Brainshare Reports: NLD 10, Novell's Linux Switch 427
An anonymous reader submits "Computer World has an article about Novell Linux Desktop 10, which was just announced at Brainshare, that it plans to compete directly with Windows. One of the biggest things about NLD 10 is that it will have the desktop search engine Beagle as a feature." Also from Brainshare, Joe Barr writes on NewsForge about the significance of Novell's ongoing (multi-year) transition to Linux for all of its 6,000 desktops. Consultants and software sellers of all stripes won't soon run out of TCO arguments for the products they want to push, but Novell claims to have saved $900,000 last year in Microsoft license fees alone.
Saving money (Score:5, Funny)
Version Ten (Score:3, Funny)
When did the nine previous versions come out?
Re:Version Ten (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Version Ten (Score:5, Informative)
This also keeps the numbering in good sted with a few of the other distros
Re:Version Ten (Score:2)
Your second answer, which has to do with marketing, is probably the main reason.
This is no different than Windows NT 'magically' starting at version 3.1 I suppose.
Re:Version Ten (Score:2)
Re:Version Ten (Score:2)
blatently ripped off from Spinal Tap
Singing the 404 blooz (Score:3, Funny)
Funny (Score:2)
But only for slashdot referrers.
Exit strategy (Score:5, Funny)
Alone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Y'see, the point of "total" is that you're not looking at individual costs "alone"...
Re:Alone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, Novell is in a unique situation. Since they own SuSE they don't have to pay SuSE license fees, so i'm sure that saves them a chunk of change, and they don't have to purchase service contracts because they're their own service facility.
Re:Alone? (Score:2)
Umm, provided you have some competent SuSE people (which Novell does) then you don't have any costs whatsoever.
Why would someone pay SuSE license fees? You can do an ftp install for free (or at least last time I checked...haven't used SuSE in a while).
Time is money (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Time is money (Score:3, Interesting)
They had IPX early, which should destroy the first generation of TCP/IP, and it never panned out. Novell Netware was better than many server OS at the time, and it never panned out. You see the pattern here. Novell problem was never about money. They don't know how to deal their cards.
How is windows different? (Score:3, Insightful)
Everytime I get a new machine at work I need to spend a little time setting it up. Doesn't matter if it is FreeBSD, Linux, or Ms Windows, I have to spend some time making it work like I like it.
Companies replace computers often. Generally every 2-3 years, though some go much longer. Companies upgrade Windows often, mixing Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, and XP on the desktop is more pain than it is worth, so they standardize on one (or two), and every once in a while migrate everyone to the new one as the old
Re:Alone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, and also what other costs might you save?
daily malware cleaning
lower hardware cost
license auditing costs
downtime costs
Not to mention, having access to thousands of free applications, many that are best of breed.
Re:Alone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Alone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Alone? (Score:3, Insightful)
-matthew
As Dog Food Goes (Score:2)
Re:Alone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Alone? (Score:3, Informative)
Though persona
Re:Alone? (Score:5, Interesting)
IMHO, it's pretty clear that TCO is lower with a partial or total switch to linux. There are exeptions, like small businesses without IT resources, but by and large, IT costs go down.
Re:Alone? (Score:2)
Beagle, Winfs, Spotlight?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally I just store my files in My Documents folder and directory on Windows Xp and Linux respectfully; I have no need for a fancy search and when I do, find and Window's Find are adequate.
Re:Beagle, Winfs, Spotlight?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Beagle, Winfs, Spotlight?? (Score:2)
Re:Beagle, Winfs, Spotlight?? (Score:2)
A $600 Mac could do that at the same speed as a 2GHz Pentium.
I find your zealotry amusing. (Score:2)
(b) For $600, you could get a
(c) For $2,000, you could get quite a bit more than a 2GHz Pentium; heck, you'd be hard-pressed to find a PC that costs that much these days. Maybe combined with a nice big monitor I guess.
(d) Have a nice day!
Re:I find your zealotry amusing. (Score:2)
I find your assumption of zealotry amusing since I mainly use Sun workstations and PCs, and only use Macs for the occasional presentation/letter/playing music/web surfing. Yeah, I was referring to the Mac Mini which is ideal for most tasks (if you put 512mb RAM in it).
