Java Desktop System Review 377
Reader writes "OSNews has the first in-depth review of Sun's Java Desktop System based on the final code. The article discusses the good (stability, Star Office 7, good Java integration) and the bad (no KDE, buggy RealTek driver, shaky Samba) and it includes a number of screenshots. It seems that Sun has put all its attention on Gnome and while this is good for cosistency across their desktop (some of their Java apps use the native GTK+ themeing), it also limits its users from an out-of-the-box KDE and its thousands of apps choice."
E-Week (Score:5, Informative)
Re:E-Week (Score:4, Informative)
Re:E-Week (Score:4, Informative)
GPL more accurately referres to "GNU General Public License" and LGPL to "GNU Lesser General Public License"
Shaky Samba? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Shaky Samba? (Score:2)
SuSE? Yast? (Score:5, Insightful)
a rose by any other name (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this JDS crap is terrific, really, it means SUN is a finally a player in pushing Desktop GNU/Linux.. oh, drats, I mean JDS.
Re:a rose by any other name (Score:3, Insightful)
= 9J =
My problems with Java on the Desktop (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My problems with Java on the Desktop (Score:5, Funny)
ELQ (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:ELQ (Score:5, Funny)
Lol, NOT!!!!!!!!!! (Score:2)
Re:ELQ (Score:2)
Simon.
Re:ELQ (Score:2)
--
Evan "Spent many hours with my own SO doing just that last night"
Re:ELQ (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ELQ (Score:4, Funny)
Re:ELQ (Score:5, Informative)
Not a troll, just an observation. So much for practicing what you preach.
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:2)
Re:ELQ (Score:2)
"Post Anonymous" button should be replaced with a "Post so MOST readers think its anonymous".
Hurt the ones you love.. (Score:2)
Sure.. (Score:2)
Re:ELQ (Score:3, Insightful)
Why because she brings up things wrong with your precious linux distro's instead of lavishing praise all over them? She DARES to point out that something might be wrong with them? Every damm timee there's a OSnews review on slashdot people write about how much they hate ELQ largely, I think, because she tends to not write glowing reports abour their favorite distro.
ELQ might not be my favorite reviewer but one thing she does, and do
Re:ELQ (Score:2, Insightful)
One thing she really does is compare everything with BeOS and her husband's OS AtheOS.
She reviews Linux distributions from a naive user's point of view, criticizing the complexities of the Linux world, but then (in all her reviews) a rant at the end about how she won't be able to install the latest geek toys.
An example: The JDS is a Corporate Desktop Syst
Re:ELQ (Score:3, Insightful)
You also don't need CD burning software. Most of those corporate desktop machines won't even have a CD burner installed, and you don't really want most employees burning random discs at work (of what? copied commercial CDs? confidential corporate data?).
The few employe
Re:ELQ (Score:3, Informative)
She finds flaws that are the most obscure and exploits them as if they are there only for her to find exploit. Is there any mention of reading the release notes? They usually make reference to such issues...just glanced at their site, anyone know where to FIND the release notes?? Sun has always had the worst web layout...
It's always good to read about new distros and what's good/bad with the
Re:ELQ (Score:2)
How minor would you consider it if your company had 500 desktops with that specific NIC? Would you shell out the cash for new NICs? Would you be happy rolling a custom built kernel? The Realtek cards are pretty well supoprted by Linux, and SuSE has had this bug for almost a year (according to the review). If Microsoft let a buggy driver sit like that people would screm bloody murder.
I agree that she's not very good at accurately portraying the severity or impa
Re:ELQ (Score:2)
Please (Score:2)
You'll excuse us if were more than a little bored with the twenty Linux distro reviews that OSNews.com puts out every week. The nit picking and subjective harping on things that many times won't even effect many users gets old real quick.
"ELQ might not be my favorite reviewer but one thing she does, and does well, is find any and all flaws in an OS."
Great. Wake me u
Re:ELQ (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5111
Read that, and tell me she's a competant reviewer in any way. She circumvents the entire package system then complains when things break, and doesn't read the readme that comes with the installation for flash.
