the advantages of using a binary distribution in the first place- speed of installation of packages.

No, you use already compiled packages for most of the things, and rebuild your packages only for those few packages where you want a different compile option.

Re:More choice

[BokLM]

Compared to DEB, RPM is a much superior format. The problem with RPM is not RPM itself but the idiots who try to use the rpm command-line tool like apt-get and then complain when it doesn't do what they expect it to do (because that's not what it's supposed to do). You are supposed to use "yum", which works just like apt-get. It even lets you install RPMs that you've already downloaded. E.g. "yum localinstall foo.rpm". It will even download dependencies for you! It's also really fast in fc6 and f7.

I agree. It's even possible to use apt-rpm. And on Mandriva we have urpmi, which is similar to yum ...

The only negative I can see is that there aren't as many packages available in the Fedora repositories. That's hardly a fault of RPM, though.

I there's more in the Mandriva repositories, which is using RPM too.

Re:More choice

[BokLM]

I may be missing something...but if PCLinuxOS is successfully using apt with their RPM-based Linux distro...wouldn't this be an option for this version of Red Hat?

That's totally irrelevant. When you're using packages that are not built for your distro, with wrong dependencies, it doesn't matter that you're using apt-rpm, yum or urpmi, it will fail the same.

Re:More choice

[BokLM]

Well, that's true, but I also think that part of the problem is people who create packages that don't understand how to use RPM. I can't tell you how many times I've seen installation instructions that include things like "use --force to bypass the version checking..."

That's because making a package that will work on many different distributions is not an easy thing to do at all. And unless you're making a proprietary software, you shouldn't even bother doing this. If you're making an open source software that is interesting, some people will quickly package it for you on most major distributions. You can do it yourself, but build the package on each distribution.

Re:More choice

[BokLM]

Do you think dpkg would work better for them ? No, it's the same.
He didn't say everybody should learn how to use rpm and yum, you don't need to do that for basic use, there are simple GUI for installing and removing packages. What he said is that there is no more rpm hell than there is a .deb hell, and people who say rpm sucks just don't know anything about rpm and yum/urpmi/apt-rpm.

Re:More choice

[jhol13]

The problem is that quite often the package to be installed depends on a new version of some library.

Updating the library ... it can vary from trivial (comes from the main repository) to practically impossible (ffmpeg or Gnome). For example Evince 0.8.0 is impossible to install in Fedora Core 6 because it need new version of some Gnome libs - and installing them would just be, well, impossible.

The DLL hell in Windows is (almost fully) gone. Dependency hell has gotten worse. I hope it is getting better as finally developers and distribution makers are fully acknowledging it.

Re:More choice

[BokLM]

No, dependency hell is not going to get any better soon. Use a newer distribution, or use a statically linked program, or an rpm built for your distribution. Mandriva has a backport repository, where new release for older distributions are built. But it is not possible to build everything, or too much work if it requires too much new libraries.

Re:More choice

[HuguesT]

Fedora7 comes with Firefox2 by default. It's actually possible to use acroread as well.

They better hurry

[dybdahl]

It seems Ubuntu is capturing all attention right now:

http://google.com/trends?q=suse%2Cfedora%2Cubuntu% 2Cgentoo%2Credhat&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Re:They better hurry

[__aajwxe560]

Of course it doesn't help with the Apple-like secrecy the company seems to be putting around the product (an attempt to try and drum up interest?). I work with their products everyday, and this is the first I have even heard of this. Their own web site only seems to have a single press release from back in May (http://www.redhat.com/about/news/prarchive/2007/g lobal_desktop.html). For an open source company, no alphas, no betas, no hints as to what sets it apart from their new Red Hat 5 Linux Desktop (http://www.redhat.com/rhel/desktop/)? I suspect it includes Mugshot and a few other consumer'ish goodies, but with so little info, who really knows.

Re:They better hurry

[nahdude812]

That's an interesting chart. Here is another interesting chart comparing Microsoft vs Ubuntu. I don't want to read too much into it, but there is a decided decline in Microsoft which is inverse to the rise of Ubuntu.

Re:They better hurry

[KwKSilver]

Ubuntu doesn't have the hammer-lock now that it did in January. PCLinux O/S and Sabayon have been pushing hard in Distrowatch rankings, for what its worth. Even more interesting is that plain old "boring" Debian is in the top 5 or 10 and has been for the last year. Perhaps stability counts? What a thought.

Mind you I'm not knocking any of them & have tried everything in the top 10 but Mandriva, OpenSuSE, and Fedora. All the ones I've tried have worked reasonably well to very well on my h/w. Somehow, I always end up sticking with or going back to Debian and FreeBSD (or derivatives thereof). Why? It's the range of software available. My 2 cents.

I'm not a business though, & if I were, I'd be looking for solid support.

Re:They better hurry

[ricegf]

This one's very interesting, too. Ubuntu has even overcome Suse in Germany. That's like the French suddenly preferring California wine. ;-) http://google.com/trends?q=suse%2Cfedora%2Cubuntu% 2Credhat%2Cgentoo&ctab=0&geo=DE&date=all&sort=2

Re:They better hurry

[zrq]

Interesting, but it depends on what they are searching for.

They could be searches for 'the latest Microsoft software', and 'the latest Ubuntu release'. In which case, more searches means an increase in interest, which is good for Ubuntu.

Or, they could be searching for 'how to fix Microsoft [component]' and 'how to get Ubuntu [component] to work' In which case, fewer searches means fewer problems, which is good for Microsoft.

Re:They better hurry

[apokryphos]

Fortunately Google trends means almost as much as distrowatch does for global Linux usage (a hit counter). In Germany things are not even remotely close in enterprises, universities etc -- SUSE is very clearly dominating, and by an incredible amount.

Re:They better hurry

[ricegf]

Ah, thanks for the insight. Suse is a solid technical product. Even though it's part of Novell now, a little home-grown pride is certainly warranted.

Re:They better hurry

[teebob21]

Unfortunately, while Ubuntu enjoys more attention than other distros, Linux interest overall is on the decline:

http://google.com/trends?q=suse%2Cfedora%2Cubuntu% 2Credhat%2Clinux&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Re:They better hurry

[kripkenstein]

Amazingly, not only is TFA very scarce on information, it misses the most critical issue. Here is the actual reason for the delay:

Red Hat confirmed on Aug. 3 that it would be delaying the release of the newest member of its desktop Linux family, Red Hat Global Desktop, because the company is seeking to provide certain multimedia codecs. Sources close to Red Hat said obtaining some of these codecs was dependent on Red Hat coming to an agreement with Microsoft.

In other words, Red Hat wants to legally include WMA codecs, and are in the midst of negotiations with Microsoft. Microsoft wants a general patent pact (like with Novell, Xandros) in order to license WMA; Red Hat just wants to pay Microsoft for WMA and nothing more. Yet not to license WMA may be tricky, anti-trust wise (or is Red Hat not agreeing to a general patent pact enough of an excuse? No idea).

If Red Hat gets a license for WMA, then it will be shipping a product very different than Ubuntu (for better or for worse, we can argue). But that is the point of the delay.

Re:They better hurry

[mrchaotica]

no alphas, no betas, no hints as to what sets it apart from their new Red Hat 5 Linux Desktop

Aside from different support options, why would RedHat want to waste effort making the software different anyway? It's all Free Software; the users could transform one version into another by messing with the package manager!

Re:They better hurry

[cciRRus]

I find this trend more worrying...

RedHat Panic

[Anonymous Coward]

This has "OMG Ubunutu is getting so much press, we need some of that action quick or they'll own the market!" panic written all over it.

Re:RedHat Panic

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. And it's sad in a way.

The diversity and chaos of the Linux scene is a great benefit for people who know how to deal with it, but a major obstacle to adoption for people who don't. With Ubuntu, it seems for the first time, a lot of factors are coming together that makes the choices a lot easier for the wanna be Linux user.
Instead of complicated discussion weighing the pros and cons of all the distros, the community has started to speak with a single voice. Just try Ubuntu. (I say it all the time, though I don't use it myself.)

This is good. It shields to noob from the chaos. When the noob has grown used to linux as such, the diversity will be there waiting to be exploited.

So, if it is as you say, that red hat maybe wants to get in on it before Ubuntu completely captures the noob-distro of choice position, it will hurt adoption rates (if they are successful anyway) because the difficult choices have resurfaced again.

Wake Us Up When...

[Anonymous Coward]

Redhat, when you actually sit down and do the real work to bring Linux up to the level of commercial desktops and not just another halfassed repackaging of your existing Linux distro people will actually give a damn.