"News for Nerds". What percentage of nerds don't already posess a monitor and keyboard?
Re:Beagle, Winfs, Spotlight?? (Score:2)
You can also extend the search so it can look in other data files.
Reasons for desktop search: (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Beagle, Winfs, Spotlight?? (Score:5, Informative)
If I'm looking for information on, say, the E-Zuper project I working on at work. This allows me to turn up everything that refers to it, whether its an email, a document, a bookmark -- anything. And note that two of those things only exist within certain applications -- the email and the bookmark aren't physical files. They are conceptual objects.
Likewise, you could say, "look at everything I did yesterday", and turn up emails, website visits, documents, etc.
Or you could say, "show me everything by Stan Sterner" and the same thing would happen.
For those of us whose data repositories are diverse and not always file-based, it would be a great blessing. Not to mention that meta-searching is useful even just with normal documents.
If you can assign arbitrary meta attributes, you can bypass the limitations of a traditional directory structure. For example, I can search and find documents that I'm supposed to have completed by tomorrow, if I include an attribute such as "date-needed" on those files. This will pull from every folder (which are likely arranged by project, not date). I could also add priority tags, and search by priority.
Re:Beagle, Winfs, Spotlight?? (Score:3, Funny)
How about an example Slashdotters can relate to...
"Delete all website history and cache between 10:30 and 11:30 pm last night"
Re:Beagle, Winfs, Spotlight?? (Score:2)
Joe Sixpack on the other hand, generally speaking, has no clue as what goes where; for example, he saves things wherever the file selection box points him to. If ALL programs made the SAME assumptions it would not be so bad, but that's not the case.
End Lusers (Score:2)
Traditional file search isn't good enough since in addition to being too brain atrophied to navigate a file system, they also think that "Document 1" is a reasonable naming convention.
Re:Beagle, Winfs, Spotlight?? (Score:2)
It depends on how it is implemented. Be OS used to save indexes of searches so that it was almost instantaneous to perform successive searches based on the same criteria. That's great for searching but that's not all that interesting and it still means you have to actually do the searching.
Take for instance Apple's Spotlight. [apple.com] It contains a feature called Smart Folders (which I personally
Does anyone else see the irony (Score:2)
Changed their mind. (Score:5, Insightful)
The funny thing about this was that in the past and at last year's Brainshare, Novell had stated that they had no intention of competing directly against Windows. They even insinuated that attempting such competition was madness.
By the way. Joe Barr reported yesterday that SuSE 9.3 Professional will also include Beagle. Not that you can't download Beagle anyway.
Not only Beagle in 9.3. (Score:2, Informative)
The SUSE (remember that Novell has renamed the distro for no apparent reason) 9.3 flyers distributed at the CeBIT say so, as well. There's a list of new features, among them Linux 2.6.11, KDE 3.4, GNOME 2.10, XEN, Beagle, iPod support, "perfected" bluetooth support, PostgreSQL 8.0... and a strategy game called "Invasion". The last time I've seen a game presented as a grea
Re:Changed their mind. (Score:4, Interesting)
That was probably Messman talking sensibly before. Now, as you can see:
Currently, Linux on the desktop has been adopted primarily by technology groups and the public sector. "The next release of [Novell] Linux Desktop will be ready to compete with Windows," Friedman said.
...this time it's Nat Friedman, a person not exactly known for being tactful. Witness how he single-handedly alienated half a dozen well-established projects last month when he declared Hula to be a category-killer and that there was nothing else in that space. (The developers of Horde, eGroupware, Citadel, and a few other projects just kind of stared gapjawed at their screens, wondering whether the entire previous decade had been mere figments of their imaginations.) This is essentially the same thing: the Ximian people (Nat and Miguel) have a habit of alienating people. It may very well be that they are among the few who did not learn from the lesson of Mark Andreesen: don't moon the giant. The giant will become cross and will squash you like a bug.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Friedman found himself in Jack Messman's office getting verbally bitch-slapped for making that comment in public.
Beagle an Odd Name? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Beagle an Odd Name? (Score:2)
Ouch! (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft does not stand a chance!!
Novell is doing great work with Evolution... (Score:4, Interesting)
PLUG: I'm working on a Ruby wrapper [rubyforge.org] for Evolution. Good times!
