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JDS This forum is for the discussion of the Sun Java Desktop System.

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Old 10-21-2004, 07:51 PM   #1
technodude90
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Why is this distro listed?


Hi,
I was jsut wondering why JDS was listed as a Linux Distribution, when all it really does is borrow code from Suse. It is preety much Suse Linux with some extra stuff. Myabe I don't know enough about JDS or something, but I don't see the point.
 
Old 10-21-2004, 10:54 PM   #2
tadelste
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I'd go with Myabe I don't know enough about JDS or somethin

I know many people who have made the same mistake. It's OK.

Sun has it's own JDS Forum and we're just trying to get our feet wet here.

Sun contracted with SuSE to build the Linux base for JDS. The Desktop was built by Sun engineers - and I believe the project is based in Ireland.

The desktop module sits on top of at least four operating systems - Morphix (Debian based), the SuSE build, a build from China and Solaris.

This forum will be dedicated to the Linux build and possibly a community version based around Morphix for starters.

You'll see more participation in weeks to come because the Solaris people just got their JDS components which run on a Java Workstation and we see a lot of questions people asked ten months ago.

I'm part of the jdshelp.org community web site and our team thought it best to find a community dedicated to what we do for JDS - build RPMS, write howtos, find drivers and maintain a knowledge base.

Like other distros, we'd rather not have the overhead of moderation of our own forum. Jeremy was kind enough to invite us to participate.

I do appreciate the question.

Last edited by tadelste; 10-21-2004 at 11:10 PM.
 
Old 10-22-2004, 06:07 PM   #3
XavierP
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To add to tadelste's lines - a distro being built on another distro does not make it any less of a distro. Mandrake, for example, was originally based very heavily on Red Hat and there are a large number of rpm and Debian and Slack based distros around.

Over time, I would expect JDS to develop a unique "personality".
 
Old 10-23-2004, 09:33 AM   #4
technodude90
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Thanks

Thanks for the reply. I hope that Sun continues their linux effort. I am extremely interested in their 3d desktop and I am glad they participate in gnome development. I hope they will continue to support the open source initiative.
 
Old 11-02-2004, 01:33 PM   #5
swhiser
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Large Company Linux Involvement

Techno's original question is a fair one. One way of restating it is, "What is accomplished if a big Unix company like Sun goes out and gussies up an existing distro like SuSE?"

I think there's an important function played by a Sun in doing that, and it's easy to overlook unless you are a Large-Company IT manager. We have heard that as large-company users of IT are evaluating their systems and looking carefully at the question of migrating some parts of their infrastructures to GNU/Linux, they sorely need a large vendor to help them. There are certain classes of companies which simply need large, publicly traded vendors-like Microsoft, IBM, Novell, hp & Sun.

Nothing against Linspire, Xandros, Debian, Mandrake, Red Hat and others, but when a large company needs to consider GNU/Linux for the desktop there are legal, support, liability, integration and other big issues concerned which communities or smaller distro companies can't and would not rightly expect to provide.

They're all tricky criteria, but integration is a particularly tricky one because the vendor needs either the know-how or the existing pieces of the stack in order to make Linux fit in seamlessly with the existing Windows systems. One example is the company which is concerned that Linux desktops cant yet integrate perfectly with their Active Directory. Another company is worried about having 20% of its desktops running Linux and these users creating StarOffice .sxw files. They are concerned about having to deal within the company with the complexity of people generating and receiving documents from inside and out- in different file formats. These are issue for which we have solutions in progress or cludgy workarounds, but a Quaker Oats is not likely to turn to small-business IT vendors to help it through a process that is percieved as having a lot of risk--particularly in these days before we have a big and symbolic reference win IN THE BAG (Munich, for instance, is not complete yet).

So, the long way of addressing the question is that, yes, Sun & Novell are important for GNU/Linux because they have large-vendor skills and customer experience and they offer different philosophies on the Linux desktop itself, as well as its integration, in a Windows world. (There's a term-paper job here awaiting any bold soul who's big enough to tackle the intriguing question of the contrasts between Novells Linux/MONO and Sun's Linux/Java approaches to desktop ecosystem diversity...and their implications.)

Like the "enterprise" v "popular" Linux distinction, this distinction between "large-installation" and "individual" Linux tends to be missed quite often, for the needs in these different settings are quite substantially different -- but need with equal urgency to be considered if we are to enhance the chances of open standards.

Respectfully,
-Sam
 
  


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