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Linux Business

Ximian Partners w/HP; Ximinian Default HP-UX Stations 111

Posted by Hemos from the good-news-for-miguel dept.
vukicevic writes "Hewlett-Packard and Ximian have partnered to make Ximian GNOME the default desktop on all HP-UX workstations later this year. HP will also be offering Ximian GNOME on its Linux workstations. The press release has more information."
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Ximian Partners w/HP; Ximinian Default HP-UX Stations More

Ximian Partners w/HP; Ximinian Default HP-UX Stations

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  • I know I was too, thinking .. 'this is like Helixcode isn't it?' .. When did they change their name?

    --
  • Speaking of SCO.... what's up with them. Didn't Caldera or sombody purchase a big chunk of them?
  • Step 1: Company announces its partnership with Red Hat, and that it will be installing Red Hat Linux on its computers.
    Step 2 (or 1, if it's a non-Linux Unix company): Company announces its partnership with the Gnome Foundation and that it will be installing Gnome as its default desktop.
    Step 3: Company announces its partnership with Helix Code and that it will be installing Helix Gnome as its default desktop.
    Step 4: Company announces its partnership with Eazel and that it will be installing the Nautilus desktop as its default desktop.

    Whatever the merits of some incarnation of Gnome over the alternatives, clearly there's no technical reason for, say, Dell to announce that they're switching from Gnome to Eazel Gnome. (Or was it Helix Gnome to Eazel Gnome?) I would assume that this is partly just companies with piles of VC money bringing a wheelbarrow of it to computer makers and asking for endorsement.

    But I guess what we're also seeing is the emerging fight as to who will collect the tolls on the Linux desktop. Kind of like the fight between MS and computer makers as to what will appear on the Windows desktop, the question is whose desktop configuration will ship and whose revenue scheme will be supported-- Red Hat's subscription service for updates, Helix Code's ticketing commissions and subscription service for updates or Eazel's disk space and, ummm, subscription service for updates.

  • We all knew this was going to happen eventually. Microsoft put up their "Linux Myths" page and released the so-called "Halloween Documents". That was the first sign...the rapid growth of the KDE and GNOME (especially Helix (now Ximian)) is another factor. Combine this with the stability of GNU/Linux and other systems compared to Windows 2000, and there you have it - death to Windows. Windows 2000 is Microsoft's best offer. Let's look at it logically:

    All Windows 2000 users are familiar with the "Blue Screen of Death". Poor reliability is one of the major drawbacks of Windows 2000. Some of the current problems will be fixed in Windows Whistler, but "code bloat" is almost certain to introduce many more reliability problems.

    In the performace arena, there is no comparison...Windows 2000 is adequate for routine desktop apps, but it is unable to handle heavy network loads. A few organizations try to make it work as an Internet server. For instance, barnesandnoble.com uses Windows 2000, as can be verifyed by the error messages that their webserver produces, such as this recent example: Error Message:

    [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]

    Can't allocate space for object 'queryHistory' in database 'web' because the 'default' segment is full.

    The software development world in particular is becoming more and more open source. In the future, most development tools will be free and open source - already the free software world has grabbed a large portion of the developer mindshare. With Ximian, this will soon include an even larger portion of user mindshare. So let's see how well Windows 2000 does in regards to free software...Oh, wait. The amount of free Windows software is much less than what is available for Unix. Many Windows applications are provided as "shareware", without source code, so the programs cannot be customized, debugged, improved, or extended by the user.

    Ok then, let's move on to support. Although support is available for Windows 2000, you should be prepared to spend as long as an hour on hold, with no guarantee that your problem will be resolved. Because of the closed source nature of Windows 2000, there is no informal, free support available, and bugs are fixed on Microsoft's schedule, not your's. Since Windows 2000 is not updated frequently (besides an SP before it was released), you may wait years for bugs to be fixed. (Or alternatively just shell out another $600 for Windows Whistler).

    That brings us to price. The server edition of Windows 2000 costs nearly $650. Even basic applications cost extra. Users often spend many thousands of dollars for programs that are included for free with Linux or FreeBSD. Documentation is expensive, and very little on-line documentation is provided. A license is required for every computer, which means delays and administrative overhead.