I don't see it (Score:2)
The latest version of Evolution that ships with the latest version of Novell Linux, SuSE 9.2 Professional, is Evolution 2.0.1.
Evolution 2.0.1 is a buggy version that fails to upgrade older message stores more often than not.
Has a cappy interface compared to 1.x versions.
Missing features that were available in 1.x
New features do not work or are not complete.
I wish Miguel would drop the Mono mess an
Re:I don't see it (Score:2)
I was thinking of this one [ximian.com]; almost a megabyte of messages each day.
> Evolution 2.0.1
Yup, and Fedora Core 3 shipped with 2.0.2. Hopefully FC4 will have something newer, because lots has changed.
> fails to upgrade older message stores
Hm, I don't deny your experience with 2.0.1, but 2.0.2 upgraded my 1.4 store just fine....
Wow, it's going to have Beagle! (Score:2, Funny)
love NLD9 (Score:3, Funny)
osdir screenshots [osdir.com]
If anyone can do it, Novell can. But can they? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Cold Raw Dead Fish for Sale!"
(and I'm a Novell Partner- i like Novell!)
I've seen their new Open Enterprise Server (the SuSE/NetWare fusion) and it's tremendously impressive - I spent time in a class on it last week. The current NLD (based on SuSE 9.0) is a good solid desktop, which I run on one of my Dell boxes. Somebody out there is going to make Linux into a truly viable desktop player, and it'll probably be Novell in spite of their poor marketing skills.
I just hope that NLD doesn't turn out to be the "only" shot at a widespread penetration of the corporate desktop for Linux in general. Linux is doing just fine on the back end, but on the desktop right now the only real "alternative" is Apple - we need a good Linux-based Third Option to really start nibbling away at Windows.
Re:If anyone can do it, Novell can. But can they? (Score:2)
Uh... what desktop OS expertise does Novell bring to the table that SuSE didn't already have? The last _desktop_ OS Novell produced was Novel DOS 7. (Or was it 8?)
Re:If anyone can do it, Novell can. But can they? (Score:2)
"Cold Raw Dead Fish for Sale!"
They were bought out by apple's marketing division?
hawk
Re:If anyone can do it, Novell can. But can they? (Score:2)
"Look at how white and shiny our rice is!"
Re:If anyone can do it, Novell can. But can they? (Score:2)
Novell needs to come up with a truly easy to use configuration interface that doesn't overwrite config files and recognizes hand editing.
Ie, it needs to interpret the config files for each managed service and support all features,
comparing Novell transition to IBM's (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:comparing Novell transition to IBM's (Score:2)
Re:comparing Novell transition to IBM's (Score:2)
Is Halliburton big enough? Lots of IT stuff happens company-wide.
Everything is IE only.
that's kinda what I said, why else would they have to rewrite them to not be IE only if they weren't IE only in the first place? And the existence of you friend hardly negates the press on IBM's migration.
Re:comparing Novell transition to IBM's (Score:2)
Search Dog (Score:2, Funny)
Novell may get us something we need: drivers. (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't care if they are bnaries, the important think would be that any Linux user could get hold of one.
With Novell, RH, Sun and IBM pushing for commercial Linux desktops we may get this more often thatn we currently do now.
Re:Novell may get us something we need: drivers. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless they're running on something 'unsupported' like ppc or sparc. Or are running an 'unsupported' version of gcc or glibc. Or are trying to run the hardware three years after the vendor last bothered updating the driver so that it won't work on a modern kernel.
Great news for Lucene and Lucene.Net (Score:4, Interesting)
Get in line (Score:2)
The line for products to compete with Windows forms in the back. Lotus Notes, Java, browser-based apps, and network computers are already in line. Desktop 10 will just have to wait its turn.
What's Beagle? URL here (Score:2)
Beagle [gnome.org]
Also interesting:
Beagle CVS repo [gnome.org].
True Cost (Score:2, Redundant)
But how much time($$) was spent moving to Linux?
Was any training needed to move to Linux?
There is alot more than just license fees.
Re:True Cost (Score:2)
If you break even, like in 3 years, is it still worth it?
I think you just answered your own question.
Novell rocks (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks for talking the talk and walking the walk, Novell. IBM, when are you going to switch the corporate desktops?
