I have seen Caldera OpenLinux 2.2 at work, and I must admit it was pretty
impressive. They have taken 3 important, I say decisions:
1. fully graphical install
2. full verification of all applications included on their CD's (at least
that's what they claim)
3. active support of one graphical environment for X (in this case, KDE).
If the first and the second are indeed necessary, and I expect SuSE to follow,
the third might not be that clear.
Linux is very confusing for beginners not because it has many tools and
applications, but because they have different "look and feel"'s -- they look
and act differently. You just can't expect to conquer great acceptation and
force the user to learn different switches for a multitude of commands -- and
say that "This is UNIX, boy". Not long time ago everyone wrote an application he
considered good, sent it to one of Linux distributors and it was included in
the next release. This is choice, you're right. But that's not proffesional
attitude either. A proffesional OS must have its OWN PERSONALITY. The fact that
you have included StarOffice sooner than your neighbour is irrelevant. And
RedHat and Caldera have understood this. You have 5 CD's from SuSE. None else
offers 5 CD's. So? Is this a note of personality? How many have you really used?
After how long have you realized the applications included were outdated?
The real issue is X. This is the real problem. I think that over 90% of all
Linux developers work right now on/for X. I don't think there are many out
there to develop command line applications. So the personality I was talking
about must reside in the future, in X. Very well. Now we have another problem.
Due to the multitude of applications and libraries, each program will look
different (up to a certain point) and will have to load its specific libraries
-- wich slows down the system. Having a single library for many applications
(may this be Qt or some other) assures the same look and feel and also peak
performance. Now what can it be done? Making up your mind. I advocate Linux
distributors to choose a graphical environment and develop it, making it
suitable for them. For instance Caldera has its own YaST, called COAS which is
integrated into KDE (again, as far as I know). The choice will then reduced to
being able to choose between several Linux distributions, but it will
definitely worth it.
There are two options here, and SuSE took the third.
1. RedHat chose GNOME (you have the option to choose KDE in RH 6.0, but they
only develop GNOME and the integration is GNOME-like).
2. Caldera chose KDE (in 2.2). Period.
3. SuSE chose both of them (in 6.1), without actively supporting either of them
(as far as I know). And history teaches us that those who wanted to stay neuter
got beaten first. Will SaX and YaST be integrated into a graphical environment
SuSE? Why not developing your own system control and configuration applications
under one of this two graphical environments, giving it the fingerprint of your
own personality?
Ooops! This mail got long without realizing it. Sorry, and also I hope none
felt offended. Thanks,
Razvan
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