Here you go Redhat:

http://www.fayerwayer.com/archivo/2005/03/tiger_sc reen.jpg

* Perfect desktop acceleration right out of the box with the user having to touch NOTHING to get it to work

* Application packages in /Applications or something similar

* Full drag and drop application installation and removal

* OS X level or font rendering support right out of the box

* IB equivalent complete with auto spacing and hints so developers can finally make Linux apps that aren't jarring to the eye

* Complete set of iApp replacements - same visual polish and features sets as Apple has - plug in a digital camera, it just works

* And the thousands of other things that make buying a commercial desktop worth the money

What's that Redhat? That would actually require work and lots of hard choices?

That's what we thought...

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[hey]

That would be good stuff to have but the typical office worker doesn't need all that.
Things like maintenance are more important in an office.

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[MrHanky]

Application folders and "drag and drop installation" won't work on Linux, as you can't know which libraries are installed on the computer, and in which version. Say you want to install the Kword 2.0 beta. This depends on the kdelibs 4.0 (beta) and the Koffice libs. With an app folder approach, the Kword 2.0 beta would have to package those libraries as well. And so would all the other apps depending on those libraries. Or, of course, they could all be one huge package with lots of stuff you don't need.

There is another approach, of course, which is that of Apple: You know mostly which libraries are installed on the system, since they are all part of the OS, but when there is an application depending on a newer version of the libraries, you have to pay Apple for a newer version of the whole OS as well. This is easy enough if you have a monopoly on that particular platform, but then you also have a proprietary platform. Red Hat doesn't have that privilege.

What you want is obviously a Mac. Then get a Mac.

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[ciroknight]

"Application folders and "drag and drop installation" won't work on Linux..."

I think what you meant to say was "that won't work across Linux OSes." It'd work perfectly fine for one distro, or one distro-family based on one common repository that is in lock-step for API/ABI compatibility. It'd work perfectly fine in the Ubuntu family of OSes, for example, but take that same package and try to install it on, let's say Red Hat, and it all goes out the window.

Believe it or not, we've already solved this problem with Package Management. Whether we dress up the package as a nice little icon, or we put its name in a list with hundreds of others, or allow you to install it through the command line just by knowing its name, it really doesn't make any difference at all. Synaptic could have just as easily worked by adding icons for each of the programs it allows to be installed, and letting you drag them over into some "Applications" folder, and have it in the background run all of the necessary steps to install that application. It doesn't really matter how you present it to the user, just as long as it's friendly and very easy to use.

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[Anonymous Coward]

how did this shit get modded informative?

Ever hear of static linkage? you can compile a binary *without* needing the libraries!!

Ever hear of dynamic linker paths?

you can have *different shared libraries* installed that work
together via some kind of start scripting

which is *not* beyond the capability of commercial vendors

because that is *actually* how mac apps work -

the .app is a self contained directory structure
with all the required shared libraries built in, not the dependancy on other system resources
as the author states.. usually mac os upgrades are a result of requiring a newer version of
system interfaces not provided in the previous version, not a result of third party dependancy
problems as you state..

sheesh.. FUD city!

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X level or font rendering support right out of the box

Well 1st I did go buy a nice Mac, and it is pretty cool, then I got Ubuntu Feisty Fawn running in a VM (VMware not Parallels). The fonts took a little work, but it is covered via searching the Ubuntu forums. IMHO my Ubuntu desktop and application font rendering looks much better than OSX now. Really! I'm not kidding. It doesn't meet the out of the box requirement, but it can be done.

There's lots of things in OSX that piss me off, and lots of things in linux that piss me off, and lots of things in XP that piss me off. None of this tech is perfect. I'm already freaking impressed at what linux and free software has accomplished! I'm thankful that I have a plan-b option, which allows me the ability to for free have a usable system that can do anything I want, browsing, multimedia, etc etc... and Eterm still rules so Apple can go suck the big one. Prettier desktop my ass. Hello enlightenment :-) I expect DR-17 will be at final release on April 1st 2008 eh?

I understand your bitching about linux though. I've had so much stress before learning to get something to work, and then an update breaks it, or another distro has a different way of doing stuff and introduces new problems. Seemed like sometimes i was constantly having to relearn and address basic issues like sound not working. Frustrating. After a while I was screaming "Just Fucking Work!" ... well I got a Mac, and paid dearly for it. and some things are great. But it's not perfect. and considering I paid a premium for "Just Fucking Work!" Maybe I can give Apple my list of complaints and they'll fix it?

If my Ubuntu desktop was a little bbit faster in the VM, I'd be using it as my main desktop again probably. They're both cool. And I spent years with Redhat, CentOS, RHEL, and Fedora. At least if I don't like something on linux, I'm self-empowered to take action and fix it. Apple takes your power away. One funny anecdote on Mail.app. I was sending emails to someone, all was good. Then I tried to send another one to the person and it failed. No idea why, it probably was the ISP or SMTP server having an issue, but mail.app? reveal the actual error message? tell me what's wrong? Oh hell no, not one-mouse-button Apple. It was as useful as "An error occured". WTF, I was pissed.

Anyways, I think Redhat has done a lot, and contributed a lot to linux in general. So it's been good, grateful to them too. I'd love to find a system with the customizability and hackability of linux, some of the easy of use and prettiness out of the box of the Mac, and the application support of Windows.

Ever since ever there have been platform wars and this and that is better and "I r00lz j00"... find what works for you. It's probably good we have diversity and different people value different things. I'm just pissed that I have to find my solution by using a little bit of each. Makes everything more complicated and resource intensive. But I do appreciate them all for what I perceive their strengths to be. Ultimately if I had too I could probably survive on linux only and a OLPC system. And it's sweet that that is even possible. It's a lot cheaper to get a cheap PC and toss free linux on it and have a totally functional system. I'm kinda of pissed that I paid a lot for my Mac and it's not perfect. But what yah gonna do? It will never be perfect and all these systems will always be a work in progress to some extent. For as cheap as a linux option can be. It's arguably superior to OSX in many areas including looks if you work on it. Though it depends on what your doing with your computer. And I still like my Mac. It really is sweet, but if I could do it over again, eh... is it *that* sweet? hmm maybe... but I think a lot of that is because Apple packages a pretty good display, much better than my old cheapo/el crapo LCD I left behind on my PC. That in itself was huge in my life...

Happy computing :)

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[MrHanky]

You're right re: app folders, of course, but only technically. There's also the social question of how this would be supported by the community. With my Kword 2.0 beta example, it wouldn't be worth it, since none of the libraries it depends on would be supported by the distro. That's also why such programs aren't distributed as app folders in OS X, and why the people who like the unixy side of OS X ported apt-get (fink) to it: it's much more practical for modular and interdependent programs.

That said, there could probably be done several things to make third party package installation more user friendly with Linux. I imagine you could make extensions to firefox and konqueror with a kind of pseudo-protocol that would open links called for instance aptget://something in a standard program that for instance could add the necessary lines to /etc/apt/sources.list (after letting you review a list of the packages the repository provides, with warnings for potential conflicts, and then typing your sudo password) and install the application in question. Since apt supports repository priorities, I believe this could even be done relatively securely. That would probably make things as friendly as could be for the user. Browsing the file system certainly isn't.

Installing the distro's packages in Ubuntu and the like is easy enough as it is.

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[level_headed_midwest]

There are self-contained application packages like the DMGs in OS X for Linux, it's called Klik.

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[MrHanky]

Well, yes, if you include stuff like installing the .NET framework in Windows. Although with Linux, there would be maybe half a dozen of those .NET frameworks.

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[CyberLord Seven]

I wish I had mod points today.

I have a Mac mini and I feel much the same as you. In the end I'm still running Win98 on an old box not connected to the internet, Fedora Core 6 on a more up to date box, and WinXP so my wife can run the same software she uses at work. Pick what works and run with it.

Another bone I have to pick with Apple is the rate at which they change. My Mac Mini uses the IBM chips. That means if my box dies, all the software I bought for it is dead too. Kinda sucks but that's the way it is in Apple land.

BTW, I like the Mac Mini. I'm just pointing out a draw back that I have found.

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

My Mac Mini uses the IBM chips. That means if my box dies, all the software I bought for it is dead too.

Intel Macs have PowerPC emulation (Rosetta, I think it's called) built in, so you can still use almost all your PowerPC software. Obviously the native x86 versions will run much faster, but the emulation isn't bad. I just went from an iBook to a MacBook; big PowerPC applications like Photoshop run at least as fast on the new machine as they did on the old. For the curious, the iBook had a 1.25 GHz G4 and 1.2 GB RAM, vs. a 2.16 GHz Core Duo and 2 GB RAM in the MacBook. So obviously the MacBook is a much more powerful machine -- but given that it is emulation, and how much of a processor and RAM hog Photoshop has always been, I'm impressed.

