The Linux ShÖÖtÖut (Part 3)

Desktop Linux Comparison

Red Hat Linux 9.0
Old wine in a new bottle
Red Hat is probably the most recognized of all the Linux distributions. it has been installed in almost every thinkable form, from servers to clusters. But Red hat is attempting to become more user-friendly for desktop users.

The setup is quite simple. The tricky part is the disk partitioning utility that is not easy for new user. Though it provides a graphical representation of all the partitions on the hard drive, it does not shield you from assigning a root partition or select a swap partition. Otherwise the install can be easily navigated by a user with a basic idea of Linux.

Starting off with Red Had 8.0, Red Hat has embarked on an ambitious project, called Blue Curve desktop initiative that provides a highly integrated desktop environment. This initiative has drawn lot of flake from the open source community, since it also restricts the ability of the user to play around with the desktop. Thus, this Blue Curve initiative has removed a lot of the fun that was possible in the earlier versions of the Red Hat. But it is a boon to the new user who does not care much about switching desktop and window managers.

Configuring your graphical hardware and adjusting display settings is also much easier now using the ‘redhat-config-xfree86’ tool which has replaced Xconfigurator as the standard tool for graphical configuration. But, there is a downside to using this new utility, it runs in graphical mode and the only way left to bring the X server to life in case of faulty hardware detection is by tweaking the X server’s configuration file.

Red Hat does a good job of compiling applications from source code, and there are no issues as far as support for rpm packages go. But the package management system leaves a lot to be desired, more so in the area of checking and automatically installing and automatically installing dependencies before installing packages. These function abilities are currently provided only by the Debian-based apt-get, the ports-system on BSD-style operating system, and the portage system on Gentoo Linux.

Red Hat has OpenOffice.org, which provides compatibility with existing Microsoft Office files. It is very mature Linux distribution but does not adopt well in the office environment; rather the office user has to adapt to Red Hat, and that will take a lot of time.

SuSE Linux Office Desktop
The chameleon does it again
SuSE Linux is trying to break up their Linux distributions into two distinct categories; one targeted at the general purpose user and the other targeted at the office user. This is very much better than trying to satisfy the needs of all the users in a single distribution.

The installer interface is very simple for those who had some previous experience with SuSE, but for newbie it can get confusing-SuSE does not follow step-by-step installation process that is commonly followed by all the other distributions. Instead it uses a Web page based format-all the detected settings are displayed on the screen. To change any of the setting, you have to click on the specific item. The problem with this kind of installation is that you might miss out some important settings that should have been changed. Otherwise the install is perfect-the default option provided in the installation, mounts all the existing Windows partitions by itself.

The hardware support is quite amazing; it doesn’t have problems installing on any of the testbeds. Also, apart from the bundle StarOffice 6.0, it comes with CrossOver, which lets you run many Windows based applications n Linux.

Compatibility with rpm packages is not a problem. But the most annoying part is the absence of the ‘make’ utility needed for compiling from source. While the novice user might not consider this a short coming, users are not novices forever. Just as normal windows users turn into power users after a few months of usage, Linux users general demand much more from their distributions after a few months. This could be something as simple as compiling the open source alternative to MSN messenger (amsn).

Mandrake Linux 9.1
Standard review
A magician without a wand
Installing Mandrake is quite simple. The installer is very user-friendly, and even a newbie won’t have a problem when selecting options. The disk partitioning utility is slightly different from other distribution. It is much more graphical and gives a multi-colored view of the different partitions on your drive.

Mandrake 9.1 Standard comes with both Koffice1.2.1 and OpenOffice 1.0.2. but StarOffice 6.0 comes only in the PowerPack edition. It comes with a whole lot of applications neatly grouped under various easy-to-understand categories such as office, networking, etc.

The Mandrake control center is an excellent tool that lets you control all the hardware and software on your computer. The Software Sources Manager uses the CDs to manage the update process by default. It also lets you add extra size for downloading the security updates. It lets you choose from a list of mirror sites. After configuring the proxy settings the updates work perfectly, but the list of site is restricted.

The Windows partitions are mounted by default, but the user has to have prior knowledge of the mount points to access the partitions. The samba server management using Mandrake Control Centre leaves much to be desired. It searches for the servers on the network and lists all available computers, but doesn’t group them by work-groups. More ever it has problems accessing Windows XP shares. Finally, you have to end up using the command line Samba utilities to get your work done faster.

Overall Mandrake 9.1 is a good product but a little more effort is required to more it more user-friendly. While the operating system comes with a whole lot of goodies, it doesn’t offer anything special for the typical office desktop user.

What it all means…….

In the Office desktop category SuSE Office Desktop outperformed all the others simply because it has been specially developed for this particular segment. While the other distributions such as Red Hat and Mandrake are one-size-fits-all packages, SuSE has smartly moved away from this mentality and started addressing the needs of different target audiences. However, as far as pricing goes, Red Hat is the best option as it is freely downloadable, even for commercial use.