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Sun Microsystems Linux Business

Sun Java Desktop System Release 2 196

Posted by michael from the java-desktop-still-a-stupid-name dept.
Jahf writes "Sun is putting out Java Desktop System Release 2. Some overview information is in this article while more technical information about the new management solutions are in this one. Quickly: the desktop environment is essentially the same, though Sun has added support for GIMLET (allows one to change the current input language on a per-window basis), officially supported Japanese and Korean translations, and is including a Java-based online update client. The bigger changes are management items that are normally hidden from the end-user but valuable to the Admin. Configuration Manager allows admins to setup client preferences for remote desktops and 'protect' those settings to create policies. Sun Control Station (the last remaining Sun product from the Cobalt acquisition) can work as a network imaging server, can monitor remote desktops, and can work as a patch server (both by pushing patches out to many desktops and by serving as an online update server for clients who need to pull additional packages)."
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Sun Java Desktop System Release 2 More

Sun Java Desktop System Release 2

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  • Java for the desktop... (Score:4, Funny)

    by SpanishInquisition ( 127269 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:00PM (#9054694) Homepage Journal
    because maybe your computer is too fast

    • Funny and right on... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hot_Karls_bad_cavern ( 759797 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:24PM (#9054989) Journal
      Parent is both funny and right on. i've run the Java Desktop on a 600MHz machine...i'll just be kind and say it's less than snappy. i've not gotten ballsy enough to load 'er up on my 2.8GHz at the house yet...maybe when i get it all backed up, but i spose it would be hella snappier and perhaps enjoyable!

      • I'm currently running JDS on a ThinkPad T20: PIII 700 w/ 256MB RAM. I don't play games or watch movies on it - DVD playback is choppy (go figure) - but it works very well for everyday office tasks and as a portable network assessment platform. Even StarOffice seems to run smoothly and without undue delay. *shrug* I wouldn't want to compile anything large on it (so gentoo is not an option (zing!)) but smaller sources (like Xine) take only a couple minutes.

        Before some goober snorts "a couple minutes t
      • J4\/4 is 5o 51ow! Lolxors!

        Now that that's out of the way...try java 1.5. I think you'll see a huge speed improvement.

      • I have just de-crapped my 4th computer of the week. Yet another 2.4+ GHz consumer box completely ridden with ad/spy/crap-ware.

        For Sun to be viewed as "fast" by these unfortunate souls that cannot learn rudimentary do's and don'ts (and recovery) all they have to do is block invasive software.

        I strongly suspect that if my friend installed JD on their systems they'd say "boy that is fast!"
    • Be happy. Sun will have more success selling "Java for the desktop" than "Linux for the desktop", even though JDS is 95% Linux and 5% Java. If there's one product Sun has been successful at marketing, that product would be Java. The localization and configuration management improvements will eventually find their (cloned) way back into other Linux distros. Sun contributes to Linux in a credible way without inviting Solaris comparisons. Everyone wins.

  • The main benefit to upgrading... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:04PM (#9054738)
    ... is that all Java software has been removed.

  • Sun Control Station 2.0 (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:04PM (#9054744)
    It's not exactly the same as the old Sun Cobalt variety,
    for some reason they rewrote the whole thing in Java.

    And the new one doesn't come bundled with hardware.
    • Actually the original product had quite a bit of Java in it. HTML was too unwieldy for displaying large numbers of machines...

      There was an HTML "wrapper" interface (a la RaQ 550 etc), but the bulk of the interface was Java.

  • Computers don't "run" Java (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:08PM (#9054790)
    They "walk" it.

    I'm here all day, folks.

  • I am glad to see that Sun is stepping up the features long touted as superior on Windows machines, that is the ease of modifying user parameters based on some policy or other national/language based settings -- it sounds like this setup is geared towards that rising Asian marketshare, as well as towards those Wal-Mart customers. Lest anyone think selling PC's at Wal-Mart is dumb, just count the zero's on Wal-Mart's revenue stream... they aren't #1 on Fortune 500 for NOT selling things!

