On Thu, 2003-03-13 at 04:56, Gerald Henriksen wrote: > On Wed, 12 Mar 2003 19:33:11 -0800, you wrote: > > >On Thu, Mar 13, 2003 at 03:02:05AM +0000, Philip Wyett scripsit: > >> Seems the enterprise line for certain things will be good. However for > >> multimedia and anything game/3d related - it's a non-starter. > > > >Why on the wide earth would you expect it to be? > > > >Enterprise is not a business desktop OS; it's a server OS, rackmount > >boxes without monitors in machine rooms somewhere. > > > >The 'professional workstation' is the place you'll see 3D capability in > >a costly-support-version for large enterprises, that's probably one of > >the reasons to differentiate like that. Redhat has very specifically > >not gone after the end user desktop market, and I think they're right > >not to do that just yet. > > Red Hat has just released "Enterprise Linux WS", describe as > "operating system for desktops and workstations". > > This is (I assume) Red Hat's offering for what you call a > 'professional workstation'. > > However it appears the decision to release Enterprise WS now was a > marketing decision because the limited specs available (does Red Hat > really expect people to buy a product for $300 with next to no > description of what is included?) make it a questionable purchase. > Remember that these versions are all going to be around for the 12 to > 18 months of the lifetime of this product, and really don't seem to > make sense from a technical perspective: > > Key features of WS apparently are JRE 1.3.1, Gnome 1.4, XFree 4.1.0. > The markets WS is meant for include S/W development and ISV > applications including the Oil/Gas field. > > So lets look at S/W development. A significant percent of S/W > development is going to be GUI apps. Who is going to be developing > Gnome 1.4 applications for the next 12-18 months? Almost any > commercial development being done today for Gnome (remember the price > of WS, only companies will be buying this for the most part) will be > using Gnome 2 both for the better font support as well all the other > things Gnome 2 brings to the table. > > Furthermore most Java development should have shifted to Java 1.4.1 by > now. > > Applications in the Oil/Gas field are likely to be graphical, as are a > lot of things that a WS (and not desktop) operating system is aimed > at. Yet we have an older version of XFree that apparently has limited > 3D support (remember, 3D != games for many people). > > The idea of an Enterprise Workstation product with a slower release > cycle is good, but given the lifetime of the product it should have > been based on a more up to date and usuable set of software. >
Hi, Yes... the more and more I look into this enterprise WS edition, the more I get these weird Windows ME flash backs. As previously noted the actual role call of whats in the WS edition is not too forth-coming within the release notes. But if you look at the source rpms for AS on any mirror and the AS errata, it's gets rather scary. The first thing I noticed was AS 2.1 shipped with zlib 1.1.3, but there has seemingly been no errata (security fix) update to 1.1.4. There is more stuff, but it's pointless for me to go on listing stuff. Indeed, when I stated "game/3d related", I was as you asserted correctly going well beyond the scope of games and into other fields. We can go right from the medical, chemical, geological, engineering etc. etc. where 3D modeling and simulation is used in ever increasing and diverse ways. I agree with you totally about with the life cycle the need for a much more up to date base OS a.k.a Gnome 2 etc. I'm trying not to be too critical of Red Hat as I love the consumer version. However, $300 for 'Red Hat Enterprise WS' - Seems more like $300 for 'Old Hat Enterprise WS' sadly. Regards Phil -- ICQ: 135463069 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Public key: http://www.philipwyett.dsl.pipex.com/gpg/public_key.txt --
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