MESSAGE
| DATE | 2004-05-25 |
| FROM | From: "Inker, Evan"
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] First look: Sun Java Desktop System Release 2
|
First look: Sun Java Desktop System Release 2
By: Jem Matzan
Topics: Distributions
Pages:< 1 | 2 >
Imagine for a moment that Windows XP came with Office XP Professional and
Visual Studio .NET preinstalled with it. Imagine it was significantly more
secure and easier to use. Imagine that it cost only $50 for all of that
software. Sun's new Java Desktop System Release 2 is like the bizarro world
equivalent of that kind of Microsoft software package. It's in the same
league, except it doesn't use Microsoft technologies. If only it actually
worked.
JDS is based on GNU/Linux, with proprietary add-ons for system management;
you have StarOffice 7 and Evolution 1.45 instead of Office XP; and you have
Java Studio Standard (formerly known as Sun ONE Studio) instead of Visual
Studio .NET.
The operating system comes on three discs, and it's basically a modified
version of SUSE Linux 8.1 with most of the packages removed. There are also
three source code CDs, three CDs full of development tools, a documentation
CD and a disc for the system management utilities. Only the operating system
and some of its associated software packages are installed by default. If
you want the system management utilities and development tools they must be
installed afterward.
Installation
Four out of four computers agree: Sun Java Desktop System 2 doesn't work on
anything remotely resembling a modern machine. I started out with my
standard test system, an Athlon 64 3200+, Asus K8V Deluxe, Western Digital
IDE and SATA hard drives (one of each), ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AIW 128MB,
1024MB Corsair RAM (TwinX LL kit), Sony DVD-ROM, and a Samsung Syncmaster
753DF 17-inch monitor. The software would boot and bring me to the LILO
screen, but none of the graphical installation options (standard
installation, manual installation, ACPI disabled, safe mode) would work. The
display would go dark even though the hard drive and DVD drive were still
running -- apparently the video mode was improperly configured.
I tried all three screen resolution settings, eventually resorting to using
the text mode installer. When I finally got to the YaST utility in text mode
I got an error message which read, "Not enough disk space even for a minimal
installation!" Although the brand new, never used 80GB IDE hard drive was
properly recognized and YaST created partitions for it, somehow it didn't
think that there was any free space to install the software to.
I got the same results with a Maxtor 80GB hard drive, so I knew it wasn't
the drive at fault. The SATA drive was not recognized at all. I tried
switching to my P4 Prescott setup, which used all of the same parts except
for the CPU (Intel P4 3.2E) and motherboard (Intel D875PBZLK), but again
there was no change.
I began to suspect bad installation media, but I wasn't out of computers
yet. I hooked up a new system I recently built for a budget-minded friend --
Asus Terminator barebones with an Athlon XP 1900+, 256MB PC2700, and an old
6GB WD hard drive. Same results as with the other systems -- JDS2 wouldn't
install because of some problem recognizing hard drive space.
The last resort was my Dell Inspiron 3800 laptop system, built in early
2001. Amazingly the graphical installer worked well and YaST didn't have the
problems that it did before. The software installed without a hitch. The
problem? It wouldn't start after that. It would begin the startup process
and when it was about halfway done it would begin the shutdown process and
then the system would power off. I could start in Safe Mode but none of the
programs would run when I got to the desktop.
Restricted license
Sun JDS Release 2 is the most heavily restrictive software package I have
ever seen. Sun takes the heavyweight championship belt for the worst
software license ever to have crossed my desk. There are so many special
case restriction provisions in the license that it needed an extra booklet
of amendments to tack on more rights revocation clauses -- a total of seven
pages full of unusually complex and convoluted legalese. The licensing is
worse than anything I've seen come out of Redmond -- or anywhere else --
thus far. If Microsoft's EULA says, "you can't do anything with this
software," Sun's JDS license says, "I'll tell you every single thing you
can't do, and that means everything, including unlikely possibilities, and
while we're at it here is a list of unreasonable demands and obligations for
you. And get me another beer while you're up."