    I think that says it all, really. Sorry to all you Microsoft fans - but try going on fact - like the facts stated above, rather than FUD, like the FUD contained on Microsoft's web site.

  • Ha. It ain't funny until one tries to get various
    versions of IRIX talking to various versions of HP-UX, espeacially when NFS is involved. "What do you mean patch level X is incompatible with patch level X+1?" Then its real fun!
  • damn hp, making all that money of closed source software.
  • There's also Compaq's Tru64 UNIX which they inherited from Digital.

  • I've always had good luck with -Ae on HP-UX, although after spending a long time trying I realized that gcc will never be compiled on my HP-UX 10.20 box. I think we don't have the full HP-UX development setup; we're definitely not using HP's cc for our real product development.

    Now if only Netscape for HP-UX was stable; at least now HP-UX will probably come with one or more functional Gnome web browsers.

    Of course, I'm moving to developing on Solaris instead pretty soon - although I don't think we have Gnome installed by default. Whether I install my own local copy depends on how much disk space I'll have...

  • It's a good thing for both sides. On the one hand it'a all about momentum. There is a huge amount of development being done on the Gnome side, both for Gnome/Eazel/Ximian/etc, and also for apps that run under Gnome/Gtk+. In the computer world it's not always a matter of what's best (that's often a matter of personal taste anyways) but a matter of what's hot at the moment. Gnome is hot at the moment.

    Meanwhile CDE, while not bad, (I actually like CDE under Solaris) certainly doesn't have a large number of people rushing to write apps for it. I think it's all part of the evolution of Open Source merging with the old school Unix stuff.
  • I think I built gcc with the default piece of junk c compiler. It's been so long I don't remember. I may have just downloaded a precompiled version to bootstrap it though.
  • Nautilus is not its own desktop, it's the file manager for GNOME (Ximian or otherwise) 1.4 and up.

    Exactly. And Gnome is the default desktop for Red Hat.

    That's precisely my point - the various Gnome factions are jockeying to see whose configuration will be installed by whom. That's why Slashdot has had all these stories recently about how, say, Sun and Dell, which had already committed to other incarnations of Gnome, have now announced their plans to ship Eazel. Like they weren't doing that already. The question is whose version of Gnome.

    By the way, Eazel PR does push the idea of Gnome + Nautilus as the "Eazel desktop" or the "Eazel environment".

  • I disagree about the bit that Gnome sucks in 8 bit. Actually it must do something right: when I run Mozilla under plain IceWM with lots of other color-intensive apps loaded (e.g. RealPlayer), it's too ugly too look at.[1]
    However when I run it under Gnome + IceWM, it looks just about OK (even with Modern skin)! I can't imagine why this is, but I won't complain if all I can have is this Ultra 1 workstation I use at the university... [1] see bugzilla [mozilla.org], please vote for this one!
  • No, we're assigning Ximian to point to the data formerly known as Helix prior to getting rid of Helix. =P
  • # swinstall -s /tmp/XSWGR1100_11.00.depot -x auto_reboot=true -x patch_match_targets=true

    swinstall: no DEPOT found in hpsystem:/temp/XSWGR1100_11.00.depot

    #fireaxe -x hit_really_hard=true -x roar_with_frustration=true feel_remorse=false -s hpsystem

    SoupIsGood Food
  • I for one prefer that the software I use is free of large corporations. That's why my X is now ximian free!
    Better get rid of your X altogether then - it came from a consortium consisting of MIT and large corporations such as DEC, Sun, HP, & IBM.
  • Wouldn't you be desperate to replace it with something that doesn't suck quite so badly? :) It was inevitable that the industry would flee from their archaic desktops as soon as a viable replacement appeared. Hell, it's a safe bet that's the only reason Gnome and KDE are getting attention from big corporations anyway. They want a way out of Motif. :)
  • You can get the latest KDE for compaq Tru64 Unix from ftp.kde.org.

    You can also find KDE 2.0.1 for AIX, SGI, HP-UX, Solaris, S/390, SCO, *BSD, and ofcourse - all Linux packages...

