Dave Miner wrote:
> Garrett D'Amore wrote:
>> Glynn Foster wrote:
>>> Hey,
>>>
>>> Garrett D'Amore wrote:
>>>
>>>> I realize that a lot of focus is being spent on JDS 3/gnome, and that
>>>> this is largely a good thing for the end user.
>>>>
>>>> However, I am interested, also, in having a "lightweight" desktop
>>>> environment, suitable for use by system administrators to access gui
>>>> tools on machines that are otherwise not normally used as a
>>>> desktop. (Think of an NFS server somewhere. It is useful to be
>>>> able to run smc
>>>> and such tools, without paying the full price of Gnome.)
>>>>
>>>> The requirements for such an environment would not be dissimilar to
>>>> those required for graphical suninstall -- a basic window manager like
>>>> mwm or dtwm would be adequate. I'd be even happier if we got
>>>> something
>>>> like xfce4, which was open source, into such as an environment (but
>>>> then
>>>> again, I use xfce4 on my primary desktop).
>>>>
>>> Sounds good to me - maybe it's something you'd like to consider
>>> championing?
>>> While it's probably a good business case for Sun to support any more
>>> desktops
>>> than we currently do [1], we could consider doing something like
>>> this in the
>>> companion CD?
>>>
>>>
>>> Glynn
>>>
>>> [1] And after CDE moves away, I'd far rather capture that space and
>>> reduce
>>> the number of CD's in a Solaris install than add another desktop
>>> env
>>>
>>
>> I have no idea if I can champion anything at all. But see my earlier
>> post with respect to "environments". At this point I would be strongly
>> in favor of picking up fvwm a basic Window Manger (not a whole desktop
>> environment) and putting it in the basic install (the same place that
>> twm is found) so that suninstall etc. can make use of it. I would _not_
>> like this on a separate companion CD, because at that point it loses
>> most of its advantages (sysadmins can't "count on it being there", and
>> Sun can't use it for suninstall, etc.)
>>
>
> I'm doubtful that we're interested in it for Solaris installation.
> We're moving in the direction of providing a full Gnome desktop
> instead that lets you try things out before installing or while the
> install is happening. Other distributions might make other choices, I
> suppose, but that's what we're looking at for Sun's.
I'm very disappointed to hear this, actually.
It means that it will almost certainly be the case that
a) upgrades will be much harder, due to lack of sufficient swap
space for miniroot (or are you planning to provide a "live DVD" or some
such for install? Of course, that's harder with a CDROM.)
b) systems with smaller memories are going to be unable to use the
graphical installer
c) Solaris is abandoning the non-desktop/workstation use cases.
(One great thing about Solaris is that it is good for such a large
variety of classes of machines -- $1M servers, $1K 1U rack mount
servers, $1K workstations, and $30K workstations. Please don't forget
that.)
I wouldn't mind having a "live dvd" or somesuch installation available
as an option, but I would really, really like to keep the current fairly
minimalist graphics install (or something akin to it) as an option.
Of course, I guess there is always the text based install, if that isn't
going away too.
Gnome/JDS is a pig, and I don't see anyone trying to make it less so.
As a result, I'm unlikely to ever want to run it -- it doesn't offer so
much over the alternative desktop options to justify the bad impact on
system resources and performance that it incurs. But then again that's
just my opinion.
And I'm not trying to sell 128way systems with a TB of RAM or use as Sun
Ray servers either. (Once upon a time Sun said that a midrange
workstation should be able to serve ~100 Sun Ray users. That's true, if
they aren't running gnome and firefox. Take away that option, and you
sort of break the Sun Ray promise, IMO.)
-- Garrett
--
Garrett D'Amore, Principal Software Engineer
Tadpole Computer / Computing Technologies Division,
General Dynamics C4 Systems
http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/
Phone: 951 325-2134 Fax: 951 325-2191