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[Frumious Wombat]

Actually, on OSX you just have to sniff the revision level, which tells you which libraries have been installed. If you need a newer version, you just specify needs (10.4.5 or later) or whatever, and there you go.

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[Synn]

* Perfect desktop acceleration right out of the box with the user having to touch NOTHING to get it to work

Acceleration works perfectly right out of the box on any pre-install Linux hardware purchase, which is what Apple does. Force you to purchase the OS pre-installed on their hardware.

* Application packages in /Applications or something similar

My Applications are under the Appliactions menu, thank you. I don't have to bring up a 3rd application(Finder) to get to them.

* Full drag and drop application installation and removal

Synaptic is much superior to that. If I want Open Office I don't have to go to the Open Office website, find the download area, find the right version, click to download, click again to install, and then from there on keep doing the same for updates.

It's run Synaptic, search for office apps, find the one I want and click install. It'll even check for updates from them on without me having to even run Synaptic or Open Office itself.

* OS X level or font rendering support right out of the box

My fonts look as good on my Linux PC as on my Mac.

* Complete set of iApp replacements - same visual polish and features sets as Apple has - plug in a digital camera, it just works

Plugging in my digital camera "just works" under Linux. Beryl looks better than anything Mac currently has and Linux has had virtual desktop support in it for ages. I don't have to download a 3rd part app for it.

* And the thousands of other things that make buying a commercial desktop worth the money

How about 28,000 free software packages available in my software installer?

What's that Redhat? That would actually require work and lots of hard choices?

I'm forced to use a Mac for work and I've found the user experience to be lacking, has less of the type software I use and is much less compatible with 3rd party hardware. It's an OS with all the vendor lockin of Windows, with none of the benefits of having the entire software/hardware market targeting it.

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[HuguesT]

Actually it's pretty close :

* Perfect desktop acceleration: In Fedora7, specify livna.org as a 3rd party reporsitory during install and choose which hardware you have: nvidia or ATI. For Intel it's already included.
* Applications in /Applications. /usr/bin is not good enough for you ?
* Full D&D. FYI it doesn't work in OS/X either. Try it with MS-Office and the Adobe Apps.
* OSX font rendering. Linux is pretty good now. When did you last try?
* IB equivalent: GNUStep or Kdevelop
* iApps : iTunes -> Amarok (complete with much nicer store) ; iWeb -> NVU (say); GarageBand -> RosenGarten ; iDVD/iMovies -> avidemux ; iPhoto -> gPhoto or digiKam (if you plug a camera it just works in Linux now)
* and the thousands of other things : Linux has more software for it than OS/X, including more games, top commercial titles too thanks to wine. Cider (wine for macs) is not there yet.

Finally RH is one of the top Linux kernel contributors right now, and they have sponsored many different pieces of software for Linux over the years; do your research.

I love my mac laptop but OSX is not magical. I'm constantly surprised at the level of improvement in Linux distros. I run Linux on all my desktops, and I've done so since 1995. FYI I've used macs since 1987 or so, and NeXTStep as well for many years.

Cheers.

CentOS

[dkleinsc]

And how long before CentOS creates a perfect replica thanks to the GPL?

Re:CentOS

[lordtoran]

These "clones" don't threaten Red Hat's business, because they don't come with these all-in-one support options that businesses love. Plus they have to contribute modified code back, so it's even a kind of win-win situation.

Re:CentOS

[spikeb]

you know, business has nothing at all to do with the global desktop, right?

Re:CentOS

[vbwilliams]

CentOS IS Red Hat. They share the same developers. When the devs at Red Hat are done with a release and put it out, a subset of those devs turn around and release the same updates in CentOS. So, your comment is kinda pointless. Companies who have really high-end people who don't mind deploying CentOS and doing all the update work themselves will use it. Those who don't have that luxury will deploy Red Hat. I've worked for both types of companies, and am an RHCE myself...been using Red Hat for over a decade. It's either to justify the cost of Red Hat updates when it's a fraction of the cost of Microsoft licensing over a 5 year period, and you don't have to really engage any RHCE's except during initial setup to deploy it. After that, you pay the money, get automatic updates deployed everywhere, and that's it.

Re:CentOS

[Pharmboy]

And how long before RedHat back pedals and screws us, like they did those of us who bought support contracts for RH9? Sorry, we have several servers with paid support that just got stranded, and then given the choice of paying 5 times more, or using Fedora, which isn't ready and had spotty support after a year.

No, I think not RedHat. I got to explain to the owner why you left me high and dry once. Never again. I will keep using CentOS because I was weened on RH, gladly paying for the box set of every major release since 4.x because I wanted to support FOSS and still do. I pay others when I need a second opinion, or just in over my head on a particular want/desire, but not RedHat.

This always hits a nerve with me, and thousands of us who were abandoned by RH the first go around. We were loyal small server users for many years, then was told to 'eat cake', and choke on Fedora we did.

Re:CentOS

[Zantetsuken]

First off - the entire point of CentOS is so people that want whatever stability RHEL offers but can at least touch CLI and use Google (and don't mind/prefer it that way) don't have to dish out an extra couple hundred bucks for support they don't want/need. Second, the point of CentOS isn't to "update" code in RHEL - its to provide the previously mentioned people with an exact copy of RHEL minus the Red Hat artwork (and maybe 1 or 2 other things stated by the Red Hat redistribution guide-lines). This means that if I'm running CentOS and some idiot package needs the certain parts of code or package names to be exactly the same as on RHEL, CentOS isn't making undocumented changes thats going to break my "Super Ultimate RHEL5 only" package installation...

As a side note, I prefer Debian...

Re:CentOS

[juhaz]

And how long before RedHat back pedals and screws us, like they did those of us who bought support contracts for RH9? The support schedule was announced long before RH9 was released. You knew exactly how long they were going to support it when you bought that contract, or if you didn't, it was only because you didn't bother to look. What the hell did you expect? That they send someone and force you to read through those papers at gunpoint?

I got to explain to the owner Which, I presume is the real reason for your venom. You fucked up, you got in trouble (as you damn well should), and you've wanted a scapegoat ever since. It's been four years now, and you still come out of the woodwork on every freaking RH article to bitch and moan and it's getting rather tiresome. It's time to admit to yourself that you screwed up and stop the goddamn whining.

Re:CentOS

[fat_mike]

These "clones" don't threaten Microsoft's or Apple's business, because they don't come with these all-in-one support options that businesses love.

Hahaha...Red Hat support...seriously, you're making me want to pee in my pants. Also, fixed your post.

Re:CentOS

[Pharmboy]

You are aware that "redhat sucks" has over 800,000 ghits alone, and there are more than a few people who think RH screwed their customers over a few years ago? I won't even go into what is incorrect about your statements, as you make too many assumptions to make sense.

Many of us love Linux but don't like RedHat.

All I want in a linux distro is...

[jonwil]

A linux distro where I can download an ISO and install from that ISO and get a version of ffmpeg and friend that doesn't have 90% of the media formats disabled.

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[siride]

Talk to the patent owners or the legal system, not the distros. They're just doing what they have to do.

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[BlueParrot]

A linux distro where I can download an ISO and install from that ISO and get a version of ffmpeg and friend that doesn't have 90% of the media formats disabled.

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn gets pretty much as close as is possible within legal limits. From the documentation:

Click Applications Add/Remove. In the top right, change the setting to All available applications. Then select Other in the left panel and then select the Ubuntu restricted extras package. Click OK.

This will install a whole lot of crap that is restricted by software patents (mp3 support etc ), or stuff that isn't completely free ( like Flash and Sun Java ). Unfortunately it isn't possible for the distros to have this installed by default because the US patent and copyright system is completely broken.

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[jez9999]

Unfortunately it isn't possible for the distros to have this installed by default because the US patent and copyright system is completely broken.

Couldn't they install it by default for non-US regional releases?

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[Remusti]

Freespire is the closest you're likely to find I think.

I've never used it because I've read reviews that mention it being stripped to become user-friendly, removing functionality in the process. Now they have signed a patent deal with M$ also, and I'm not sure if I like that. However, it legally contains a lot of proprietary codecs and drivers, and is working with the other patent-deal distros and Microsoft to create an open source odf-ooxml converter.