    Donno about Gnome. I'm not following it.
  • Mandrake has a weird menu thing going on... 7.2 added menudrake to thier configuration tools, which will let you edit the menus in a way that their system won't trash when you install new packages...
  • They're getting involved with HPUX? One word: Doooooooooooooooooooomed...

    A.

  • I agree - Gnome tries too hard to look like Windoze.

    HP had a much better sense of style than M$, while the
    3D effects of Motif may look a bit too cutesy, the overall
    look and feel of VUE/CDE is IMHO much better than Gnome.
  • How many OS'es can you boot with your bootloader? Can you add and remove entries from the menu?

    Lilo and GRUB are not just bootloaders (like nuni or the DOS boot sector), they are also boot selectors, and people want more from them than just loading one OS all the time.

  • I really don't like Gnome. It looks too much like Windows.

    So, um... Install a different theme from the default.

    Hey, look [themes.org]! CDE themes for sawmill, you silly monkey.

    Why be different just for the sake of being different? I think that today's desktop is the result of an evolutionary process. The two main results are the Windows UI, and the Mac UI. GNOME and KDE are free to crib from both, and do (well, I can't speak for KDE. I haven't used it in two years).

    --
    A host is a host from coast to coast...

  • This is great news for the everyone but MS. Creating a common desktop interface across all Unicies and Linux/BSD will only accelerate Linux's success. The Unix world tried this with CDE but they over looked one important detail. People have to LIKE the interface, and no one I know who has used CDE likes it. You can fight about Gnome vs. KDE, but you can't argue that Gnome isn't better than CDE. When the other major Unix ventors follow suit (hopefully they will anyway. They said they would, and we all know they wouldn't lie just to look good to the open source community:)), it very well cause a resurgence in UNIX. We'll have to wait a see though.
  • I have used bootman (the BeOS bootloader) to boot several versions of Linux from both ext2 and ReiserFS filesystems, I've used it to boot QNX RtP from QNX-FS, I've used to to boot NT4 from NTFS, Win98 from FAT32 and FAT16, Win2K from NTFS and Fat32, FreeBSD on FFS, hell, it'll even boot Plan9! And yes, bootman does support adding and removing entries, all you have to do is type "bootman" at the CLI, it detects all your partitions, asks from names for each, and then lets you chose the default one. Much simpler, I must say, than Lilo OR GRUB.
  • <rant>

    I an tired of these press releases. Every closed source company now thinks it is great to announce a "partnership" with some Open Source company. WHY?!

    Don't they realized that the code base is Open Source/Free Software. They can just download the code and then install it as default under HP UX. Why do they feel the need to create a press release and then spam everyone with this information.

    The OSS companies like Eazel and HelixCode^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HXimian think it is great because it increases their "value" I guess.

    This does not qualify as "news for nerds". Maybe news for marketing droids.

    </rant>

  • Thanks, I'll give that a try. That sounds like it could be my problem, since I've never used menudrake, just the KDE and Gnome menu editors.

  • You forgot IBM's AIX, although I don't see that on a desktop or using X in any way. Still, they're a UNIX vendor.
  • This does not qualify as "news for nerds". Maybe news for marketing droids.

    I disagree - too often a technically superior system has died because there wasn't the right marketing behind it - take OS/2 for example. Here we see that GNOME is not in danger of suffering from that.

  • One fine day, you will be able to apt-get or rpm -Fvh an HP-UX system...

    Until then, there is always Solaris (what is their thing with pkzip anyway?).

  • When did they change their name?

    There was an article [slashdot.org] on January 10 about the name change.

  • In my admittedly limited experience with Helix/Ximian Gnome, it has been more stable and more configurable than KDE/KDE2. That's not a flame, just my own personal experience. I can't compare it to "vanilla" Gnome, though - when I tried Gnome, I went directly with Helixcode.

    Speaking of stability, has anyone seen this situation: you're using Mandrake 6.1 through 7.2, you install packages or edit menus in either KDE or Gnome (using kpackage as the front-end in both cases) and when the package has been installed, all of the sudden your customized system menu has been replaced by the default Mandrake menu. This doesn't happen all the time, but just often enough that I have to keep backups of my menu setup. Anyone else see this?