  • Recommended Server Requirements (Score:5, Informative)

    by DA-MAN ( 17442 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:15PM (#9054881) Homepage
    Recommended (Minimum) Configuration

    * 2 Ghz Intel Compatible processor or better
    * 1GB of RAM
    * 160 GB hard drive
    * 10/200 Base-T Ethernet network interface

    Wonder what a 200BaseT nic is... Can't say I've ever seen this before.

  • Blinders! (Score:5, Funny)

    by imidazole2 ( 776413 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:16PM (#9054898) Homepage Journal
    Lockdown of the user desktop: In the context of configuration management, lockdown plays a significant role, as it prevents users from changing their default environment and helps administrators provide and mandate simpler desktop environments, which in turn can help prevent users from being distracted from their core work. In the competition with other desktop systems, lockdown plays an important role.

    Sun's software now includes blinders! Why wont my opponet debate this issue? Is it because he's a horse... or because he has BLINDERS ON! No periphial vision! *snap* *snap* *snap*

    • Re:Blinders! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by heybo ( 667563 )
      Blinders are a good thing when you are trying to get a horse to pull a plow.

      Personally after doing desktop tech for so long this is a GOOD! thing.

      80% of workstation problems come from user intervention. Lock downs keep out virsus and spyware. Of course Betty in accounting will hate you because she can't have her cute little screen saver of cats climbing around her machine.

      • I would imagine.... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by zogger ( 617870 )
        ... that Betty and everyone else locked into a cube day after day after day needs something to feel like a human being, and not just a de humanized cog in a heartless machine that starts off by hiring them as a "human resource" instead of a "person"nel. Employees aren't even classed as "people"now, they are just "stock" like stuff on the shelf in the warehouse, or no more important than the copier.

        Modern businesses are bad about abusing employees, they want trained rats, not human beings. For some people,

  • Although it's fun to joke about Java... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Meat Blaster ( 578650 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:17PM (#9054903)
    Its biggest perceived flaw (slow execution speed) is largely a thing of a past. Properly engineered Java applications run smoothly, especially when they take advantage of native display rendering speedups as Eclipse does.

    In an entire environment based on and tailored toward Java, such as Sun's Java Desktop System, the language really shines. Rapid setup and deployment benefits system administrators, while developer productivity is enhanced by the optimization of the develop, execute, debug and deploy cycle.

    This type of setup just makes sense when you're dealing with a network of disparate hardware and software. The more that can be made common and interoperable, the easier it is to get things done. And it looks like Sun Java Desktop System has only gotten more affordable and easy to use.

    • Re:Although it's fun to joke about Java... (Score:4, Funny)

      by SQLz ( 564901 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:25PM (#9055006) Homepage Journal
      Scott McNealy, is that you? How you doing buddy?

    • Re:Although it's fun to joke about Java... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Er, Sun's 'Java Desktop' System has very little to do with Java the programming language - it's just a branding exercise.

      Under the hood it is all the gnome community stuff (which is all written in C) with a bit of polish and perhpas a couple extra management apps. I guess the management apps are written in Java but thats it.

    • Re:Although it's fun to joke about Java... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Jim_Maryland ( 718224 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:48PM (#9055325)
      Its biggest perceived flaw (slow execution speed) is largely a thing of a past.

      Just to back you up, my group does some pretty extensive image and dataset processing using Java based code. While most of the images are a couple hundred megabytes in size, it's not unusual for a several gigabyte image to to be processed too. Processing time is definitely a concern of ours and we've found the more recent Java versions to perform quite nicely.

      As for the Java Desktop System, I think the bigest issues it faces are related to hardware support (device drivers) from the various vendors.