Active Directory (Score:2)
Re:Active Directory (Score:2)
Novell is selling the Linux solution (Score:2)
NLD is nice. (Score:3, Informative)
Actually im doing just that now as a project at work.
Life is good!
Beagle link (Score:2)
In the news (Score:2, Funny)
Also
Microsoft claims to have saved $900,000 last year in Microsoft license fees [because they installed Microsoft Windows]
Novell Client for Linux? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if this means Novell is any closer to releasing a Novell Netware Client for Linux? In our shop, lots of people use Fedora Core 1,2,3 - but everyone needs to have access to files on the Novell Netware LAN. Scripts that use NCPFS get us there, but it's kind of a hack (i.e. you need to change the script if we change the server, ...)
Releasing a full Novell Netware Client for Linux has been a planned thing for some time. Maybe NLD 10 will finally get us there?
Maybe they are ... (Score:3, Informative)
Novell Public Service Announcement [novell.com]
Enjoy,
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:2)
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, because that would make -sense-
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:2)
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:2)
Plus, unlike windows, all the executables you're going to use are in your path, so you can just put oowriter in a shortcut and it will find it, wherever it is.
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:3, Informative)
I'm curious what versions of which distributions, do you recall?
Hell, other than the various flavors of Linux, I don't know of a modern OS that doesn't handle new applications correctly.
None of the major operating systems "handle" new applications by adding menu entries. The installer that you use does that. The Firefox and Thunderbird installers from mozilla
Re:deb vs. rpm (Score:3, Insightful)
Next...package management. Most (but not all) mainstream programs already exist in good package management respositories. Debian ha
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:2)
Personally I haven't seen a major app not put menu items in the apps menu for a couple of years. That is assuming that you get a version of your app for your distribution.
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:2)
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:2)
In BASH the tab key is my best friend.
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:3, Interesting)
The included Citrix Client just worked out of the box.
I can see NLD being a real challenger for Uncle Bill.
There is an eval of 9 on the Novell site, try it out.
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, I've seen that happen. I use OS X by preference for most tasks, and I think they strike a good middle ground. They put most native programs in /Applications. In a shared environment users can install programs to ~/Applications. The BSD subsystem applications are stored in /usr/bin and the other historically expected locations. Newbies look in /Applications and find everything. CLI gurus find everything where they expect too.
Watching a Mac user run Windows or Linux is painful. They try to move or delete programs and just can't understand why it doesn't work.
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:2)
Painful? I think it's funny!
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:2)
imagine seeing someone click on the firefox icon on the dock, and having the mac sit there for a few seconds as it first mounts the disk image(which is likely placed randomly on the hard drive) with firefox in it, and then starts it.
Ha ha! I've never seen that happen. Most of the .dmg files I get have big text that says "Drag this to your applications folder." I can see how a clueless user would put it in their dock, though and see the behavior you describe. Of course I don't see why the disk image woul
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:2)
Re:A Bad Idea. (Score:4, Informative)
If you drop out to the CLI and take a look at
To me, it's a great example of transparency done right. You've just been engrained with the idea that files are scattered everywhere and need to be purged, as you put it. That's not the case at all. It's not a matter of dumbing down so much as abstracting things that don't really serve the user any better spelled out. *THAT'S* why it's 'Applications' and not '/Applications.'
It can be easier in the CLI (Score:2)
Often, these things are still easier in the GUI. Is "oowrite" always in that /usr/bin whatever folder mentioned in the parent? Then you can go to the CLI and start it in the time it takes you to fish around and search all over the screen for menus and icons that are might not even be in the same place from bootup to bootup, and will certainly never been in the same place from different machine t
Re:fp? (Score:4, Funny)
and already the site is 404
Not to me, but I use lynx and seem to have less problems with overloaded servers.
Anyway, from TFA: Also planned for the release, due out next year, is F-Spot, a personal photo management application.
What are they going to call the next version? ;-)
Re:Marketspeak (Score:2)
Re:Dr Mendele agrees with you (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Dr Mendele agrees with you (Score:2)
Re:SUSE 10? (Score:2)
The SUSE name isn't dead, it's still around. NLD is a gnome based distribution based on SUSE with commercial fonts, and a tweaked office suite.