  • The GNOME mailing lists will be flooded with posts from clueless HP-UX users

    All 5 of them you mean?

  • Re:good thing? (Score:5)

    by Ian Wolf ( 171633 ) on Friday February 02, 2001 @11:34AM (#460862) Homepage
    This is a _very_ good thing!

    For one, the guys at Ximian have now replaced a highly visible proprietary piece of software with an open one. Secondly, the direction of GNOME is controlled by the GNOME Foundation, a group comprised of Sun, IBM, HP, Red Hat, VA Linux, Ximian, and many others. This makes it nearly impossible for one or even two corporations to try and hijack GNOME. Furthermore, the software you use will never be completely free of large corporations, Sun, IBM, HP, AT&T, Compaq, and Nortel Networks are just a few of the companies that contribute numerous resources to open source projects.

    You make it sound like Mozilla was successful and then Netscape stepped in and messed it all up. The truth is it was messed up from the start because Netscape started it off that way. In this case GNOME is already a successful project and it would take a serious effort by more than just one corporation to derail their momentum.
  • But surely it Ximian who have put out this press release NOT HP. Its Ximian who have much to gain from this announcement, because it announces to the world that they are company that large companies do business with.

  • Another firm files for class action against VA Lin

    Wouldn't it be easier to post a list of law firms that haven't filed a CA against LNUX? :) Slashdot did post a story about the first one, but since then there have been at least a dozen "me too" filings. Yahoo! stock message boards are a better way to keep track of it for those who care.

  • Caldera bought SCO, and Caldera is changing SCO UNIX to make it run linux binaries unmodified. That will be cool. And you have to love their CEO's name too. But they are a but too buzzwordy. So, I use debian. But Caldera is still cool. NOTE: buy there stuff, because I told someone to buy it..at 25 bucks per share..so, uh...make it go up, or else I'm in trouble.

    -------------
  • Yep, pretty much the whole thing... except Tarentella, and the original SCO will be changing their name to that. However, I have no idea of Caldera's plans for OpenServer, which is SCO's basic UNIX... It looks like Caldera just wants SCO's server market share, so they can pass off their Linux Hybrid. Dunno.

  • I must be a fluke. I have one system running HP-UX 10.20 and have had no problems. But as HP obseletes ITO (the reason for this servers existance) on this rev of the OS and I am forced to go to HP-UX 11.xx then I'll probalby find out what you people are taking about
  • Yea! The current patching system is neat-o. I can download a script from HP to get my swlist, then upload the generated file to their /incoming, then login to the webpage, and wait 30 minutes until my custome patch list is generated, then download my huge recommended patch bundle and run the swinstall. A text mode version of Red Carpet for HPUX and Solaris would be MOST excellent.
  • Secondly, the direction of GNOME is controlled by the GNOME Foundation, a group comprised of Sun, IBM, HP, Red Hat, VA Linux, Ximian, and many others. This makes it nearly impossible for one or even two corporations to try and hijack GNOME.

    Weren't both CDE and Motif controlled by a "foundation"? And, well you know...

  • As I understood it the Pinewood office did localized HP/UX devel for Europe and all the devel on Openmail and Change Engine. At least until 99 or so, then a lot of odd and ends seemed to be going to India.

    I thought the training staff there was pretty bright too. Far more involved with the product then I saw with the US trainers (Dallas and Minneapolis).
  • Actually, you're not assigning *anything* as the '==' is a comparison operator, not an assignment operator.
  • This story makes me wonder what it would look like if you mixed a Monkey and a Gnome. I bet it would make a bunch of screehing sounds and wear a pointy hat!

  • Then it would be Ximian=&Helix.

    Yea, just showing of my god-like coding skills ;)
  • Well, isn't Sun also using Gnome/Ximian as its default WM? How long till Microsoft adopts it?
  • Most of the commercial UNIX people charge big bucks for anything better than 8bit graphics.

    All Suns support 24-bit color these days. Sun Ultra5 workstations start at $2000 and you do get 24-bit graphics, limited with 4MB of video memory though. For another $300 they'll toss in an 8MB raptor GFX card which is not that bad (still a bit expensive for only 8MB card ..)