The big kicker comes in when she declares samba "broken," due to her installing it on a vmware VM that had sharing turned on, which is a known VMWARE issue (not a fedora, or linux issue at all).
She also complains about s
Re:ELQ (Score:4, Insightful)
"I installed it on
For starters, if you're going to review an OS, first install it on a machine on a blank hard drive on a machine that will *ONLY* be running the tested OS, do a fairly standard install. Talk about how that works. Then try and set it up the way you like it, the way you'd use it to do your daily work. Then go see how it interoperates on a machine with 17 other test operating systems on it.
I like the way the reviews go in depth about the OSes, I just find it annoying the way they are structured.
RPM downloading bug (Score:5, Interesting)
That Moz problem she mentioned has bugged me for a long time on every platform: the problem is that real player thinks a file with the extension .rpm is its territory. I wonder if Real will keep claiming "rpm" or give it up?
Re:RPM downloading bug (Score:5, Funny)
What's real player?
Erik
Re:RPM downloading bug (Score:2)
The need for using
However, we're in the process of working on the Helix Player [helixcommunity.org] installer right now, so if you've got some ideas for how the two can peacefully co-exist, we'd love to hear it.
Rob
Regarding lack of KDE (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's a Good Thing(tm).
Now, before you flame me, that's absolutely NOT intended as a anti-KDE comment. It's simply that the Sun Java Desktop is not intended for hobbyists who are going to be installing random applications. It's intended to be used by organizations who will install it on everybody's machine (or a central server, or whatever), and that's it. Everybody's got the same stuff, and uses the same tools. Anything else is a support nightmare for a large organization, and eventually for Sun.
Exactly, they have to package the desktop (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Exactly, they have to package the desktop (Score:2)
I use Gnome. I see all kinds of Gnome projects out there. I also use KDE apps.
But who are the "free" who are all running down the hill to KDE? Besides, if the IT community ends up choosing KDE over Gnome in any significant way, don't you think the vendors would go where the interest (read: money) is?
Generalizations lead to silly
Re:Regarding lack of KDE (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Regarding lack of KDE*libs* (Score:5, Insightful)
If the sysadmins want to distribute KDE programs, then they'll need to also distribute the appropriate libraries.
See, the thing is, you're thinking about things like "well, what if a particular oganization likes konqueror better than nautilus?", and the reality is that by the time an org has chosen the JDS, that decision has already been made. "We chose the JDS, this is what is." Sun is not interested in selling this to a group of 4 geeks who will spend a week getting the colors just right. They want to roll this out to a thousand people at a time, who will write documents, make presentations, and use the company's internal webapps. If Mozilla ain't good enough to run those apps, they the company will NOT fsck around trying to paste Konqueror into the JDS, they will simply choose a different system that works.
Re:Regarding lack of KDE*libs* (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Regarding lack of KDE*libs* (Score:2)
I think it's a good idea, but they need to finish it.
Finishing it would mean getting rid of YAST and the outdated QT it needs, and creating/updating GNOME apps to do the things that people will otherwise be wanting to install KDE apps to do.
It's a good thing to have GNOME and KDE competing. It's a good thing to be able to run apps from both side by side, if you want to. But when aiming at the audience SUN wants here, it's also a good idea to use only one and make sure that all the tools needed are avail
Why? Just more crap to support (Score:5, Interesting)
Didn't they learn from the JavaScript debacle (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Didn't they learn from the JavaScript debacle (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Didn't they learn from the JavaScript debacle (Score:5, Insightful)
Second - Java is well recognized for application development and deployment within the corporate environment, the target audience of the JDS product. Thus, they're going for name recognition and are probably trying to distance themselves from the Solaris name.
Re:Didn't they learn from the JavaScript debacle (Score:2)
Don't you think if you created a language called WindowScript (or OracleScript or IBMScript) that you'd have lawyers jumping all over you?