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[Vexorian]

*spire vs. ubuntu (The codec-wise! comparison)
Getting codecs to work on Linspire

• pay linspire (and thus pay microsoft),
• sign agreement not to (distribute, modify, fix) with MS,
• Join MS' linux users list,
• Notice that the patent deal does not really protect you from any lawsuit.
• Get sued by MS now that they know you use Linux and that you signed a deal that is very easy to break.

Getting codecs to work on Linspire

• Download ubuntu
• Burn the iso
• Install ubuntu
• Double click an mp3
• When it asks you to download restricter codecs click yes.
• Input your password so it can install stuff
• Listen to the MP3
• *notice it is the same process for video formats and the such

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[Remusti]

Err.. I did say Freespire, hence no paying of anyone. Also, I did mention that I'm not comfortable with the patent deal they signed. I think it's a flawed comparison though, there's a few codecs (DVD's etc) that don't work on 'buntu or at least didn't last time I used it, and automatix needed some serious work, I had issues using it...

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[tepples]

Unfortunately it isn't possible for the distros to have this installed by default because the US patent and copyright system is completely broken. Couldn't they install it by default for non-US regional releases? Not until the vast majority of computers are sold with a GPS receiver so that the computer can know on whose soil (and thus under whose jurisdiction) it is operating.

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[MostAwesomeDude]

I know I'm being pedantic, but Gentoo's patch-on-the-fly system and friendliness towards ebuilds of questionable legality does technically allow you to install an uncrippled VLC or FFMpeg or mplayer or LAME at any time. Just set "dvd ffmpeg mp3 lame" in your USE flags and your system will build libdvdcss into VLC and liblame into FFMpeg.

Of course, Gentoo is a very complex, advanced system, but for those who know what they're doing, it's a pleasant alternative to sitting on a Debian or Fedora box and searching third-party repos for uncrippled packages.

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[init100]

Sure, but if you were the distributor, would you want to paint a bullseye on your distro with the text "Sue me!" below? They don't want to invite lawsuits, since they cost a lot of money, which could be spent on development instead, so they distribute without the questionable (patent-wise) codecs.

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[12357bd]

The Ubuntu installation dosn't have a localization option???

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[BokLM]

Then you can install a Mandriva, and use the external packages repositories from PLF (you can use easyurpmi for that).
Those people provide packages that Mandriva does not want to provide because of legal concerns. Note that they don't provide illegal packages, only packages that could be illegal in some countries (because of patents and things like that), which Mandriva can't do, because they distribute their product worldwide.

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[nurb432]

Try an net install of Freebsd. Sure its not coming off the same disk, but it 'feels' like it.

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[Ox0065]

What patent? patent on software? Legal system? Yeahup, international law? or your country's almost unique distortion thereof?

My country follows international conventions on patent law. Patent law designed to discourage trade secrets & guilds. In countries where politicians aren't preselected by corporations, these things aren't an issue... ...SO why can't I get a distro that complies with international law and has licensed, copyright(left)ed codec implementations?

Oh wait, I did. Try Gentoo. The point is, why can't your distribution have RoW (Rest of World) and GBA (God Bless America) builds of code where some American thinks they own the idea behind the words of the code.

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[Ayanami Rei]

It certainly takes less time to install the repo RPM, download the packages and install them than for mplayer to rebuild.

I don't see how you can compare the two.

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[MostAwesomeDude]

At risk of being too pedantic, mplayer is a poor example since many features like full WMP9 video decoding and SSA subtitles are not present in Debian and Fedora builds. Also, nice username.

Oh, so NOW they're going to be entering the market

[Bandman]

I wonder what the last 8 years have been?

Not necessarily

[KingSkippus]

This isn't necessarily true.

As an extreme example, look at all the choices in Microsoft's lineup. I've said it before on here, but as "the computer guy" that my friends and family turn to for advice, I wanted to kill them when they had out two versions named Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition. Sure, I know the difference, but I'm paid good money to know these things. I had friends who were actually considering "upgrading" from Windows 2000 to Windows ME until I told them what a hideous idea that was.

I'm all for choices for the educated public and competition to keep the desktop Linux market on their toes, but for typical non-gurus, I'm really hoping that one distribution makes it as the clear desktop distribution leader.

(And personally, I hope and think that it will be Ubuntu. It's a lot more intuitive to use than RedHat, IMHO, and I have a lot of respect for Mark Shuttleworth.)

Re:Not necessarily

[init100]

I hope and think that it will be Ubuntu. It's a lot more intuitive to use than RedHat

Ubuntu, a lot more intuitive? Did you even try any recent Red Hat system, especially Fedora 7? It is very similar to what I have seen and read about Ubuntu 7.04, so I don't know what is so much intuitive about Ubuntu.

The irony

[sarathmenon]

Alan Cox and the other big shots at Redhat have in the past repeatedly said that they will not add support for mp3, or any other patended technology into Redhat. It all started with 8.0, and RH's policy has been AFAIK to tell the user that so-and-so will never be supported until the patent expires. Its sad to see such a good ideaology been tossed aside because of market pressure.

Whatever, I am not one to complain, but given the way Bluecurve was thrust upon users, and the way that they crippled kde so that gnome looks better (I dont want to start a holy flame war, but this *was* the state of things 5-6 years ago), I doubt whether they will make any serious dent in the market. But this is free software, the more people focussing on an area usually only brings the better - atleast its going to be code that others can use too.

Re:The irony

[westlake]

Its sad to see such a good ideology been tossed aside because of market pressure.

Explain to me again how the bazaar [the marketplace, market values] came to symbolize Linux and the cathedral [political correctness, ideological purity] Windows.

Re:The irony

[sarathmenon]

the way that they crippled kde so that gnome looks better (I dont want to start a holy flame war, but this *was* the state of things 5-6 years ago),

No it wasn't. It was a complaint made by many who never used it.

It's not true, and never was true.

And I've been using KDE with Redhat (and now Fedora) since '99 I'll bite on that one. Please explain then why this site came up, and why it had an active user and devel base. Fedora when it was at core 1 or 2 realized the mistake redhat was doing by crippling kde, and they started including the default packages with less modifications. In case you wanted a list of stuff that were removed out - they were xine-lib support for kde-libs, arts threading, a lot of the standard applications, custom modifying a few kde headers (this caused problems for me while trying to compile kbear 2.0 at that time).

I remember all of this because I was a redhat fan since 6.0. But RH 8.0 drove me too crazy within the first month that I switched to mdk9. It may have worked for you, and I am not nitpicking you as a user. But there were a large number of users like me who were frustrated, a lot of them swicthed distros, some of them started using the unsupported packages from kde-redhat. The fact that there were a lot of discontented users atleast shows that there was a problem somewhere.

Beyond the average user

[HangingChad]

The release is being delayed in order to provide greater media compatibility

As much as I like Ubuntu, getting some of the media types working was a royal pain. The average user would have difficulty and they certainly don't understand the legal reasons for the exclusion.

Proprietary file formats are from the devil.

Re:Beyond the average user

[Constantine XVI]

Don't know if you've used 7.04 (Feisty) yet, but they've made codec installation as simple as:
1) Attempt to play file
2) codec-buddy pops up and tells you what you need to install
3) Press OK, read applicable legal crap
4) Type in your password to install the software
5) Go!

Re:Beyond the average user

[jez9999]

Old "switch to Linux" line: Stability, malware, open source
New "switch to Linux" line: "Ooh, spinning cube!"

Old "upgrade Windows" line: Best, most reliable Windows yet.
New "upgrade Windows" line: Translucent windows!!!

Re:Beyond the average user

[jZnat]

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?

Too Little Too Late

[SpzToid]

Red Hat wants money for everything. This is fundamentally different than Ubuntu, which truly gives you the software to use.

I wonder how long it takes until Red Hat earns a support tier to match stuff like Automatix, which does a nice job of installing commercial software easily, such as Hamachi, Eclipse, DVD & MP3 codecs, etc.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[wild_berry]

Automatix may look nice on the surface but it is not integrated at all well with the .deb policy or the apt package management framework. Ubuntu's Matthew Garrett has recently completed an analysis of Automatix and has severe criticisms of its methods and end results. It seems to me to be a good way to ensure you need a reinstall.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[nahdude812]

Automatix is a good attempt, and I'm sure for some users it's a real godsend, but for me it royally screwed some things up. I'll admit I'm not your average user, I have been known to go download newer .deb's of files from the web and the like (a few very active projects the distro just can't keep up with, and I love active projects). For example, I couldn't figure out for the longest time why one of my drivers would just never load unless I manually loaded it. It turns out that it had been blacklisted. Not in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, but in some other /etc file (whose name I now forget, but doesn't contain the word "blacklist"). Each time I rebooted, the driver file was physically missing from the disk, and I had to uninstall and reinstall linux-restricted-modules-`uname -r` in order to get the file back (even an apt-get install --reinstall wasn't sufficient, had to be apt-get remove, apt-get install).