  • YES! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Now me and the other 4 users of HP-UX can get even more core dumps thsn before!
  • Exactly why I have just replaced NT4 for all my 3D modeling, 2D graphics needs. You really need to get something called "perspective."

  • CDE (Score:1)

    by wfaulk ( 135736 )
    Does that leave anyone in the CDE X/Open world?
  • Another problem. Why should the bootloader even be an issue? I have no clue what version of bootman I'm using, and I won't ever need to. It just works, it configs easily, and it never breaks. If you have to get tech support for your *bootloader* than your OS has some serious usability problems.
  • It is almost embarrasing how many big names are trying to maintain their composure by climbing on the Linux Bandwagon. The media attention, and general goodwill these companies receive is huge. It is one of the ironies in life that Microsoft, at arguably the lowest point in it's existance, has alienated what could perhaps be it's saviour.

    Is this really a case of the dominant Neanderthal being usurped by the more lean and mean Sapiens?

    As a pure guess, the media reports at least two associations which companies are making with a linux community for every one which involves Microsoft.

    $HP->kharma++;
    $MS->Kharma-- unless $MS->karma

  • I can't for the life of me understand why HP wants to install a polish distribution of the GNOME desktop.
  • Monkey. That source was released only recently and you know it. There is still a difference between GNOME and CDE, despite the corperations. If anything screws up GNOME, it will be the fact that the developers have no perspective on what priorities are important in a desktop environment, and the temptation for the developers to do stuff just because it is cool.
  • There are several reasons why crashing X is as bad as crashing the OS. Not everyone uses Linux for servers, and not many servers run X (all the time.) Thus if X crashes, the person most likely loses the work in the X program that he/she was working on. On a server, its good that it drops back into the command line, because most services are run from there. On a desktop however, most stuff is run from the GUI (even CLI apps are usually run from Xterms) and when X goes down, they all dissapear.
  • Is that a spice like Cinnaminiminimon? Sorry, couldn't help it

  • Re:good thing? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I disagree 100%. GNOME can only benefit from this. Being the default desktop on more systems can only benefit GNOME. Its not like they can "stop" the GNOME people from doing anything.

    What OS are you using? Because I know of only a few that are "free of large corporations".

    As for Mozilla, you imply that because it was associated with a corporation it was screwed up. Well if Netscape didn't make the choices they did, it wouldn't exist at all! It wasn't like it was a healthy project that got "corrupted".

  • In light of the prevailing disdain about certain URL's, I will refrain from linking to the goatse.cx site.

    For the record, though, I do belive the combination of a monkey and a gnome would not be far off ....
  • your last mozilla argument would have been good if phrased:

    How large corporations kill good projects...

    Mozilla was only recently opensourced, and most of the developers are still netscape employees

    If anything the Open sourcing of mozilla has brought more bloat.

    The issues with mozilla re much larger, but opensourcing it doesn't seem to have solved most of them anywayz, besides being good PR.

    unfortunately the truth though, i would have loved to see netscape flourish :(

  • Re:HP to Ximian... (Score:3)

    by JCCyC ( 179760 ) on Friday February 02, 2001 @10:48AM (#460888) Journal
    More likely, Ximian were paid just to make the port (which HP could do themselves but comissioning Ximian is more effective). After that, HP/UX becomes just another supported Unix. And, according to the press release, there's a maintenance contract too. Good, it means they're able to make money after all.

    This is one of the reasonings for Free Software in full effect: hardware companies have an interest in the availability of software to their platform.

    As a side note, I wouldn't be surprised if they timed their release with GNOME 1.4's.

  • Re:good thing? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you have to use HP-UX, it's a good thing, not because of any connection to Linux, or open source/free software, but simply because Gnome is easier to use and is improving far more rapidly than CDE.

    I use HP-UX for one web-based application (the vendor does not yet support Linux). Powerful stuff, but in many ways an amazing piece of crap. Now at least the default UI will be better.
  • This from Sun's Site Who is using GNOME? o Generally shipped with all Linux & BSD distributions o Will be the default Solaris and HP-UX GUI o GNOME Foundation includes Sun, IBM, HP, Compaq, Helix Code, Eazel, RedHat, VA Linux, and others
  • Hummm, I am surprised you mention the UK since all their dvp is done in the US (like for most US companies). But I have to agree, HP-UX has it's quirks like any OS, but maybe more than your average UNIX.
    I had a colleague at Ford (in Germany) who once said: "They should not let amateurs like HP make their own UNIX" (he had to switch from DEC Unix to HP-UX because the HP workstations where so much cheaper).
    I for one, was always happy with HP since their workstation delivered good UNIX performance for just a little more than a PC.

