Ximian Desktop 2
by Volker Weber
I strongly believe that you have to use and know the things you are talking about. That is not always the case for all people I had the pleasure to work with. :-)
So I had to do a few more Linux installs. I talked about Fedora Core and that I removed SUSE from all my machines. That is no longer the case. I wanted to try and use Ximian Desktop XD2 and I needed an operating system to support it. It turns out that XD2 runs on both RedHat 9 and SUSE Linux 9. RedHat 9 however is no longer updated, so I needed to install SUSE once again. I chose the "Minimum System with Graphics Subsystem" package selection since XD2 includes Gnome.
SUSE installed in 25 minutes flat. Then I started the XD2 network installer (RedCarpet) which needed a few runs to complete. I was having some difficulties enabling GDM as the desktop manager but then used the /etc/config Editor from within YaST2.
Boy, is this desktop lean and mean. Stylish, usable, beautiful - without any modifications. You hardly ever get to see any system internals and tools. You just use your mail client, web browser, office tools. BTW: The screenshot does not really do it any justice since it looks rather jagged after the resize. Compare this unscaled image of OpenOffice Ximian Edition.
Just get things done. What a concept for a Linux desktop. Somebody is copying a page from Apple's book. :-)
Comments
100% agree.
People who´s using a mac will love it - for sure.
Also the ones who using GNOME before.
Will try to install it on the Mac - a report follows maybe tomorrow :-)
cheers
Ingo
Although I have no actual experience with XD2, I guess that one of the major drawbacks of older releases is still with the current version: Bringing a whole bunch of own rpm packages with it, XD broke the update routines of the different distributions. So in turn you ended up with a frequent uninstall-upgrade-reinstall cycle. However, with Ximian and SuSE now living under the same roof, that might change in the not all too distant future. _That_ would be a real improvement. Maybe SuSE should adopt XD2 as their standard desktop. It looks a lot more "tailored to the task" than the current candy-colored eye burner :-)
That has already changed. I am updating both XD2 and SUSE Linux through channels in Red Carpet.
This was actually the nature of our discussion yesterday of Ximian currently not providing the RedHat channel.
Hi Volker,
haven't tested SUSE yet, but you are offering me an excellent reason with XD2.
> I strongly believe that you have to use and know the things you are talking about. That is not always the case for all people I had the pleasure to work with. :-)
In your quest for better, if you don't know this distribution, I suggest you give it a try:
http://knoppix.net/
it comes from your fellow countrymen, Klaus Knopper.
If you knew it already, I would like to hear your comment about it's easy to install feature. So far, nothing I have used comes even near to it...
Anyway, I my as well thank you for the hints as well as humor I get browsing these pages... :-)
Pieter
Thanks, Pieter. Of course I know Knoppix. Strictly speaking it is not intended to be installed on a HD. It's design point is to be able to run it without any installation. This idea is so good that is has been copied many times since.
