Brian Nitz wrote: > Shawn Walker wrote: >> On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 1:01 PM, Frank Ludolph >> <Frank.Ludolph at sun.com> wrote: >> >>> Alan Coopersmith wrote: >>> Calum Benson wrote: >>> >>> >>> On Fri, 2008-03-14 at 07:44 -0700, Ken Mays wrote: >>> >>> >>> Tossing in my two cents: >>> 1. Simplistic on applets: Show/Hide Desktop, Web browser, email >>> client, volume manager,network monitor/connectivity, graphic/audio >>> card settings, PCMCIA/USB card unplug/eject status applet, (yelp) help >>> applet, switch user applet, lock/shutdown/log off/restart applet. >>> >>> - more on less here but I always remeber having a modem applet and >>> networking (LAN) status applet. >>> >>> True, might be worth adding the network monitor applet back to the >>> default config. (It will be replaced when the NWAM Phase 1 GUI is >>> complete, but that's not going to land in time for the May release >>> AFAIK.) >>> >>> Though someday people will want to run Sun Rays on OpenSolaris, and >>> network monitor on Sun Ray is still a waste of bandwidth (is there >>> network traffic? yes? let's flash the icon! what? that generated >>> network traffic sending the icon change to the Sun Ray for display? >>> flash it again! infinite feedback loop? what's that?) >>> >>> >>> I'm going to disagree on SunRay being a consideration about how the >>> desktop >>> is configured by default. SunRay users are definitely not the target >>> users >>> for OpenSolaris. If someone is setting up OpenSolaris to run SunRays >>> they >>> will have a lot of work to do including some configuring of the >>> desktop. >>> This does add work, but it is for very few people compared to the >>> primary >>> target user group for the first release, developers and other users >>> with >>> technical backgrounds. >>> > I disagree. Sun Ray and other thin clients should always be > considered an eventual target for OpenSolaris. We've already seen > how difficult it is to fix thin client scalability problems after a > desktop is released so I think we should be thinking about these > issues up front. I don't disagree with your concerns. The system should be built such that it can be SunRay friendly. My point was that it is wrong to overly constrain the configuration of the desktop just so that it runs efficiently on SunRay out of the box.
We don't want to ship a lowest common denominator desktop where most individual users will have to learn about and enable useful features that were disabled just because they put too much of a load on Sun Ray servers or their networks. Doing so makes our desktop look bad compared to other competing standalone desktops. For example compiz will ship in the next release and auto-enable a number of transitional animations and transparency if sufficient hardware support is found - it can be manually disabled. We should ship a rich desktop environment, and SunRay admins can de/re-config to meet the needs of San Rays and their groups. This is also a much smaller training and time issue because there are only a few Sun Ray admins compared to the number of individual users. Frank > > - There are already hundreds or thousands of developers within Sun > who should already be "flying OpenSolaris airplanes" on Sun Ray > clients, as some of us have been for months. (No it isn't supported, > but the earlier people start looking at it, the more likely it will be > a rock solid platform a few months from now when it is deployed more > widely.) > > - GNOME desktops already have lots of exposure on single user laptops > with accelerated graphics display on a fast local bus. We already > know that works. But what happens when you deploy those desktops on > a Grid or 16 CPU machine with hundreds of users and shared NFS > filesystem? > - Sun Ray clients are now selling well but an unfortunately many > customers are still paying license fees for Microsoft Desktops when a > well designed OpenSolaris desktop could easily meet their needs. Why > not design a desktop which helps a good integrator/developer/reseller > yank some of that "default thin client desktop" excess market share > back from Microsoft? > > Since 1985, a typical PC's CPU speed has increased from 7Mhz to about > 2Ghz a factor of 285. In the same time home network connection speed > has gone from 2400bps to 8Mbps or more, a factor of 3333. Some > things that made sense to run locally in 1985 don't make sense anymore > and some things which make sense to run locally now won't make sense > in 10 or 15 years. > >> >> This applies to remote desktop users as well of course. >> >> However, it does lend credence to the need to have easier desktop >> configuration profile management and an applet to switch between them >> if you ask me... >> >> > Fortunately the network applet is easily disabled on Sun Ray. The > desktop, X and Sun Ray teams have already done quit a lot of work > finding and patching laptop, single user and single CPU centric bugs > in desktop components but it would be too easy to slip back and have > to redo this.