    This was till I started working for them. What a joke! I have never seen such a poor service. They probably treat their big customers (like FORD) better than they treat their own employees but I have never seen such a bunch of incompetent people. I left HP (and the country) thinking, I never want to work again for such a bunch of amateurs (it was in France).

    On an unrelated note, what you say about Elm does not surprise me... Remember that the STL were made by HP labs in Paolo Alto and that for years C front (their C++ compiler) was not able to handle the STL. Only a few years ago, they switched to aCC and were able to use their own code.

    Juju

  • I work moving from VUE to CDE on our HP boxes, and now they go and switch to something else!!

    Really though, I think this is a good thing, I just don't want to go mess with the configuration on my servers again.
  • While I'm glad to see that HP is going to be giving their blessing to the "offical port" and supporting GNOME, it is already availible (for 11.00, for sure, unknown about 10.20) in depot format.

    The big difference here, though, is that now it will be *supported*. Much like you could download Samba and install it on an HPUX box, we had no support options for the product until HP shipped CIFS/9000 (which is samba 2.06).

  • Uhh...
    Nautilus is not its own desktop, it's the file manager for GNOME (Ximian or otherwise) 1.4 and up. It is not its own desktop, nor does 'Eazel GNOME' exist.

    "If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
  • And some HP-UX users are actually Linux users as well. Just not ready to move the Oracle database over to Linux (at least not the _production_ database ;-) ) yet.

    But personally I'd prefer KDE to GNOME, but, oh well.
  • Yesssss, and when you call support the will tell you to load more and more patches. The cycle is endless.....

  • My experience: On Mandrake 7 KDE is noticeably more stable in default configuration (Gnome was running with E for a memory manager, which is certainly at least part of the reason.) On Slackware 7.1, with Gnome running with Sawfish, it seems about equally stable to KDE. Changing window manager to WindowMaker helps stability a bit and gives it the edge, though not by much.

    That said, both have stability problems. Not on the scale of Win 9x by any means, but not much better than NT... the only real advantage stability wise is that problems can only dump you back to the command line, not actually reboot the machine. Which I think is a pretty big advantage really, but I know a lot of people that disagree. Don't ask me why.

    Disclaimer: These experiences are with earlier version of both Gnome and KDE. Hopefully both have gotten better, but I work through a modem at home and can't just reflexively update every time a program revs - particularly extremely large programs like these.

    Speaking of stability, has anyone seen this situation: you're using Mandrake 6.1 through 7.2, you install packages or edit menus in either KDE or Gnome (using kpackage as the front-end in both cases) and when the package has been installed, all of the sudden your customized system menu has been replaced by the default Mandrake menu. This doesn't happen all the time, but just often enough that I have to keep backups of my menu setup. Anyone else see this?

    Sorry, never happened to me. Just a wild guess, but are you running X as root?

    One thing that turns me off about helix/ximian is the lack of packages in standard tar.gz formats - what's up with that? Seems very unprofessional of them.

  • if only gnome *was* actually technically superior ...

    To CDE??? I would strongly argue that it is. AFAICS CDE was an attempt at a standard-ish UI, not a fully-fledged component model, and I don't think it was very good at even that.
  • I saw the Ximian/redcarpet demo at LinuxWorld yesterday. What they are tying to do is pretty cool. That being:

    Make one desktop that is by default the same no matter what flavor your working with. Make gui front-end administration tools the same, with a back-end customized to the unix.

    ie, you use the click the same button in the same gui on linux as you do solaris to change the clock, or to change a network setting.

    Unix admin's don't have to memorize where slackware puts a config file compared to hp-ux.
  • AFAIK 4dwm (I think that's what its called) is still based off of Motif, which is slowly dying. Given that, coupled with the fact that SGI itself is slowly dying (and has been "embracing linux" in the process) I would be at all suprised if they switched to Gnome/KDE/Something else very soon.