Re:Didn't they learn from the JavaScript debacle (Score:4, Insightful)
There are literally 100's (possibly upwards of 1000) of different Linux distributions and flavours to choose from. (theres over 25+ distros based off of Debian alone http://www.debian.org/misc/children-distros ) Its not uncommon for a Linux distros to have grand children now
Once you have that figured out you need a Desktop. Between Window Managers and Desktop Environments you have over 100+ choices.
http://www.plig.org/xwinman/index.html
Now Sun releases something called Java Desktop which is really a Distro and a Desktop Environment combined... but never mind the Distro - they call it a Desktop. It would do Gnome and KDE good to simply release their own distros and market them as complete OS's
Choice is good but its no wonder Linux seems so confusing to the average joe... maybe theres too many choices.
Re:Didn't they learn from the JavaScript debacle (Score:2)
Sun learns from Big Blue (Score:5, Funny)
Sun has obviously Javaed the smurfs, and wants to make a Javalicious Javatop that will make them Javatastic sums of money.
Java desktop isn't necessarily Linux (Score:2)
Sun's Java desktop is going to run on all of their OSes and platforms.
So, they can sell the 'java desktop system' and when users "outgrow" Linux, they can upgrade their users to Solaris on Sparc and they'll have the same user experience.
At least that's how I see Sun's thought process... gingerly adopt and support Linux while finding ways to sell Solaris on Sparc
Wrong market (Score:5, Interesting)
You're looking at it from the wrong perspective. The corporate desktop is not a place to be giving the user thousands of applications from which to choose. Nor even alternate desktops. It's about giving them the tools they need to do the job. Locked down, so the user can't tinker with it and screw things up. Including KDE would have been a terrible choice, no matter which side of the KDE/GNOME divide you fall. Sun need to provice accessiblity. GNOME gives that, and KDE doesn't (yet). So they have to ship GNOME. So their choices are to either ship GNOME or to ship both. For the corporate market, they definitely made the right decision on that score.
Re:Wrong market (Score:5, Insightful)
You are absolutely right. A corporate desktop is a support nightmare if it isn't locked down and standardized. It would have been nice if Sun provided recent copies of the KDE toolkit, however. It is likely that some corporation is going to deicde that they need a particular KDE app, and the sysadmin will then need to figure out how to deploy the toolkit and the app to thousands of machines without breaking any dependancies.
Please note that I am not arguing that the corporate user be able to run a KDE desktop/window manager. The corporate masters get the right to set the internal standards.
Re:Wrong market (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as I am concerned, having just one desktop environment, just one window manager etc. is the job of the distribution, not of the developer. KDE and GNOME aren't really dividing developer effort. If the GNOME guys weren't hacking GNOME I'm not so sure they'd be busy working on KDE, and vice versa. People will work on what they want to work on.
On the other hand, a distribution can choose to limit user choice as
sunw == msft (Score:2, Troll)
Sunw's involvement with scox has has been absolutely disgraceful. Not only has sunw been funding scox's attack on OSS, but McNealy has taken every oppertunity to squeal his silly lies about sunw having the only legal version of linux. Often, McNealy parrots McBride (scox's ceo) word for word.
I used to like sunw, but not anymore. There are plenty of other versions of linux available.
Interface issues... (Score:4, Interesting)
What's with the various shades of gray in the interface [osnews.com]? Doesn't that make it difficult for color blind folks to use the software?
Also, why are there [at least] 5 different locations one has to go to for various preferences. And why do some preferences show up in various preferences locations? Mouse and Printers appear in two different sections. Go take a look at Windows and Mac OS and notice that ALL of the preferences / control panels are located in ONE PLACE.
One last nit to pick. What's with the various styles of icons? Some are 3D-ish some are just plane 2D, etc. It looks like there were 4 or 5 different artists making icons for various preferences / apps, with no consistency in their styles. It looks like everything was just sorta tossed together.
Re:Interface issues... (Score:2)
Re:Interface issues... (Score:2)
Umm... you do realize that color blindness involves... yes, color. As in, not grays? So, no, various shades of gray don't affect people with color blindness. Now, if the windows were various shades of red and green, it's a different story.
