Title: OSNews.com - Exploring the Future of Computing
Sekedar informasi
Preview:
Limbo Time
By Adam Scheinberg - Posted on
2002-07-16 02:34:40 in OSNews [http://www.osnews.com/]
Seeing a Red Hat Beta so soon after the
release of Red Hat Linux 7.3 is both surprising and exciting - I've used many
flavors of Linux and always come back to Red Hat on the desktop. First off, the
installation program is second only to Caldera's Lizard. Secondly, the GUI is
usually responsive in most cases. Thirdly, the software is easy to find. Lastly,
Red Hat seems to set the standard for Linux - until distributions are more
compatible, I am content with Red Hat. Limbo is a major upgrade
to Red Hat Linux from a user standpoint, so I'd like to discuss the pros and
cons of this specific distribution as a comparison to other Red Hat
distributions; this is not a "Why You Should Use Red Hat" article.
Limbo, the
code-name for the newest Red Hat BETA release, is labeled Red Hat Linux 7.3.92.
It is evident, after only a few days of use, that this is likely a BETA release
of Red Hat 8.0, as it changes the Red Hat Linux experience considerably. The
first noticeable change, as you boot from CD, is that the entire installation
program, Anaconda, has a newer more modern feel to it. It's been said that
Anaconda has simply been ported to GTK2, but this is underrepresenting the truth
- it is much more friendly and has been organized slightly more logically. It's
hard not to feel as though this has surpassed Mandrake's install in ease, and
it's certainly much more professional looking. You are still limited to ext2,
ext3, RAID, swap, and VFAT when creating partitions, but it appears likely that
SGI will update their Red Hat XFS install CD at some point when this becomes a
final release if you prefer something more POSIX friendly. I had some trouble
killing the install process, after I made my bootdisk and tested X - which I got
to work better with my obscure CTX flat panel than ever before, I couldn't quit
Anaconda. Because it notified me that it was complete anyway, I simply
cold-booted the machine.
The biggest
change to Red Hat as a distribution is the inclusion of Gnome2. Having tried to
upgrade to Gnome2 on three other distributions with varying success, it was a
shock to see it fully configured. Not only is it gorgeous, but it works!
Changing the look and feel of the desktop is a snap, and it runs noticeably
faster than previous versions of Gnome. One complaint I have it that the
changing the appearance of the window manager, which is now Metacity by default
(not Sawfish), is very difficult. Although applying one of four themes is easy
enough, adding them is like pulling teeth and changing to HeliX or Crux was
completely unsuccessful. I ended up finding a theme on the Internet and
performing a long CLI command chain before I finally got it to work. I'm going
to give Red Hat the benefit of the doubt and assume this is a product of a BETA
edition, not a poor product. After all, everything was operational. It was even
zippy enough on my PIII 500 to continue to let Nautilus draw my desktop. I did
not test KDE for this review - as it is not a major change from the last Red Hat
release, Valhalla.
Some things have changed, if only in appearance. The terminal looks a lot
more like the BeOS terminal by default - big, black-on-white, and legible. The
clock applet has become much easier to use. Other things have changed
significantly: for one, I found that the default office apps in Gnome are no
longer AbiWord and Gnumeric, but rather OpenOffice.org Writer and Calc.
Including the openoffice.org suite in the distribution is a great move if Red
Hat is trying to appeal to a wider audience. Another neat feature akin to the
BeOS is the ease of panel control. It can be dragged very easily to the left,
right, top, and bottom of the screen without so much as a blink.
My experience
with Limbo was not trouble free, however. It's hard not to be impressed with the
eye candy, yes, but soon little quirks jump out at you. You can no longer drag
items from the foot panel to the desktop to make shortcuts. The install I
performed (which was "Custom") left me needing so many libraries I can't even
run RPM on half of the items I downloaded. And worst of all, I'm missing so many
pieces I couldn't install apt4rpm - which really hurts, since RPM is what I
believe holds back Linux more than anything else. Lastly, and this is a gripe
about Gnome2 more than anything else - the mouse sometimes feels a little
"loose." I feel more confident right clicking desktop items and choosing "Open"
than double clicking. This is an uncomfortable feeling I never have with the
Windows 2000 UI.
For the most part, though, what Red Hat brings to the table is a Linux based
OS that can truly compete on the desktop. Make no mistake about it - Linux is
not for the average user, but it is getting closer. You still need the command
line for true system performance, but almost everything can be performed from
within the GUI once you learn where the controls reside. Is Limbo a Windows
killer, then? For some, it may be. For some of the more experienced, it may
appear to be no more than a hack target. But for the middle ground users, those
who are UNIX-capable, but not experts, who are just searching for a robust,
flexible but powerful, alternative desktop OS, I wouldn't hesitate to say "Hey,
let's do the Limbo rock!"
About the Author Adam Scheinberg is a Systems
Administrator for the US Naval Sea Systems Command. He uses Windows XP, Red Hat
Linux, and the BeOS at home, and Windows NT/2000 and Novell NetWare 5.1 at work.
Adam can be reached on http://firsttube.com/contact.php
[http://firsttube.com/contact.php]
( Original Story URL at
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=1365 )
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