  • You forgot IBM's AIX, although I don't see that on a desktop or using X in any way. Still, they're a UNIX vendor.

    Two things. First, AIX comes with CDE as standard running on X, so it does get used on a desktop (mine for example) by virtue of remote access through an X server.

    Secondly, IBM has already announced that the Linux Toolkit for AIX (versions 4.3.3+ and 5L) and this contains both GNOME and KDE2 ports, so for those of us who make extensive use of AIX life just got a lot easier.

    Cheers,

    Toby Haynes

  • My understanding is that IBM's AIX machines are still popular in CAD and solid modelling markets. Like SGI, IBM workstations all seem to be aimed a graphics use rather than web or server development. I base this on the fact that most references that I see to IBM machines are with reguards to their usage running CATIA or other cad systems, while most of the Suns I see out there are for web or server development. HP also seems to emphasize the CAD market with their unix workstations. At this point, I'd love an entry level SGI, or an entry level HP or IBM (as long as the IBM had a least a GXT2000P instead of the 2D only board), but to be happy with a Sun I'd require at least a high end Ultra 10. The particularly appealing thing about the IBMs are the cool black cases, but practically speaking, linux or SGI would be more practical.
  • Wow, Now HP will be overrun by monkeys. Aye Aye Aye, what a world.

  • Weren't both CDE and Motif controlled by a "foundation"? And, well you know...

    And the source to CDE and Motif is available where? Now do you see the difference? Additionally, the GNOME Foundation does not do the coding, nor implement the current ideas. It is a talking shop for where to go next and to raise the visibility (and funding) of GNOME. It does not dictate the GNOME development decisions

    Cheers,

    Toby Haynes

  • I really don't like Gnome. It looks too much like Windows. CDE may suck, but at least it has its own flavor, and it's Unixy. It seems like nobody has a good vision for the future of Unix desktops, so they'd rather copy Windows.
    It was cool when HP had VUE. There was a feeling of integration, of a finished product, somewhat like Macintosh. I guess every Unix workstation will be a wannabe PC. More expensive than Wintel and lacking the latest dancing puppydog, they'll watch their market share erode. They don't have the vision or boldness to promote a truly Unixy desktop.
    A desktop can be a kind of battle flag, as Mac users know. The Unix vendors are discarding the opportunity to define themselves visually in opposition to M$.
    But the workstation market is probably doomed anyway. It will be crushed between Linux and W2k.

  • Patches (Score:4)

    by SquadBoy ( 167263 ) on Friday February 02, 2001 @10:37AM (#460906) Homepage Journal
    And of course then you can get this set of patches but that means you need this other set of patches and don't forget to apply these boot patches and these patches that fix those patches. And if that breaks anything well you should not have been patching your system in the first place.
    If you have used or supported HP-UX you will understand the above and find it funny. To those of you who don't know HP-UX the above is *very* ontopic :)
  • Okay, we have Sun using Gnome as the default.

    Now we have HP using it as the default for both their linux stations soon, and their HP UX machines.

    Who all does that leave in the Unix world? SCO, I think is all thats left, and didnt they go under or something?

    Granted, OSX is sorta unix, and does use it, but with their exception, now you can go from bsd->unix->linux and always have the same desktop??

    Did I miss someone?

    Cause if not, WOW.
  • Clearly you've never used the CDE.
  • I got news for you, that happened years ago.

  • That has got to be... (Score:4)

    by Wakko Warner ( 324 ) on Friday February 02, 2001 @10:38AM (#460910) Homepage Journal
    ...the most incomprehensible headline I've ever seen, Hemos. . .

    - A.P.

    --
    * CmdrTaco is an idiot.

  • No, because Helix was a name just as Ximian is - they're both pointers. The data pointed to by Helix is now pointed to by Ximian (Ximian = Helix;) and now the Helix pointer/name is no longer used.


    Yay for taking metaphors too far...

  • Re:YES! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It was widely stated by the engineers working for HP that they wished Mr. Packard's name would have gone first:
    PH-UX.

