Comment Anyone ever use Caldera? (Score 1) 28
I bought Caldera 1.2, because I wanted the Netware support and the StarOffice cd. I had a few things that I didn't like.
a) A soon found out that the netware client didn't have a graphical interface in the standard edition and the documentation left much to be desired, which caused me to spend quite a few hours fidgeting with those textfiles before I actually got it to work.
b) As a relative newbie at the time (and probably still :-) I like to use RPM's to install my software, but as I soon discovered most RPM's out there is made for RedHat and Libc6 so I ended up having to compile everything myself. Unlike SUSE they hadn't bothered to set up their system to enable the use of most RedHat packages.
c) I found LISA, the Caldera setup tool, troublesome to use, as far as I remember LISA didn't even allow me to set norwegian keyboard. I admit that since I had gotten used to RedHat before I started using Caldera I might be predisposed, but then again when testing SUSE later on I thought YAST was very good.
d) At that time I didn't think about it, but later I have come to question wether Caldera actually want to participate in making free software like Linux a success or just leech the work of others. Both RedHat and Suse I see contributing to free software projects like Xfree86 and Gnome, but all software comming from Caldera is closed-sourced or under special licenses. The few exceptions seems to be a few patches to the IPX support. The only "high" profile contribution from Caldera seems to be the COAS project, but it seems that it has all but stopped due to the fact thar Caldera again expected everybody else to do the hard work so that they could reap the benefits.
Caldera is probably a ok choice from a technical viewpoint if you are setting up a server for a small office or something, but as a system for use on a home system I can't say i want to recommend it. Due to my questions about Caldera's principal views on software licenses and free software I recommend that people look elsewhere in anycase.
a) A soon found out that the netware client didn't have a graphical interface in the standard edition and the documentation left much to be desired, which caused me to spend quite a few hours fidgeting with those textfiles before I actually got it to work.
b) As a relative newbie at the time (and probably still
c) I found LISA, the Caldera setup tool, troublesome to use, as far as I remember LISA didn't even allow me to set norwegian keyboard. I admit that since I had gotten used to RedHat before I started using Caldera I might be predisposed, but then again when testing SUSE later on I thought YAST was very good.
d) At that time I didn't think about it, but later I have come to question wether Caldera actually want to participate in making free software like Linux a success or just leech the work of others. Both RedHat and Suse I see contributing to free software projects like Xfree86 and Gnome, but all software comming from Caldera is closed-sourced or under special licenses. The few exceptions seems to be a few patches to the IPX support. The only "high" profile contribution from Caldera seems to be the COAS project, but it seems that it has all but stopped due to the fact thar Caldera again expected everybody else to do the hard work so that they could reap the benefits.
Caldera is probably a ok choice from a technical viewpoint if you are setting up a server for a small office or something, but as a system for use on a home system I can't say i want to recommend it. Due to my questions about Caldera's principal views on software licenses and free software I recommend that people look elsewhere in anycase.