One last nit to pick. What's with the various styles of icons? Some are 3D-ish some are just plane 2D, etc.
Bah... if you
Re:Interface issues... (Score:2)
Just like Grandman would do... (Score:2, Insightful)
Reviewer lacks credibility (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd take anything said with a grain of salt.
Re:Reviewer lacks credibility (Score:2)
Creating a Standard (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Creating a Standard (Score:2)
My older comment [slashdot.org]
Global Integration thru tiered architecture (Score:2, Interesting)
For corporate vetting, GNOME won, deal (Score:2)
No vendor is going to try to offer a solution that doesn't extend all the way to the desktop. Telling buyers they can choose their desktop environment ultimately isn't what these vendors are looking for - their buyers want out-of-the-box, and
Re:For corporate vetting, GNOME won, deal (Score:2)
The only distribution to ever ship GNOME as the default desktop was RedHat and they have decided to back out of the consumer desktop market.
Novell hasn't exactly made inroads because of the user-friendliness of their desktop software either; they are famous for being prolific in K12 environments and some older corporate networks that picked them before Microsoft started shouting about Active Directory. They have some really neat server-side stuff, but every single person I've talked to about their
Re:For corporate vetting, GNOME won, deal (Score:2)
The fact that at least some core GNOME coders do it for a living is a plus, not a minus. This means they won't be dropping the project when they get tired or hungry or have a kid. They are th
Re:For corporate vetting, GNOME won, deal (Score:2)
Lindows is still one of the very few distributions that has bona-fide preloaded installations, even if they're only available on Walmart PCs.
Xandros may not be a popular consumer desktop but they're not targeting the consumer desktop anyway.
And re: core GNOME hackers doing it for a living - well, it is much more of a minus when their company goes under (see: Eazel) and they no longer have time or inclinatio
Re:For corporate vetting, GNOME won, deal (Score:2)
You're absolutely right, though; spending time on Slashdot is in fact much more useless than spending time improving KDE. However, we're pretty frozen right now what with KDE 3.2 being near release.
As far as arguments... I'm not looking for an argument. GNOME has strengths and weaknesses, as does KDE. I'm not interested in flamewars, but Ars-Fartsica's comment about SUSE being the "last bastion of vendor-supplied KDE distros" was just e
Re:For corporate vetting, GNOME won, deal (Score:2)
However, I've been using Konqueror since before even KDE2 was released; back in the day, when I made that my sig, it was in fact quite an achievement to get Konqueror to work on Slashdot.
(In case I change my sig eventually and people are wondering what this AC is talking about... my sig was "This comment posted with Konqueror [konqueror.org].")
Java app inconsistency (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure that the inconsistency of the appearance can be annoying (just like the plethora of Linux GUI apps that are just as inconsistent), but it certainly won't prevent me from working with the app..
Re:Java app inconsistency (Score:3, Informative)
Write Twice, Run Anywhere [macdevcenter.com]
clipboard? (Score:2, Insightful)
Without this, most people will stick with their windoze boxes.
Golden Master Edition? (Score:2)
Reinstall all of your apps after a windows reinstall/reboot-fest, and one beer turns into 30!
SuSE w/o KDE? Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see if I got this right...
Yeah, seems to work. Besides, what some people said about the corporate desk
Re:SuSE w/o KDE? Why? (Score:2)
In Other News... (Score:5, Funny)
C++ creator Bjorne Strausoup noted that many Linux apps are too "C-heavy" and binaries generated from C++ code would benefit from being executed in a sky-blue themed environment.
Meanwhile, Larry Wall of Perl fame pointed out that worker efficiency will be at an all-time high for users of Perl applications now that the turquoise-themed Perl distro will ensure applications point to the correct bin/ directory for perl upon installation.
The Pure C Distro dream has been thwarted by the widespread adoption of C precompilers among projects seeking to attain compatibility with the new neon pink distribution.