After MUCH unsuccessful googling, I decided to see if there was some script which was doing this to me, and I "grep -R drivername /", causing me to discover that file in /etc which said something like:
# drivername automatically blacklisted by automatix
blacklist=drivername

There were a couple of other weird things, and that box just never quite got right again until I reinstalled from scratch (which is why you want to have /home on its own partition! Makes it very easy to do a fresh install and keep everything important!)

It's the unfortunate consequence of programs that try to do too much thinking for you, but which are attached on after the fact.

I think it'd be great if a distribution could present all of the standard legal disclaimers as a list during the install process so that you can one-click OK them all and the system could just start at a standard state. It would be fantastic if you could just have a fully functional system after the install is complete so that you can pass it off to your grandmother ready to go. Those scary legal disclaimers after the fact are confusing and look like errors to people who don't know much about technology.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[delire]

Note: You no longer need whiz-bang-boom scripts like Automatix to install the proprietary codecs easily in Ubuntu.

Since Ubuntu 7.04 you simply click on a media file and if you don't have the necessary codecs Ubuntu will download and install it for you. You merely need to click a button. Short of having them onboard already (not that Windows or OS/X do) it couldn't be easier.

The only pitfalls are that you need to be online at the time and that in America it's not entirely legal to redistribute some of these codecs ... to a Linux system or otherwise. Perhaps Canonical will arrange for some client-side interface between the non-free repos and PayPal. This may resolve the problem for those people that live in America and feel they need playback support for this sort of content.

Re:Too Little Too Late

[SpzToid]

Wow! That informative article you linked to is an eye opener, and I suggest folks keeping score at home read it too. Honestly I had no idea, but now I do.

Thank you very much! Earlier, I liked how both Ubuntu *and* Debian were supported by Automatix, but after reading that article, I don't want Automatix anywhere near some particular Debian laptop workstations!

Uh oh

[DogDude]

This isn't a good sign. They just got finished dumping their desktop version, and now they're making another one? Sounds like their management is starting to flounder. Either they're a desktop software company, or they're not. They've already left the market, and only a few years later, they're re-inventing the wheel to get back in? That's crazy. It reminds me of Sun "The network is the computer. No it's not." Microsystems.

Re:Uh oh

[swillden]

They've already left the market, and only a few years later, they're re-inventing the wheel to get back in? That's crazy

I disagree. The market for desktop Linux has changed dramatically in those few years, in several ways. First, the desktop tools have continued to improve, both in terms of the desktop environments and in the quality and selection of desktop applications available. Second, hardware compatibility is much better, and with Dell beginning to push hardware vendors to provide good drivers promises to continue improving even faster. Third, Ubuntu has proven that there is money to be made in desktop Linux now (not that Canonical is profitable, but it does have significant revenues).

I suspect there's probably a fourth reason as well -- I'll bet some of Red Hat's corporate customers have started asking for a Red Hat desktop, because they want to deploy Linux on the desktop, but only want to have to manage one Linux platform. Red Hat decided a few years ago that there was no market for desktop Linux, and now there is.

Sure, I think it would have been nice if Red Hat had shown a little more dedication, staying in the desktop market while it matured into viability. But from a pure, hardheaded business perspective, they probably made the right moves. They stopped spending money on it when there wasn't a market, and now they're jumping back in just before Ubuntu gets too much traction on the corporate desktop.

Re:Uh oh

[vbwilliams]

Why have people marked this Insightful? It's pretty obvious this person hasn't use an official Red Hat product in some time. They have NOT dumped their desktop product. In fact, they have a fully-supported Server and Workstation product already...they've had it and been supporting it for over 2 years...they've NEVER gotten rid of it.

They have an "Advanced Platform"...targeted at high-end database systems with more than 8 cpu's. They have Server platform targeted at machines with 2 to 8 cpu's. They have workstation platform targeted at, you guessed it, business workstations.

If I were to make a guess, I'd say their desktop offering will be targeted at businesses who don't want to deploy the workstation version, but still want the Microsoft-office-like experience...web browsing, email, excel spreadsheets, and who likewise want the OS BUNDLED with a new Dell desktop or something. The article states they are targeting smalls businesses in underdeveloped countries or whatever...I don't buy that. Businesses develop products to make money. I don't think Red Hat is just going to sell this to Mexico.

Re:Uh oh

[Edgester]

Redhat didn't dump their desktop distro. They had Redhat 4 Desktop and Redhat 5 Client already. These are targetted towards businesses. Aside from fedora, the distro has never really been targetted at home users, but hobbyists and businesses instead. Besides, getting legal media codecs on Linux is great thing. I wish the codecs weren't patent-encumbered, but getting legal codecs is still a good thing.

Re:Uh oh

[DogDude]

I think you're right. The thing is that Red Hat customers have go to be scratching their heads at this point... is Red Hat going to continue supporting a desktop platform, or are they going to ditch it abruptly (again)? I think it shows a lack of foresight and planning on Red Hat's part, and it shows them to be a reactionary company. That doesn't exactly instill confidence in customers. My point is that I think that their management doesn't have a very clear vision or direction for their company. I certainly don't have enough confidence that their management knows what's going on to invest in them. They remind me of Sun, Netscape, Novell, and all of the other companies that react to the trends of the day, instead of creating their own trends, and being confident in their own decisions.

Re:Uh oh

[swillden]

Support costs were too high, they said. OK but what has changed since then?

Linux has matured significantly since then, and hardware manufacturers have begun to take Linux seriously. The biggest problem with supporting Linux desktops, historically, was getting all of the hardware to work. This is much less of a problem both because the state of Linux drivers is better and because the tools to automatically detect and configure the hardware has improved dramatically.

Support costs are still going to be high, and the more units they sell (let's say with Dell's help), the higher they'll be.

No, the more units they sell, the lower support costs will be on a per-unit basis.

Re:Uh oh

[swillden]

The thing is that Red Hat customers have go to be scratching their heads at this point... is Red Hat going to continue supporting a desktop platform, or are they going to ditch it abruptly (again)?

First of all, I don't think most corporate CIOs who will be making a decision about which desktop Linux to deploy in 2008 will have any knowledge of Red Hat's decision to "ditch" the desktop.

Not only that, I don't think there's any significant possibility that Red Hat will decide to ditch it again, because we're unlikely to hit another period of time in which it's unprofitable. Early on, the boxed Linux distro was profitable because the market was primarily hobbyists, and it doesn't cost much to support them. As the market grew, the demographics changed and the support costs went way up. Now, further growth in popularity is pushing Linux to the point where hardware vendors are beginning to care about the platform and potential volumes are high enough to make per-unit support costs reasonable. As popularity continues to grow, that equation will get steadily better, not worse, so there's no reason to expect Red Hat to drop desktop support again.

I think it shows a lack of foresight and planning on Red Hat's part, and it shows them to be a reactionary company.

I disagree. I think it shows them to be a profit-driven company -- which is good if they want to stay in business. Had Red Hat claimed that Linux on the desktop would never be profitable, that would have indicated lack of foresight. Had Red Hat waited another year or two for Canonical to become profitable and get firmly entrenched on the corporate desktop, that would have indicated lack of foresight. It's not generally very good business to develop and sell something whose market is still a few years away. Ask NeXT corp., for example. Steve Jobs and his engineering team showed amazing foresight back in the late 80's/early 90's, but it wasn't good business.

I think Red Hat's timing is pretty good here, actually. They're getting back in the desktop game early enough that by the time most corporations start to look for a desktop Linux, Red Hat will have a good product ready.

Re:Uh oh

[MojoStan]

Why have people marked this Insightful? It's pretty obvious this person hasn't use an official Red Hat product in some time. They have NOT dumped their desktop product. In fact, they have a fully-supported Server and Workstation product already... I'm guessing it's because people don't consider Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to be a "desktop" product. I don't blame them, because RHEL calls itself an "enterprise" product and uses the word "subscription" in all of its pricing options. Also, more importantly, Red Hat used to offer a product called "Red Hat Linux" (RHL). Version 9 of RHL was released on March 31, 2003. On November 3, 2003, Red Hat announced that they were EOLing RHL 9 on April 30, 2004 and were "not planning to release to release another product in the Red Hat Linux line." In other words, Red Hat "dumped their desktop product." This was covered on Slashdot.

