Compaq's Tru64 may include KDE, GNOME, RPM

davie writes " Jon Hall, leader of Compaq's Unix Group, said Compaq is porting its compiler suite from Tru64 to Linux, and will ship extended maths libraries under the open source General Public License. But Compaq is also considering adopting the software installation software Red Hat Package Manager, and the Gnome and KDE desktop environments in Tru64 Unix. The story is worth reading. "

Comments

Re:But wait...!

[Trepidity]

You're missing the point. Tru64 will still be Tru64, a complete OS on its own. GNOME and KDE will merely be window managers (not part of the OS), and RPM isn't even a FSF project.

Linux, on the other hand, is not a complete OS on its own. You can boot Tru64 by itself. You cannot boot a kernel by itself.

The GNU OS will be an OS by itself as well. For the moment, it's missing a kernel, so you can use the Linux kernel as a replacement, making a GNU/Linux hybrid OS, or "GNU OS with the Linux kernel."

Seems like a really good idea

[Erik Corry]

I've been wondering for a while why the big Unix companies don't do something like this. Ship most of a Linux distribution, but with their own compilers and kernel (and whatever else they feel they are good at). It lets them ship a nicer set of tools and GUI than they do at the moment and at the same time they can concentrate on their strengths.

It would save a lot of trouble for people who get new Unix boxes and have to spend a lot of time upgrading the tools to the stuff Linux has as standard. When you are used to Linux, 1000 little things about the big Unixes will irritate you. Like the useless versions of vi that everyone else ships, the bizzare packaging systems (none of them as good as rpm or dpkg) and the fact that that the up key just produces a set of escape codes on the screen in their shells. If it's so difficult to get right, why don't they just ship vim, rpm and bash?

Here at my University they already use rpm for all the commercial Unixes, and it seems to work fine.

Major Win for Linux

[bstadil]

I think this is a MAJOR win for Linux and will benefit all (maybe except M$). The neat part is that like SGI they will "Give back" source code adding to the snowball.

But wait...!

[Glith]

I can see it now:


HOUSTON, TX -- Compaq officials rescended their idea of shipping with GNOME and RPM after receiving a threatening letter from the FSF which insisted that they rename their product to GNU/Tru64 to "give credit to the FSF project". Officials were unavailable for comment.


Hmm... maybe not :)

Re:But .deb is better

[LocalLinuxLobbyist]

Um, not start a YAFW, but could someone please tell me WHY dpkg is supposedly better than rpm. I've been doing quite a bit with rpm lately and find it quite incredible. I have not, however, had any experience with dpkg and would like to see a point-by-point comparison. I'm trying to bait anyone, or anything, I seriously want to know.

On the topic at hand, I think this is awesome! I was just saying this morning (but only joking) that CDE is dead now that GNOME and KDE are here. Now, if the other *nix vendors would just follow suite, we'd all have a FREE desktop.

-Paul Iadonisi / Consultant
Collective Technologies
Team Yankee, Local Linux Lobbyist
Ever see a penguin fly? -- Try Linux.
GPL all the way: Sell services, don't lease secrets








YAFW=Yet Another Flame War

Re:They never really ported FX!32

[IntlHarvester]

I don't know why they *wouldn't* port FX!32 to Linux. After all, a Linux/Alpha user is one more Alpha box sold.
--

Linux vs. Everyone Round 1

[Graymalkin]

I think it's great that Compaq and SGI are starting to play nice with linux, it gives the rest of us a nice boost in support. But it shouldn't be world domination, just give everyone (not just geeks) a M$ alternative. OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, IRIX and half a dozen others can all do things linux cant, or do some things better. OpenBSD has über-security, NetBSD is rather portable and so forth. Linux can also do things better then all of them or some things they cant (like work the first time I install it unlike FreeBSd which didn't like my computer for whatever reason). What I hope happens is the companies that support linux add some of their features to linux, stuff they are good at. A journaling file system, better SMP support, ect.. I think that would lead to linux becoming a better all around OS, while still allowing for plenty of other operating systems. Heck, even MacOS and Windohs have their good sides. MacOS is obscenely easy for new users ad makes everything fluffy and cute while Windows drives more people to use unix.

Re:VHS all over again

[noldi]

Well, 'setld' might not be what users expect today but remember that it stems from Ultrix-Days where others still were using tar/cpio to install SW. Not to talk about deinstalling / upgrading the once installed SW.

Maybe DEQ forgot to adapt it to todays standards though. And after all: why not gather around a reasonable packaging standard like RPM for all those UNIX-like environments? Arguments like ".deb is so much better than .rpm" are rather a waste of time: if Linux helps to unify UNIX then this is a good thing. If it comes for free, the better!

My 5 cts.

noldi

Love that quote!

[Black Parrot]

Referring to Ghandi's saying, adopted by Linux fans -- "First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you... then you win" -- Hall said, "Everybody except Microsoft has got past the fighting stage."

Well, almost everybody but Microsoft, but it's still a nice quote.

And it only took about a year from the time Linux first came onto the Big Boys' radar screens.

A big boost for KDE/GNOME

[briggers]

It's great that Compaq has realised that Motif/CDE is a dead technology. Hopefully this will result in greater acceptance of either KDE or GNOME as the standard GUI for commercial Unices as well as Linux. It would be teriffic if big-name commercial *nix applications used Qt or GTK and offered KDE/GNOME integration, instead of the bloated, statically-linked Motif apps we generally have to put up with now. Hopefully other vendors will follow suit.