Slashdot Mirror
Corel Linux Preview
While it's been known that for the last few months Corel has been hacking on Debian GNU/Linux to create a distro of their own, they have finally begun demoing it at LinuxWorld. Our friends at LWN were given an early demonstration, and have posted review of it to accompany their coverage of the event. The juicy stuff is that the install is very simple, and a beta should be out before the end of next month. Corel also seems to have updated their Linux site. Thanks to Mindjiver, we now have a link to screenshots.
I strongly suspect that the Corel File Manager (CFM) is direct and close decendant of KFM. I actually used it at LWCE and it acts just like KFM. Replace the silly icons with the normal KDE icons, slide that splitter over to the left, and you've got KFM. No, I don't think it's a brand new file manager.
If I can get rid of those LARGE button bar icons, I'd be very happy. But as it is now, it looks too much like *gasp* Explorer. But if they go the traditional KDE route and keep the system button bar icons as distinct xpm's, then I can change them (along with my theme), so that no one would ever mistake it for IE.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
And don't confuse either of them with the Slashdot community, though again there are overlaps.
I attended their demo at LWCE, and they mentioned something that I didn't get to discuss with any Corel people
They said that they trimmed the debian packages down to what is essential and desirable. For example, you won't have a choice of jed/joe/vi/vim/emacs/xemacs, you get vi. The reasoning behind this was that new users won't know what these packages are anyway, and don't have the time to read through 1800 detailed package descriptions. The Corel/KDE menu represents all of the GUI applications installed.
This could be either a Good Thing, or a Bad Thing. This would be Good if I still have access to all those other packages. In that case, it would be no different than chooses "basic installation" with any other distro. But if there are no other packages, no second contrib CD, etc., then this is a Bad Thing.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
And it looks pretty appealing to me. The view can be broken into an arbitrary number of frames (a feature that I have been yearning for in file browsers for a while). Further, it is completely built around their object system (Open Parts, I believe), so the handler for any filetype can be run from within a browser frame. This is the sort of thing that OLE and COM promised, but never really delivered.
This filemanager (Konqueror), is the main reason that I am looking forward to KDE 2.0 .
--Lenny
If so, I need to install this *tonight*.
--Lenny
Yet Another Corel Opinion
Did I read correctly that the file manager is Corel's own?
(enter meek suggestion mode)
Wouldn't it have been better to make changes to the K File Manager instead of making a brand-new file manager? Maybe I'm dense, but I don't see things getting _much_ easier than KFM. The screenshots just look like they applied more Windows terminology to KFM anyway ("My Computer" and "Network Neighborhood").
I found the ad for CorelDraw more funny than offensive. Is there a CorelDraw for Linux that I don't know about?
Not that I expect Corel to redesign their distro because of my little post -- I'm just seeking clues.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I like .debs simply because of apt-get. With apt-get I can upgrade a package without having to search for and find the appropriate file, or the newest version. I can just do an apt-get install , and it automatically upgrades the current version to the newest one and does everything that needs to be done. apt-get dist-upgrade will upgrade every package, without a whole lot of hassle. It's a completely upgradable distribution without having to wait for a new release, if you keep up with unstable.
I bought their Corel Office 7 for Windows (for $80 or so at student discount) and was quite pleased. I used WP8 for Linux (free edition) extensively and was again happy. I see their new release for Windows on shelves, but at the moment I boot Windows for MechWarrior 3 and nothing else.
I want Corel Office for Linux! If it's good, I'll be happy to pay hundreds of dollars for Corel Office for Linux. I know they're taking a risk by working on Winelib instead of maintaining separate Motif sources like WP8 used; does anyone know if problems here are holding them up any?
I don't care that Corel has Yet Another Distro. There are a hundred of them listed on LWN. All of the big ones now are easy to install, pop you into a *dm graphical login, then from there to KDE or GNOME. I don't see Corel improving much upon this, with or without new kwm icons.
I do care that Corel has a full-featured, easy to use office suite coming out. Applixware is showing a little age, StarOffice is a bloated monster; I want Corel Office!
Yes, this sounds like "gimme, gimme", but I'm willing to shell out cash for it...
I don't think you're giving dpkg enough credit here (and probably RPM too, but I'm not very familiar with it). Properly managed packages do a lot more than just install and deinstall. They also ensure consistency (via package relationships like Depends:, Recommends:, Suggests:, Conflicts:, Replaces: and Provides:), ensure a safe default configuration and a convenient way to configure packages, register themselves with the menu system (so not just GNOME but also pdmenu, windowmaker, mwm, fvwm etc. know about them), register their documentation with documentation systems like dwww, register themselves as MIME handlers through mime-support etc. etc.
To a large degree, having a policy that is adhered to by package maintainers is more important than the particular packaging system.
So a newbie who downloads something from freshmeat
I know few if any newbies who even know of freshmeat's existance. And in any case, distributions were invented to allow new users not to have to deal with tarballs found on the net directly.
There's also a Linuxworld review, which goes into this: Fortunately, Corel noted that it plans to return all of its enhancements to the community by making them open source. The exact license has not yet been determined.