      For as much complaining people here seem to do against Sun, remember how some of the popular open source projects got large chunks of their code (Apache Jakarta [apache.org]and Open Office [openoffice.org] are two that come to mind). I know that Sun hasn't open sourced everything, but at least they follow open standards.
      • Java was never slow on numerical computations. It is slow because of the excessive casting needed when using collections, doing searches with keys (which must be derived from Object) etc.

        Java 1.5 templates will not solve this situation, unfortunately.

        And of course, Swing is slow because of the bloated architecture.
    • Perhaps it's that I've yet to run into a "Properly engineered" application, but everything I've seen written in Java has been, well, slow.

      There is improvement in some applications; the Oracle enterprise manager in the 9i client does have a much better feel than the 8i client for instance.

      Still, comparing a web application (for instance) written in .jsp/java beans with one written in perl/php/asp/ColdFusion/et. al. usually results in scrapping the .jsp/java beans code.

      So I'll agree that there have been

    • How exactly is the JDS "tailored to" Java? I thought I'd I heard the Java in the title was just a brandname and the GUI was GNOME. Or do you just mean that it comes with a high-quality JVM as opposed to the crud Windows or most web browsers ship with?

      I know very little about the JDS but I'm curious.

    • Re:Although it's fun to joke about Java... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @03:01AM (#9060975) Journal
      Let me just say two things:

      1. Java's main flaw is that it can't be swapped out (or it can, but the garbage collector brings it all right back in) and takes a shitload of memory. I.e., it's ok for small utilities, or small games like MegaMek, or a single IDE loaded on a 1 GB machine. But try loading even 1 MB more java stuff than the machine has RAM, and it'll crawl.

      We actually have to develop server-side java stuff here, but the catch is that we also get to test them locally. Between a local copy of WebSphere, Eclipse, and a few other utilities, you'd be surprised how easy you can get a 1 GB machine to thrash through swap. (And that's more RAM than Joe User would have.) Most of us have learned to get around that by not keeping too much stuff loaded. (Already an exercise that with C programs would not be necessary.)

      A coleague obviously hasn't, or rather can't. He also has to keep a Java based XML editor open, and stuff like that. His machine always feels slower than an old ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64. He and another coleague had, last I've heard, requested permission to buy their own computers with 2 GB RAM for work.

      Yeah, that't gotta be the future of desktop environments to inflict upon Joe User.

      2. Again: Sun's Java Desktop, is _not_ a Java based desktop. It's a bog standard Gnome desktop with a new theme and the exact same JVM that you'd get with any other Linux distro. It's not more geared towards Java than any other Linux distro you could buy.

      Now I can see some advantages to it, but "geared towards Java" is _not_ one of them. "Java" is no more than a marketting buzzword there. It's just like Intel's bunnies telling you that a Pentium makes your Internet go faster.

    • Re:Although it's fun to joke about Java... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Nonsense. Sun's "JAVA Desktop" is a modified GNOME desktop, nothing else.

      The reason why it is so slow is not java, it's the latency introduced by GTK (on which GNOME is based). In fact the Java Desktop has nothing to do with Java.

      > native display rendering speedups as Eclipse does

      native display rendering isn't java anymore.

  • Isn't this just plain ol' linux? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by broothal ( 186066 ) <christian@fabel.dk> on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:23PM (#9054976) Homepage Journal
    So what does the Sun Java Desktop gives me if I buy it? These are the key features:

    Desktop Features
    o A GNOME desktop environment
    o StarOffice Productivity Suite
    o Mozilla web browser
    o Evolution mail directory and calendar clients
    o Instant Messaging support for multiple services
    o Linux operating system
    o Java System Update Services
    o Globalization, Internationalization and Localization Support
    Developer Tools
    o Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) v1.4.2_04, including the Java SDK
    o Sun Java Studio Standard 5 update 1 Technology Preview
    o NetBeans IDE version 3.6
    System Management Tools and Client Configuration Tools
    o The Java Desktop System Configuration Manager
    o Sun Control Station 2.1
    o The Remote Desktop Takeover