    I get paid a nickel [sendmoreinfo.com] for every email I read!

  • good thing? (Score:3)

    by Ben Schumin ( 312122 ) on Friday February 02, 2001 @10:38AM (#460913)
    Why is this a good thing? Sure, a corporate partnership might make certain that an open source product doesn't die. However, a corporate partnership can also twist a good open source project to the point where it's almost useless.

    I for one prefer that the software I use is free of large corporations. That's why my X is now ximian free!

    If you want a perfect case study of how large corporations screw up perfectly good open source projects, why don't you take a look at Mozilla?

    ben.

  • Did UnixWare have CDE?

    Most of the commercial UNIX people charge big bucks for anything better than 8bit graphics.

    In IBM's case, they just ship you a Matrox PCI card for which they overcharge you by about a billion percent.

    I do hope that CDE gets open-sourced soon. I kinda like dtksh.

  • having a more or less common desktop on linux isn't a threat to microsoft or anyone if the common desktop sucks^H^H^H^H^H isn't more useable and consistant than it is right now.
  • Sorry, Replied to the wrong post!!

  • Acronym close call (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It was widely stated by the engineers working for HP that they wished Mr. Packard's name would have gone first....
    PH-UX.

    I get paid a nickel [sendmoreinfo.com] for every email I read!

  • This from Sun's Site

    Who is using GNOME?
    o Generally shipped with all Linux & BSD distributions

    o Will be the default Solaris and HP-UX GUI

    o GNOME Foundation includes Sun, IBM, HP, Compaq, Helix Code, Eazel, RedHat, VA Linux, and others
  • +Aa for ANSI? HPUX has it's quirk's but at least it's not AIX. I've had pretty good luck getting Gnome, KDE, and a ton of other stuff running just fine on HPUX - though one of the first things to do was install gcc :)
  • an'at

    I think that the Wistler issues (pirate protection, mandatory online registration) will definitely slow the adoption of wistler and make companies and individuals alike start looking at the alternatives. A great, common desktop across most major unixes and linux, and with the new version of MacOSX, well.. Microsoft's days are numbered. I predict Unix/Linux/MacOSX will have atleast 40% of the desktop market by the end of 2003.

    --Doug
  • I bet they will have a similar announcement within 3 months.

  • SGI. (Score:2)

    by solios ( 53048 )
    SGI is still using their own IRIX front end last time I checked. No offense to the Gnome zealots, but I've used both and SGI's blows the rest of the window managers out of the friggin' water. I doubt you'll see them on the boat any time soon.
  • Microsoft predicted that linux will be gone before the years over. You might as well get windows now so by the end of the year you'll be fully aquanted with. If your a programmer it's too late, the Win32 API takes at least 5 years to learn, so make sure you get VB also, that will keep you a job for a while.

  • Nope, no X as root, although I su to run kpackage and actually install stuff. I'm pretty sure it's this packaging front end that's causing the problem, but it doesn't do it often enough that I've taken the time to track it down. Or it could be the result of a standard script that Mandrake runs on package installs?

  • Well, I don't think 4Dwm is really much different
    than it was 3 years ago. It still is a very
    spiffy window manager though. What I'd like to
    see happen instead of 4Dwm's death is SGI freeing
    it so we can use it with OpenMotif or Lesstif.

  • HP and Unix (Score:3)

    by Kagato ( 116051 ) on Friday February 02, 2001 @10:40AM (#460931)
    HP-UX has it's quirks like any OS, but it also has a very good set of unix developers. If you ever go to a HP/UX class held in the Pinewood (U.K) training and development centre you'd hear a lot of interesting stories. The developers have been pro-linux for a very long time.

    One little note is that Elm was originally created by an HP engineer, although it was a long time until it made it's way into HP/UX.
  • Duh, I hear you say, but I had to visit helixcode.com to figure it out... just in case anyone else was wondering who the heck Ximian are :)
  • Do you not know how to read? Damn, we need to fix these inner city DC schools! Their students can't even recognize the difference between the character patterns "BeOS" and "NT4" I mean, even if they had some basic counting skills they could see that one had four letters and the other three.

    PS> Of course, this message is wasted anyway. Its not like you can read it...

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