Sun's Take on Linux

Forgetting that his mama always told him not to look into the sun, our Free Software guru takes a look at Sun's edition of Linux.

Matthew Newton, PC World

What's keeping you from switching to Free Software? Self-described "writer-editor-tinkerer-geek" Matthew Newton would love to hear from you on that topic, or anything else dealing with Linux and Open Source. Speak Freely!

Whenever I mention Sun Microsystems' Java Desktop System, people get confused. "Is it Solaris?" they ask. No, Solaris is Sun's proprietary version of Unix. "Oh, so it's a Java-based OS?" No, it isn't that, either. JDS is Sun's Linux distribution, now in its second release, and it's got Java slapped on it because Sun loves to slap the word on things that are not Java at all.

Sun is pushing the Java Desktop System as the desktop version of Linux that will take over the enterprise. Pricing is $100 per desktop per year, or $50 per user per year if you buy a license for every employee. Included in the package are administration tools that help keep hundreds of desktops in sync with regard to patches and configuration.

I did not test these tools, because I've only got one test PC, not hundreds. Besides, I'm more interested in the end-user experience, especially since a Sun representative pointed out that JDS's simplified Gnome desktop could be a great solution for folks like my grandma, who (like many enterprise workers) only wants to use a small number of apps like e-mail, Web, word processing, and so forth.

It's hard to know how seriously Sun is committed to this offering. The company's own Web site has a Linux from Sun page that hypes products from Red Hat and SuSE, not Sun's own JDS. Curious. But that's not the only sign that the Java Desktop may not be getting all the attention it needs in-house at Sun. The rough edges in this distribution are quite visible, beginning with the installer.

The Sun Also Freezes

I booted the first JDS install disc to discover that Sun is using a version of SuSE's YAST2 installer--one that cannot resize non-Linux partitions. My test machine was sporting only one large NTFS partition dedicated to Windows XP, so to make room for JDS my only choice was to fire up my trusty copy of Symantec's Partition Magic to shrink that XP partition down. Once I'd done that, I booted the JDS disc again.

In short order, the installer popped up a dialog box reading: "There is free space on the disk. Should YAST2 use this for SuSE Linux?" SuSE Linux? It looks like the coders who adapted YAST2 for JDS didn't quite alter all the text strings they should have. That's odd, coming from a big, no-nonsense outfit like Sun. But confusing text is hardly a showstopper: As long as the installer works, this is really just nit-picking, right?

Well, the installer doesn't necessarily work. It froze while copying packages from the second install disc. All the on-screen buttons were grayed-out except for the "Abort" button--and clicking it did nothing. I'm not used to buttons that don't respond; I pretty much left those sorts of headaches behind years ago, when I first adopted Linux. But Abort definitely had no intention of aborting anything, so I rebooted.

The second installation attempt failed at exactly the same point the first one did. So I rebooted again, this time choosing the "Installation- Safe Settings" option from the JDS disc's boot menu. I got as far as copying packages from the third install disc. Then YAST2 froze again.

I figured I'd gotten pretty far along in the install process and wanted to see where I stood, so I rebooted with no disc in the CD drive. I got a boot menu offering me a choice between the Java Desktop System and Windows. I selected JDS, and lo, it began to boot from the hard drive. JDS then asked for Setup Disc 3, and proceeded to finish copying files from that disc. So the OS was smart enough to realize that it was incomplete, and it knew where it needed to grab more files from. Nifty. Soon I was presented with a log-on screen. Rock and roll.

Where the Sun Don't Shine

What you see when you log in to the Java Desktop System: a coffee cup, and not much else.

Logging in to JDS gives you a purplish, Spartan desktop with an oversized Java logo splashed across it. There's a Launch menu down where a Windows user expects to see the Start menu. There are a few icons along the left side of the desktop.

I started poking around. Double-clicking the StarOffice icon gave me a surprise: Rather than opening StarOffice, it fired up the StarOffice installation program. This reminded me of the bad old days when distributions didn't come with OpenOffice.org (the Free cousin of Sun's commercial StarOffice) built in, and you had to deal with its terrible installer on your own. Mandrake and Fedora, the two distributions I'm currently using on my personal machines, hide this foolishness from you.

