I — and probably everyone else who’s ever written about Linux — have commented before on the perrenial Linux article which seems to be found over, and over, and over, in magazines or their online counterparts. It’s that ubiquitous article which reappears year after year, and the theme is always the same: Linux, and whether or not it is “ready”.
To be fair, there are many variations on this basic theme. Viz:
- Linux is ready for the desktop
- Linux is not ready for the desktop
- Is Linux ready for the desktop?
- Why isn’t Linux ready for the desktop yet?
- [This year] is the year of Linux on the desktop
- [Next year] is the year of Linux on the desktop
- Linux will never be ready for the desktop
- Linux: almost ready for the desktop
- …
You get the idea.
Which brings us to the seminar I attended this morning. Put on by Novell and sponsored by a host of partners (including IBM, Intel, and yes, Oracle — though I was not there in any capacity connected to the sponsorship), it was a presentation of SLED 10 and SLES 10 (desktop and server, respectively) and some of their cooler features.
The theme?
Your Linux is ready.
Well, now. That’s a good theme, if you can back it up. I think they did a reasonable job; so here’s why.
The whole open question of whether Linux is or is not “ready” begs at least two other questions (if not more): Ready for what? and Ready for whom?
To their credit, Novell has tried to answer both of these questions with the words the enterprise. That is, the “who” they are aiming at is the business world; therefore, the “what” that Linux needs to be ready for is whatever the business world is trying to do with their desktops and servers. That’s a pretty broad, catch all statement, but it more or less describes what they have tried to do. I’m going to stop short of saying they’ve succeeded 100% (I don’t think I’d be willing to agree unless I had made a large deployment of some kind), but they’ve done pretty well.
Then, of course, there is the Obligatory Viral Mascot.
One of the presenters actually used the word “viral” to describe the samurai mascot. I realize that making something viral has been a real and reasonable goal of marketers in this era, but I’m not sure you can proclaim something viral just because you want it to be. But for what it’s worth, here it is. Viral (well, I am sharing it…)? You decide.
Coming off the heels of that, Your Linux is ready almost seems to be saying Your Linux is ready to slice you in half. ;-) (NOTE: for a viral mascot, he’s sure hard to find on the Novell site… anywhere.)
What I haven’t said is that the desktop presentation was great. While Xgl/compiz was easily the most impressive thing shown (okay, xen virtualization was pretty cool), another thing I learned was how to get all the “extra” compiz features you may have seen in some of the videos of Xgl/compiz in action. You’ll want to begin at compiz.net — have fun.
Personally, I think Linux has been ‘ready’ for a couple of years now. The problem is that hardware vendors still aren’t ‘ready’.
I think you have a good point, and I think I’d agree.
Not to keep pushing Suse (because I don’t really favor any one distro over another, and I’m just as likely to abandon Suse for another distro in a few months… or days), but it sounds like this is something in their favor right now. Apparently, you can get SLED 10 or SLES 10 pre-installed on various pieces of hardware, and supported. Probable vendors include Lenovo, IBM, maybe Dell… Now, I have a feeling these are not necessarily options you’ll find listed on their websites, but are available if a company engages the appropriate salesforce.
That’s not perfect, but it’s a start.