    With a few exceptions, such as the System management tools, most of these features can be found in a normal linux system. I'm obviously missing something here? (I hope - enlighten me please)

    • Re:Isn't this just plain ol' linux? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mr. Darl McBride ( 704524 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:29PM (#9055038)
      With a few exceptions, such as the System management tools, most of these features can be found in a normal linux system. I'm obviously missing something here?
      A standardized configuration with very specific and well-documented apps. One of Linux's big problems is also its greatest benefit -- lots of options. That's great if you're tuning a system for your use, but not so great if you're trying to support it.

      What Sun does next will determine how well this will work. If they're just trying to offer a desktop which they can sell support for, then this won't go much of anywhere.

      If they focus on selling certification and support documentation and training, this could make the Linux desktop infinitely more digestible to the enterprise, who want to be able to hire cheap and interchangeable developers and support personnel.

    • 1. Sun bundles stuff that other distros can't. e.g. StarOffice (which has features that OpenOffice doesn't), Macromedia Flash, Java, RealPlayer, etc.

      2. $100 is the base price (actually $50 right now) that gets you one year of updates. You never have to pay another dime unless you want ANOTHER year of updates.

      3. Sun's plan is to bundle all of their desktop software into one package. As they add new value (e.g. MSAccess support for StarOffice is in the works), you get those upgrades free.

      4. Unlike many ad-hoc distros, JDS is founded upon the idea of being a consolidated desktop.

      I will say that at this point JDS is only slightly *different* from SuSE. SuSE may actually be the better pick. However, I do expect that JDS will become a lot more competitive in the future.
    • Yes it is the plain old linux, but slower.

    • Re:Isn't this just plain ol' linux? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Which normal linux distribution is set up to maintain the desktops of a bunch of non-technical employees? That you can do all this stuff with bailing wire and duct tape is irrelevant. This distribution is made specifically for replacing windows on 'office' machines. If I was setting up an office, I'd use this distribution rather than wasting my time duplicating their effort. In large companies, money is cheaper than time. Which is why windows is on office machines in the first place.
    • Check out this review of Sun's new tools offerings:

      http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1583320,00.as p [eweek.com]

      -Steve

    • Sounds like there will be solaris support at some point in the future, that's what the FAQ says:

      "The Java Desktop System is a complete, integrated desktop system that includes everything from the OS to applications. The integrated Linux OS is based on SuSE SLED and is the only Linux distribution which is supported at this time. Future versions will extend platform support to the Solaris SPARC and x86 platforms."

    • Re:Isn't this just plain ol' linux? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by turgid ( 580780 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @04:48PM (#9056210) Journal
      I'm obviously missing something here? (I hope - enlighten me please)

      Reliable and accountable support?

    • With a few exceptions, such as the System management tools, most of these features can be found in a normal linux system. I'm obviously missing something here? (I hope - enlighten me please)

      Sun is a multi-billion(???) dollar company selling a desktop solution that isn't Microsoft or IBM. Corporates may decide to pay Sun rather than do it themselves. Don't forget the average IT guy is lazy. Why do something yourself if you can outsource it?
    • How do you do a remote desktop feature like that on Linux? I've always wondered, because VNC on Linux normally doesn't work like that. The screenshot they have there looks more like VNC on Windows, where you actually do get to takeover the entire remote display.

  • Last gasp (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Krafty Koder ( 697396 )
    Java Desktop - the last dying gasp of an old-fashioned company trying to look hip again.
    Almost like your Dad buying a Harley and rediscovering Led Zeppelin.
    Trouble is , the rest of us know that he's still an old fart.
    Think about this - Google run on 100,000 Linux servers. Sun bought Cobalt in 1999.
    Does the phrase "lost opportunity" come to mind?