The question the StarOffice installer presents is misleading. It asks you to choose between a "Workstation installation" or a "Local installation." But JDS has already installed StarOffice on the system, in the usr/bin directory where programs usually reside. Selecting the first option simply grants you access to that installation. If, however, you choose "Local installation," the installer will copy the entire StarOffice program to your home directory. Now you've got two copies of StarOffice on the system. Who needs two copies of StarOffice? Why doesn't the StarOffice icon on the desktop just open the copy of StarOffice that JDS has already created, rather than confusing me with this bizarre choice?

Also included in a virgin JDS install: Mozilla for Web browsing, Novell Evolution for e-mail and groupware, the venerable Gaim for instant messaging, The GIMP and GThumb for dealing with images, and the standard set of mini-games you'll find on any Gnome desktop. There's not much else, so the Launch menu is clean and provides easy access to the software you do have.

A Preferences submenu has shortcuts to YAST2's maintenance mode, so you can tweak hardware settings and such. But while JDS recognized the Montego II sound card in my test machine, I could not get it to actually produce sound, no matter how long I messed around with YAST2. I was similarly unable to connect to a network printer (my simple test for a Linux distribution's readiness to join a network where non-Linux boxes lurk).

At this point, I felt like I was working with a Linux distribution that was at least a year old, perhaps older. And once I dug a little deeper and started taking note of the version numbers of various packages, I realized that I wasn't far off. For instance, JDS installs Gnome version 2.2, which was released in February of 2003. Gnome 2.4 was released later that year, and version 2.6 went final this past spring. Why is JDS so behind the times? Just to be different?

It's still fuzzy how Sun actually intends for JDS to stand apart. The press literature emphasizes that "Unlike Windows, the Java Desktop System and the Mozilla browser are directly integrated with Java technology, making the 'out-of-the-box' desktop ready to run thousands of Java technology-based applications and applets with a consistent look and feel."

Hmm. The Online Update tool is one of two Java apps that appear in JDS's Launch menu: I can report that it is an absolute dog compared to similar tools in other distributions. Not only that, but--as you might expect from a Java app--its look and feel doesn't match the rest of the system, and its interface seems to be a half-beat behind you at all times. The other Java app I found, JGraphpad (a diagram editor), exhibits similar sluggishness. If Java--Sun's darling baby--doesn't perform well on Sun's own OS, I guess I shouldn't expect it to perform better anywhere.

Old Business, New Business

I've covered several different flavors of Linux in this space, mostly with an eye toward ease of use, and keeping in mind the Linux-based notebook I've been cooking up for my grandmother. Alas, it pains me to report that the Linux for Grandma project is dead in the water for the moment: Grandma suddenly decided that she does not want to pay for Internet connectivity, and will not stand for anyone else paying that bill for her. Grandmas can be darned stubborn--mine certainly is--so the Thinkpad I took delivery on still awaits a Linux installation and a mission in life. All in good time. When it happens, I'll have the details here.

In the meantime, the next few months should be interesting. The West Coast edition of the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo is nearly upon us. Fedora Core 3 recently entered testing. The usual fall releases from Mandrake and SuSE are on the horizon. On the legal front, SCO's assault on Linux is finally beginning to fall apart, and Lindows Linspire and Microsoft have kissed and made nice. There's just no stopping that which is Free.

Free Software of the Month

For burning all manner of shiny silver discs, K3b is the Linux tool of choice.

Gnome 2.6 makes burning data CDs extremely easy: A CD Creator function is built right into the file manager. But if you want to copy a CD, burn a music CD or a hybrid CD, or (dare I say it?) burn a DVD, there aren't any good, native options for Gnome--yet. But a KDE app steps up to the plate. K3b is an invaluable app that even a die-hard Gnome user like myself can't disparage in any way. Its friendly and efficient interface is clearly patterned after Roxio's ubiquitous Easy CD Creator; its feature set is as extensive as you're likely to need; and I've never once unintentionally created a coaster with it. For a good burn every time, check out K3b.