I think it's obvious that the "Insightful" comment was referring to RHL, not RHEL. I'm pretty darned sure the moderators know about both RHL and RHEL, but are only calling RHL the "desktop" product for the purposes of this thread. I don't think this is a good time to argue about the difference between "desktops" and "workstations." Or "enterprise products," "small business products," and "home products."

Excellent News

[ratboy666]

This will be accepted as a "tier 1" supported platform by ATI, nVidia, and other "binary only" vendors immediately.

Basing on Redhat/Fedora/RHEL means a lot of stabilty. Having "legal" video support in a different branch means that Fedora can pursue the free software goal without being distracted by critics calling for non-free features. "Fedora sucks - it doesn't do MP3 and DVD out of the box" goes away (hopefully). The answer becomes "If you want non-free, go Global".

I hate the name, though. Indeed, Global will be a competitor to Ubuntu, but I would much rather have a "hat" name. From the summary, I would recommend Tilley.

Re:Excellent News

[ScrewMaster]

Well, here are some possible alternates:

Bonnet Linux
Hood Linux
Cap Linux
Balmoral Linux
Nightcap Linux
Yamulke Linux
Beaver Linux (Slashdot favorite)
Deerstalker Linux
Porkpie Linux
Tophat Linux
Beret Linux
Bowler Linux
Derby Linux
Headgear Linux
Cummerbund Linux
Beanie Linux
Homburg Linux
Pointy Linux
Slouchhat Linux
Trilby Linux
Bandana Linux
Visor Linux
Skullcap Linux
Space Helmet Linux
Gas Mask Linux
Beehive Linux
Newport Linux
Helmet Linux
Tricorne Linux
Hardhat Linux

Re:Excellent News

[6031769]

I hate to be the one to have to tell you, but that is not where your cummerbund should be.

Page 2 of the article is so lame

[tiananmen tank man]

It contains 1 sentence from the story and a big page of other stuff.

Aunt Tilley is not the target audience

[ryder]

FTFA:
"Red Hat Global Desktop Linux is targeted for sale in developing countries where government agencies and small businesses cannot afford to pay for Microsoft's Windows operating system."

Deja Vu

[spiritraveller]

I seem to recall Red Hat already being in the desktop market at one point.

Didn't they basically throw it away already?

Isn't the reason why Ubuntu was able to take the lead was because Red Hat left a huge gaping hole in the category of "Most Popular Desktop Linux Distro?"

Re:Deja Vu

[BCW2]

Threw it away after RH9 and put most of it in Fedora. It always seemed that Fedora was lacking some things to me. Maybe this is a step back in a way but it should be a good thing.

Re:Deja Vu

[Etyenne]

The reasons Ubuntu came to dominate the market is multi-folds.

First, they pionneered three keys Linux distributions improvements: single ISO installer, clean desktop and LiveCD.

People seem to have forgotten that, but back when Ubuntu 4.10 came out, you needed to download *5* ISO to install Fedora (I think you could have gotten away with three if you did the minimal install, but whatever). This was an absolutely horrible experience for Linux first-timer and an important barrier to adoption.

You also have to remember that the Linux desktop in 2004 was quite busy and not very sleek. And quite frankly, Fedora default theme back then was quite ugly (the Gnome/KDE unified theme, cannot remember the name). In contrast, Ubuntu was quite slick, as long as you liked brown. The Gnome-only policy also made it look very well-integrated, and the menus where clear and concise. It was the most Mac-like distro back then.

As for LiveCD, it was really pionneered by Gentoo (credit where due), but I think combined with the two advantages above, significantly contributed to lower the bar for Ubuntu newcomers.

There are other non-obvious reasons why Ubuntu came to dominate the Linux desktop. First and foremost was (and still is) community advocacy. This can be explained by three reasons: a genuinely open development community, a charismatic leader and ShipIt.

The Ubuntu community is, as far as I know, the only Open-Source community that actively try to recruit non-developers and give them the same status as core devs. This made a lot of advocates flock to Ubuntu, as they felt respected and welcomed, where their contribution are considered minor at best (and often seen as distracting or annoying) in other distro's community. These advocate started Local Community Team, got peoples involved in translation and documentation, etc. Democratic and civil community governance mechanisms (the Community Council and the Code of Conduct, among others) kept them under the fold of the community. AFAIK, Ubuntu have been the best and most successful community-building experience in Open-Source.

Leadership is also an important facet of Ubuntu success. Who is the leader of Fedora, or OpenSuse, or Gentoo ? Nobody know outside of their community. A charismatic spokeperson who can make headlines is very useful in spreading the word. And, in Open-Source, a clear leadership is vastly better than a purely democratic and collegial form of governance, which tend to lose focus or spend too much time in unproductive flamewars (witness: Debian). Ubuntu stuck just the right balance of benevolent dictatorship and community governance.

The importance of ShipIt in Ubuntu is fairly obvious. It got Ubuntu in the hands of people who could not have it otherwise. Plus, it's easier to have someone give a spin to Linux if you hand them a nice, professionally made CD with a cool jacket than if you hand them a CD-R with "Fedora CD 1 of 5" scribbled to it. It must have costed Shuttleworth is metric truckload of money to support ShipIt so far, but it bought him the dominant poistion in the market.

There are more reasons why Ubuntu kicked the ass of others Linux distros in the market, but this post is already long enough.

Re:Deja Vu

[tarogue]

As for LiveCD, it was really pionneered by Gentoo

Um, no? LiveCDs were available long before Gentoo existed. Back in "the day" most major distros had live cds. According to Wikipedia, "The first GNU/Linux-based LiveCD was Yggdrasil Linux (went out of production in 1995)"

My first experience with a live cd was mandrake. (Remember them?)

(credit where due)

YALD

[wwmedia]

we dont need Yet Another Linux Distro, there are plenty already! we need them developers join a bigger project like Ubuntu and Suse and not reinvent the wheel over and over

Re:YALD

[IBBoard]

I don't know if this is YALD as much as ALDR (Another Linux Distro Returns). Guess it depends whether you see Fedora/Fedora Core as the continuation of the old Redhat and this as a new distro, or whether RHEL was the end of Redhat desktop and this is a 'reinvention' of the original Redhat that has just been hibernating.

Re:YALD

[kjart]

Something tells me that Red Hat isn't going to suddenly start working on Ubuntu and/or Suse.

Er.. Red Hat Enterprise Desktop with multimedia?

[Iloinen Lohikrme]

What is the news here? Red Hat is in the desktop market already, thought their offering is more geared or at least branded for the enterprise use: Red Hat Enteprise Linux 5 Desktop. It seems that they are just going to brand their Enterprise Desktop, add some multimedia and maybe a new colorful GNOME theme and call it Global Desktop Linux. Whoah!

The real news in here I would say is that Red Hat is gearing towards other than corporate customers. The question is, is this a defensive maneuver against Canonical or does Red Hat see that the consumer desktop linux market could be opening up? Or is it both? Could be both.

The second question, if they are not doing this purely for playing defense, is how serious they are? Are they so serious that they will maybe make a new multimedia player for Linux, or will they bundle in example iTunes or Real with it, or are they just going to hack up the usual suspects. I really would hope that they have something new to offer, as basically the situation is that multimedia support works but is not plea sent. Peasent here means the same as user experience with iTunes and in less extend Windows Media is.

"LTS" is Long Term Support.

[khasim]

It's from Ubuntu.

You can pay for per-incident support from Canonical. Or you can purchase a support contract from them.

Either way, it's as good as what Red Hat is offering ... or better. And it's already established. And it's a very popular desktop distribution.

Re:"LTS" is Long Term Support.

[mrcparker]

I have used RHN in the past to manage a large group of servers and if the desktop support is anything like it, this will be a big win for Redhat IMHO.

Re:"LTS" is Long Term Support.

[pravuil]

Ubuntu is based overseas, while Red Hat is an American company. While it doesn't matter much to me, how this company will be able to serve my needs is another question. Having to go through a third party for paid support is somewhat risky (list of affiliates). Having to have someone fix my problems through email correspondence is lame. With Red Hat at least I know who I'm talking to and I know that they have a complete list of any issues over the duration of my contract with them.

Red Hat has a solid desktop as it is, much more stable than Ubuntu especially if you know how to configure it right. The majority of the installations I have done over the years have been a Red Hat project because of its stability.

Secondly, Ubuntu's support is expensive even for Microsoft standards. RHEL has plans that range from 80 USD (Basic Desktop) to 2,500 USD (Premium Server). It's much more competitive than the Microsoft range of products especially for businesses. Commercial support for Ubuntu starts at 250 USD per year all the way up to 4,000 USD (pricing list). Even for basic 9x5 support, Red Hat is substantially better priced than Ubuntu.