  • Broken GNOME (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That's quite an facile editorial but you can't expect better from normal users. My screenshot looks better than yours. Evolution is better than KMail, GNOME looks more polished than KDE and so on. I do use XChat, Abiword, Rhythmbox.... ...usually you get stuff like these from normal users. And this is ok since you can't blame them for stuff they simply don't know about or don't have a slighest knowledge about.

    Such editorials are hard to take serious since they are build up on basicly NO deeper knowledge of
  • To quote Sun's website...
    More Manageable and Secure: Java Desktop System is more secure desktop solution available.

    On a more serious note, WHO CARES? It's yet another desktop for people to chose from. Why pay when you can set-up GNOME/KDE to look the same?

  • what i don't understand is (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's for the Desktop, "Java Desktop", so why does it require such steroid-induced hardware specifications?

    Seriously, how can they expect desktops to have this much power? You only have those kind of specs on small servers or gaming machines, and if you have a server I don't think you'd go with Java on the desktop, and if you're into games you'd go with Windows.

    Not to say it might be a good OS (I haven't tried it) but it just seems far too heavy for their target market.

    • Re:what i don't understand is (Score:4, Informative)

      by KingJoshi ( 615691 ) <slashdot@joshi.tk> on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:44PM (#9055253) Homepage
      What the heck are you talking about? They're desktop recommended configurations are:
      Pentium III-compatible processor, 600 MHz or faster; at least 4-GB hard disk; at least 256-MB RAM; 1024x768 screen resolution or better
      Yeah, that's really "steroid-induced". And their minimum configs are understandable:
      Pentium II-compatible processor, 266 MHz; 4-GB hard disk; 128-MB RAM; 800x600 screen resolution
      Maybe you were looking at their "Server Hardware Requirements"...
  • That's one of the most insane MINIMUM system requirements that I've ever seen. It's probably a good thing that it's a corporate desktop solution. Could you imagine the requirements to run a game on top of that?
    • Could you imagine the requirements to run a game on top of that?

      The requirements should have clearly specified that the system case should have enough clear space for your Playstation 2 to sit on.

  • Novell vs Sun (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stonebeat.org ( 562495 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:37PM (#9055151) Homepage
    Sun Java Desktop is based on Suse Linux. Suse Linux is owned by Novell.
    Sun and Novell are the top 2 contributors to OpenOffice/Star Office.
    Novell's Suse Linux comes with OpenOffice, while Sun Java Desktop comes with StarOffice.

  • Wow (Score:4, Funny)

    by greygent ( 523713 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:44PM (#9055256) Homepage
    The speed of Java, the intuitiveness and simplicity of Windows, the sanity of SkyOS all in one product!

  • JD4x (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Check out an open source java desktop: jd4x.sourceforge.net - it's fast, cute, and mostly Java.

  • Clarification, Java is a brand (for Sun anyway) (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mysterious_mark ( 577643 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @04:12PM (#9055635)
    As came up in the previous Java desktop discussion, there is some ambiguity as to the use of the word Java, Sun now considers Java to be a brand, just like GM has brands of Chevy and Oldsmobile, thus the Java desktop doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Java the programming language. Being a Java programmer myself, it may be hard to live the fact with our favorite language is now a pseudonymn for a corporate brand, but we need to call spade a spade. For Sun Java is a name they use to sell product and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a programming language. Mark Mark
  • Java is too many different things, it gets confusing. Java is a desktop, A VM, and a programing language. At least icrosoft had the brains to give Windows, .Net, and C# different names.
  • A Linux distro with Gnome and Mozilla.

    And for only $100 a year! Oh Boy!
  • More Manageable and Secure: Java Desktop System is more secure desktop solution available.

    Looks like they've offshored their web design.
  • Compare this to the java desktop recomended specs [sun.com] of
    Pentium III-compatible processor, 600 MHz or faster; at least 4-GB hard disk; at least 256-MB RAM; 1024x768 screen resolution or better"
    Hmm. I guess up is down, and down is up today.

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