Seems like everything looks like crap... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The desktop (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Something interesting I noticed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Er... did you notice the comment saying 'check this out: Five different java applications, 5 different theme styles...'?
Re:Something interesting I noticed. (Score:2)
In a corporate environment there's a reason for consistency
Re:Something interesting I noticed. (Score:2)
Er, I have no idea how that got modded +5 insightful... ah well.
Hmm. I'm not entirely convinced that it's not just the themes; since Java has a proper framework for actions, the GUI is build from an abstract foundation... so things like the representation of shortcuts are themeable.
That said, my knowledge of Java GUI design is pretty basic, so if you do know what you're talking about then please ignore me :-)
Re:Something interesting I noticed. (Score:2)
Simon.
Re:Something interesting I noticed. (Score:2)
This is sad. The inconsistent app GUIs is part of the long-standing Unix problem, not part of the solution! I don't think Sun will ever understand design for end users.
Re:Something interesting I noticed. (Score:2)
Re:Something interesting I noticed. (Score:2)
Programs like JDiskReport use their own L&F but can be customized to match the desktop.
Re:Sucks (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sucks (Score:2)
Back to my regular intelligent posts I go.
Re:Sucks (Score:2)
Re:Sucks (Score:2)
- How is OS X "less than par" in the area of being a powerful os
What you said about the two sperate bootloaders and partitions... that whole festering pile of dung... just makes it 100% obvious that you've no experience with OS X and have no right to be bullshitting about it.
Just because I enjoy wasting my time, I'll explain how it's done. You run the OS X install CD, run the OS 9 C
Re:Sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
when you start your argument off like a moron, it automatically discredits anything else you may have to say.
he didn't really have much to say - the paragraph he quoted is EXACTLY why Linux is not on every desktop.
You've got to sacrifice a little ease of use for a ton of usability in Linux.
You must mean flexibility. There is NOTHING "useable" about messing with boot loaders.
Linux is a very powerful OS in the right hands. OS X is less then par in that area, although it is extremely easy to us
Re:summary and signficance (Score:2)
Mac OS X also provides mostly complete bindings between Java and the Cocoa frameworks.
Historically a few Mac OS X provided tools have been written in Java (the Calculator for example). I have not check
Mac OS and Windows, come with Java (Score:2)
Most windows machines came with a JVM. XP initially came with it, then didnt then didnt again. And most large manufactures who sell XP preinstalled have it on their images, the Sun JVM that is.
Java is far from dead.
And why shouldn't sun do this. Take the best of the OSS community and embrace and extend, that is what it is all about
Re:Mac OS and Windows, come with Java (Score:3, Insightful)
None of my Windows machines have come with Java preinstalled.
Java is far from dead.
Of course, Java isn't dead. Even client-side Java and Swing aren't "dead". But Java started out promising to revolutionize application delivery, and that dream is dead. Client-side Java is a niche product now. And Sun's claims
Re:summary and signficance (Score:3, Informative)
Re:summary and signficance (Score:2)
Re:summary and signficance (Score:2)
None of the major Linux distributions rely on Java for any desktop applications; in fact, most don't even bother installing it by default. Neither does Macintosh or Windows.
You probably only meant that Macintosh and Windows systems don't rely on Java, but I wanted to clarify: Mac OS X does install Java by default. You can run Java apps and applets out of the box on a stock OS X system, and you'll even get nice Aquafied controls when you do. And I'm not sure if it's because I have the developer tools ins
Re:Sun!!! (Score:2)
sun's hardware isn't marketed for its computational power. people buy sun hardware for its reliability and for the ability to run solaris/sunos on its native platform. if you want something that will crunch numbers as fast as an athlon xp, you're using the wrong tool.
Ah, how silly of me. I was under the impression that Sun manufactured hardware for High-Performance Computing; that their software QC was of a level sufficient to compile run-of-the-mill Fortran 95 without crashing; and that their performan
Re:Second Try (Score:2)
Re:Better than expected - review to much in a hurr (Score:3, Informative)