To say to a business owner that they have to receive support from someone they will never see who will never give them a guarantee to make sure the product works is just stupid. "As Is" is a horrible business model especially for businesses that can't afford to take risks. Like another post said, businesses like accountability especially when something goes wrong. If the support in which they had paid for fixes the problem then there isn't a problem and there is less litigation overall. I'm glad that they are focusing on a competitive product especially in the form of a desktop distribution. It's good to hear that someone within the Linux community is starting to do something with legalizing certain video formats. For a community to depend on software from Microsoft in order to run various types of media is weird. For a community that tries to spend so much time trying to make alternative ways in doing the same thing as other operating systems it kind of makes me indifferent that they haven't done this already. All in all, it shows that someone is going in the right direction by taking an initiative to fix the problem.

Last but not least, Red Hat has been established long before Ubuntu ever gained popularity. Ubuntu gained popularity around the 5.10 release and even then it was buggy. Red Hat has been around for years and has always maintained a consistent amount of popularity throughout that time. They are a good business but if you like to have a system in which you can do what you what, experiment with the latest software, my suggestion would be to compile Linux from source. If you don't want to do that then Ubuntu would be a decent alternative especially for college students and other people who can't necessarily afford the money but can afford the time. All in all, there is the business perspective as opposed to the personal perspective and they are two very different things. You can't assume that you can make a product that covers both sides that makes everyone happy. As long as there are reasonable alternatives then it helps cover a variety of concerns for a varying range of people.

"LTS" is Linux Terminal Server

[Colin Smith]

HTH.

Hope This Helps.

Re:"LTS" is Linux Terminal Server

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never heard of Linux Terminal Server, but Ubuntu definitely uses "LTS" to mean "Long Term Support." From their site, "The 'LTS' version of Ubuntu receives long-term support. 3 years for desktop versions and 5 years for server versions."

Re:"LTS" is Linux Terminal Server

[Lumpy]

Linux terminal server...

http://www.ltsp.org/ the core project.
http://www.k12ltsp.org/ a turnkey setup for schools just add crappy old throw away PC's and you have instant terminals for that one fast server.
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/linux _terminal_server TCO breakdown and executive overview of the above.

Implimenting a Linux terminal server environment is 90000% easier than citrix or windows, and is far FAR more stable. Many schools and business use such a setup. Autozone uses Linux terminal server in every store.

Re:"LTS" is Linux Terminal Server

[Lumpy]

Yes yes I have I managed a citrix farm of 5 servers for 4 years. I set it up I managed it daily I even set up the replacement upgraded servers before I left. Citrix server failovers rarely work right and a host of other problems that cause pain and misery. The windows terminal servers suck WAY more than citrix in every way. When I helped set up 15 LTS servers for 3 schools I could not believe how incredibly easy it was. I went over it for 2 more days wanting to know if we missed anything, we didn't. they are that easy. Almost every single Linux app is written for server use and multi-user. Almost NO windows apps are written that way and cause hell and heartache under a citrix setup.

Citrix SUCKS compared to LTS hands down.

Re:"LTS" is Linux Terminal Server

[gerrysteele]

Citrix is indeed pretty good if you have to use it... but then again it is incredibly expensive. Xorg comes pretty cheap with all that functionality and ten times more.

Only 1 year of security updates?

[davidwr]

But Microsoft gives you 5!!!! 10 or more for business versions.

Seriously, if you are going to compete in the desktop market, you need to provide security updates at no cost for the "normal" useful life of the product, and then some. Without security updates, your product can easily become a hazard to the entire Internet. If it weren't for lack of security updates, many people would still be running Windows 2000 or Windows NT. In fact, many people are running them in isolation.

Non-security updates are another matter. There's nothing wrong with charging for those.

Re:Only 1 year of security updates?

[BokLM]

But Microsoft gives you 5!!!! 10 or more for business versions.

They didn't give a price yet. They give 1 year of support, that doesn't mean they don't give more if you pay more (while still being cheaper than MS for 5 years).

pfft

[spikeb]

Red Hat doesn't have the balls or brains to make much of a difference on the desktop. They don't have the balls to do it in developed countries, and they don't have the brains to get it right (they haven't come close to getting the desktop right yet, and the same people are in charge).

Ubuntu is getting more attention than even God!

[baboonlogic]

http://google.com/trends?q=God%2C+Ubuntu&ctab=0&ge o=all&date=all&sort=0

google confirms it!

Re:Ubuntu is getting more attention than even God!

[talksinmaths]

Based on the fact that your user name is baboonlogic, your comment deserves "+6 Funny".

keywords

[Danzigism]

"Red Hat Global Desktop would be sold"

welp you've already lost one customer ;-D

More expensive for Aunt Tillie

[phoebe]

Dell's Ubuntu laptop deal showed that Microsoft Vista at $50 (according to engadget), but Red Hat's Enterprise desktop varies from $80 to $339 which isn't exactly cheaper for Aunt Tillie. Note that Canonical support is cheaper for 9x5 ($250) but they also offer 24x7 support ($900).

But is Red Hat trying to follow in Microsoft's steps confusing users with 4 desktop package options? Although Canonical is catching up with Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Gobuntu, Ubuntu Studio, and Ubuntu Media Center.

Re:More expensive for Aunt Tillie

[smash]

You're comparing the microsoft "OEM Dumping" price to the retail price of redhat.

You can bet your ass that if Dell would ship it, redhat would give them the license to distribute redhat virtually for free...

Flash on x86_64

[Dani Filth]

Fedora is dead, long live RedHat. I'm a Kubuntu fan, RedHat dicks around with KDE too much. Anyway, welcome back RedHat, use your power for good and help Adobe get Flash working on x86_64 platforms.

Re:Flash on x86_64

[Tatsh]

on firefox, nspluginwrapper and regular flash x86 plugin are your friends. Or does Kubuntu not have its own build of that? That would be because Ubuntu sucks and is bloated to the highest degree possible.

Re:Flash on x86_64

[Dani Filth]

I run firefox32 on my AMD64, flash and friends work fine in Kubuntu.

Re:Flash on x86_64

[Tatsh]

Then what are you complaining about? I think Adobe realises in the future that they might have to port x86-64 but for the time being x86-64 runs 32-bit apps perfectly even in 64-bit mode, and of course, most of the computers out there are running in x86 mode even if they support x86-64 (Plenty of AMD and Intel processors out there sold still running Windows (or Mac OS X) in 32-bit mode). There's 32-bit support in Windows x86-64 and in Linux x86-64 and Mac still has yet to make a 64-bit version. It's clear how Adobe would see no reason to port Flash to x86-64 yet (and as for PPC they already made that; it must be modular code by now).

What we need is Gnash to go forward in providing x86-64 (and other architectures) support for all versions of Flash. :) Hopefully with that will come free creation software too, even though I kind of do not like Flash because it requires a plugin to view, when I think the web should be accessible to all, and all Flash seems to do is make web designers work twice as hard trying to make a "flashy" (no pun intended) website and then later make a crummy non-Flash version (but at least that's compatible, hopefully conforms to W3C standards). I often view a non-Flash version of a site because there is something about the way Flash is, that I just do not like and never have liked.

not long

[Kludge]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fedorafrog/

Ubuntu is hardly a challenge; SUSE is, if anyone

[apokryphos]

Curious that Red Hat here is seen as apparently "challenging Ubuntu". Red Hat's market would be the enterprise: small or large (as the article even says) -- something that Ubuntu has not exactly come close to penetrating. With regard to Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is the main Linux desktop solution that is taken more seriously. They have many thousands of deployments in pretty big enterprises (HSBC, Wal-Mart, etc).

Ubuntu has more than enough people in its online vocal community, but let us not forget that things in the enterprise (and, even, things globally) are very different; online vocal community != entire Linux community/people using linux. Let's not kid ourselves about Ubuntu's role in the enterprise.

That aside, it's great to see Red Hat paying a little more attention to the desktop side of things. Unlike Red Hat in the past, Novell have been actively pushing for desktop Linux first with their acquisition of SUSE (KDE) and then of Ximian (GNOME). They still employ more developers to work directly on KDE and GNOME than any other Linux distributor. Red Hat also pursuing the desktop Linux market can only make things better for everyone, so great!

Patents

[tepples]

Perfect desktop acceleration right out of the box with the user having to touch NOTHING to get it to work That's easy only if you sell hardware.

OS X level or font rendering support right out of the box TrueType was developed by Apple and Microsoft, and some methods of the technology are patented. Would Apple license these patents to just anyone?

IB equivalent You don't mean International Baccalaureate. It took me a few dead-end searches to realize you meant Interface Builder. Would it be a good idea to start from Glade?

Complete set of iApp replacements - same visual polish and features sets as Apple has Including iTunes? Its user interface is design patented. Specifically, the playback controls of Lsongs had to move to the bottom to work around this patent. And including iTunes Store? How can Red Hat manage to ink deals with even a few of the nine major members of the MAFIAA (Disney, Warner, Universal, Fox, Paramount, Sony/BMG, UMG, WMG, EMI)?

plug in a digital camera, it just works Which USB digital camera have you tried that doesn't work with gPhoto and other apps that use its back-end?

Re:Patents

[init100]

Including iTunes? Its user interface is design patented. Specifically, the playback controls of Lsongs had to move to the bottom to work around this patent.

Then I wonder what Apple would say about Songbird. It is extremely similar to iTunes interface-wise.

Re:Patents

[jZnat]

Just to let you know, Warner == WMG and Universal == UMG. Good thing you didn't say Sony Pictures and Sony BMG also...

Beggars can't be choosers; iLife and iWork

[tepples]

Perfect desktop acceleration right out of the box with the user having to touch NOTHING to get it to work > Check, already done. (DONT USE HARDWARE THAT NEEDS 3RD PARTY DRIVERS!!!!!) Unless you get such hardware donated to you. Beggars can't be choosers.

Complete set of iApp replacements - same visual polish and features sets as Apple has - plug in a digital camera, it just works - According to google this is some sever for database builing, no idea what it has to do with a camera, and if you want the same visual polish and features, it sounds more like you just want it rather then a replacement, so why even bring it up? The "iApps" are iLife (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, iWeb) and iWork (Keynote + Pages).

pay once and get updates for lifespan of OS.

[motherball]

I thought "enter the desktop market" meant sell hardware like Apple. That would've been a good idea.

otherwise, having only a year of updates is ridiculously stupid. Microsofts well established method works. You sell the OS product and then support it for its lifespan. If you don't, the client will stop using it and you will lose their desktop to someone who does.

Third try?

[jimpop]

Isn't this Redhat's third attempt at the desktop market? Seems if they had just been consistently playing along.....

still waiting...

[Anonymous Coward]

for one linux to rule them all and in the darkness bind them

Ubuntu as well

[Wee]

I could have posted this word for word. The RH9 fiasco still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I too bought a support contract for RH9, fairly shortly before that whole support/licensing debacle was foisted on us.

And this new version: you buy it and then get support for just one year? Gee, thanks, Red Hat! I'm really happy that you're there to give us a linux distro that works very well on the desktop and has support! We can't get that anywhere else...

Thanks, but Ubuntu has everything I need now, and I'm pretty sure that they won't pull a money-grabbing stunt like Red Hat did and leave its users high and dried, held for ransom. (And, as a bonus, I get out from under that hell which is RPM.)

-B

Wait, I thought they discontinued that...

[jonadab]

I actually used to use their desktop release at one time. That was a few distros ago for me (before Mandrake, which was before I started messing around with Gentoo, which I used until sometime after Ubuntu came out...), but RedHat 6 was pretty decent at the time. However, I thought they discontinued that product line a couple of years back to focus on the Enterprise product line (RHEL).

Are they just changing their minds about that, or is there some totally new angle here?

Legal implications of falsifying your country

[tepples]

The Ubuntu installation dosn't have a localization option??? True, installers have localization screens, but Canonical might get taken to court over the ability of a user to lie on the localization screen in order to unlock patented software. Compare the situation around age "verification" that allows kids to falsify their age in order to get into forums, chat, and social web sites.

Re:Legal implications of falsifying your country

[jZnat]

You can easily fake your age on sites that ask for your birthdate due to COPA and the site isn't liable for that, right? Shouldn't the person who is lying be the one that gets in trouble?

Also, you can generally determine what country someone is in by their IP address, so that can be done. Problem is, there are many people like me who just don't give a fuck about patents and copyright infringement (I prefer developers to respect software licenses, but I wouldn't sue over it; users I couldn't care less about with regards to copyright infringement) who live in the US and would not like to be excluded from using the software in question just because I live in the US...

Re:Legal implications of falsifying your country

[tepples]

You can easily fake your age on sites that ask for your birthdate due to COPA and the site isn't liable for that, right? Have you read the recent news about MySpace? Legislation is pending in a few states to make social networking sites liable for not using more secure age verification methods.

Dependency check

[theurge14]

Then why not have the drag-and-drop action include a background dependency check and/or installation? This might require something like Gentoo's portage or FreeBSD's ports running in the background, which I would be all for.

Warner != WMG; Universal != UMG

[tepples]

Just to let you know, Warner == WMG and Universal == UMG.

Warner spun off Warner Music Group to Edgar Bronfman and friends in 2003. Vivendi sold Universal City Studios (but not Universal Music Group) to General Electric in 2004.

Good thing you didn't say Sony Pictures and Sony BMG also

Except Sony BMG has two parent companies; it is a joint venture of Sony and Bertelsmann.

Back to topic: So how would the publisher of any Linux-based operating system have the clout to negotiate a deal with any of these major publishers of proprietary, mass-marketed media?

Red Hat is getting what they deserve

[pyite69]

I am still bitter about Red Hat for abandoning the desktop market a few years ago - why would anyone trust them this time around?

Ubuntu simply rocks (especially Linux Mint) - Red Hat doesn't stand a chance.

"Subcription" fee

[denobug]

Red Hat Global Desktop 'would be sold with a one-year subscription to security updates.'"
As much as I like open system. I don't like the idea that 1) I have to pay $$ for Linux and 2)the fee only covers 1 year of "security updates"? Where is the concept that if the software broke, the company is suppose to fix that? We're not talking about feature updates here.

Re:Er.. Red Hat Enterprise Desktop with multimedia

[evilviper]

multimedia support works but is not plea sent. Peasent here means

Spelling is hard.

Re:Who cares?

[jddunlap]

Everyone complains about RPM... Geeze. I like RPM. I have no doubt that the debian package system works well but to say that RPM sucks is little more than ignorance.

Re:Who cares?

[init100]

Can you please elaborate on what the problem with RPM is? You complain of broken .rpm packages, but what does that have to do with the packaging system itself? I'd guess that anyone could equally easy create broken .deb packages.

Re:Who cares?

[VON-MAN]

"Jeesus, I didn't realize I was posting at mac.slashdot.org"
You're not, in fact, i'd suggest you try follow the damn thread.

RH's desktop never went away.

[Ayanami Rei]

That product never went away. The development past 9 just became Fedora because it was clear that people weren't really interested in buying it off the shelf... they were losing money supporting users who didn't pay for it. This is why it became RHEL 3,4,5 (yearly contracts) and Fedora.

Do keep in mind that essentially nothing is different between Fedora and RHEL (other than artwork, specific choices of patchlevels and hiding certain server packages in the Workstation version).

Now the public says: We want Fedora but we want paid support and a phone number to call, just like in the old days.

So they're giving it to them.

And this _is_ different than the Red Hat Desktop product that they sell in 50-seat bundles; that's more of a environment for centrally managed office workstations.

I don't see how anyone could think that.

[Ayanami Rei]

How could anyone think Fedora was anything but "old Redhat" continued? Yarrow was what became of the "rawhide" tree post-RH9.

If you didn't like the direction of FC1, you wouldn't have liked RH10 either. Most people I know started hating RH back around version 8, after they dropped Ximian, so I don't think that would have changed anyone's minds.

In fact, I think people just wanted a reason to hate Redhat, and dropping support for 9 (more like: no more point releases like 6-8 got to make them usable) was what did it.

The problem with RPM?

[poptones]

Who cares? If the packages dont install properly or don't work, I don't care as a luser where the problem lies - whether it's a badly created package or a badly created packager is irrelevant as the end result is the same. All I know is I've tried many RPM based distributions and every one of them was a pain in the ass every time I wanted to add a piece of software. Maybe it was the terrible (nonexistent and/or incredibly poorly structured) support forums or a simple lack of focus on the types of apps I care about - all I know is things were often broke, hard to un-break and even when I had the cash in hand to solve the problem, getting a resolution was like trying to get answers from the fucking telephone company.

Is ubuntu popular because of the deb packager? Because RPM sucks? Because RPM based distros generally seem to lack any focus on supporting home desktop users? Is ubuntu well supported just because it's popular, or popular because it's well supported?

Yes.