To begin with, the license is deceptive. It is worded initially in such a
way as to make you believe that it governs the entire operating environment
-- everything on the CDs. Further in there is a quick phrase that states
that Sun's binary code license only governs the included software that is
not already under another license. That leaves a staggeringly small portion
of the operating environment under the governance of Sun's license: the Java
Desktop System Configuration Manager and the Sun Control Station. Everything
else falls only under the control and jurisdiction of its governing license
(mostly the GNU GPL). But if you didn't know beforehand that GNU/Linux was
under the GPL, you would have no way of knowing that by looking at Sun's
license. All of the "other" licenses that the software falls under are
buried two directories deep on the first disc in a file called
THIRDPARTYLICENSEREADME. Short of breaking the law, there is nothing more
that Sun could have done to obscure the fact that JDS2 is mostly Free
Software.
I'm not going to list all of the restrictions -- it would take up way too
much space -- but I will say that the wording of the license is unusually
complex. You'll definitely want your legal department to pore over this
material before you consider making a buying recommendation on it.
If you're considering buying this for your personal use and your rights are
important to you, Java Desktop System 2 is not for you. If you don't care
about software licensing and want a good operating system and other tools
for developing Java software, JDS2 is a possibility for you, hardware
permitting
No paper documentation is included with the software, but there is a
documentation CD which contains the same basic things you can find on
docs.sun.com.
Support
Sun gladly grants licensees 60 days of the world's worst installation
support over the phone or online through email and a support database. Your
license fee actually covers software maintenance for a term of one year, so
you're entitled to updates, patches, and bug fixes for as long as you
maintain your contract with Sun.
Sun also offers indemnification contracts against patent, trade secret, and
copyright infringement claims. This means that if SCO sues you for imaginary
IP violations in the Linux kernel, Sun will cover you for up to $2 million
if you purchase this contract.
I called the installation support number because I had an unusually
difficult time installing the software. Based on the heavy Scottish accent,
the voice menu that answered the 800 number seemed like it was made for the
U.K. instead of the U.S., but in double-checking the number I definitely had
the right one. Even the ring tone between the menu messages was the double
beep found primarily in the United Kingdom. Instead of transferring me to a
support agent, I was required to leave my name, number, a description of the
nature of my call, and a good time to call me back.
While waiting for my return call I visited the support Web site listed on
the Support Entitlement Certificate. It's little more than the usual array
of information that is totally useless to someone who actually needs help
with malfunctioning software. I had to register with the site if I wanted
email support, giving my name and all kinds of personal information about
myself, then type in my system stats and a description of the problem. I was
told that it would take one business day to reply to my request.
The support people did call back roughly 30 minutes after I left the voice
message, but I was on an important call and had to let it go to voicemail.
No message was left for me, but I did get called back again about an hour
later. I was relieved to discover that installation support was so important
to Sun that they went halfway around the world to find the finest support
technicians to assist me. The even more heavily accented Indian fellow I
spoke with told me that he couldn't help me until I filed my support request
online, which I'd already done but hadn't heard back from yet. Thank you for
calling, have a nice day, goodbye.
If I hadn't have had my first 60 days free, this "support" would have cost
$40 per incident.
That's when I gave up -- I'd tried everything. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, I
had a wonderful afternoon but this wasn't it.
Despite my best efforts, this software just didn't work for me, so the rest
of this review will cover what the software includes and what it should
offer if you manage to get it installed and working on your machine. I can't
verify that any of these features work as stated; I can't even verify that
Sun Java Desktop System 2 works at all on any computer hardware, although
I'd say it's a safe bet that someone, somewhere has a computer that this
software will work properly on.
Sun has some "canned" screen shots available if you'd like to see what the
programs and the desktop look like. I was unable to save or send screen
shots when in Safe Mode on my notebook system.
The operating environment
Java Desktop System 2 is billed as an "operating environment," not a
GNU/Linux distribution or an operating system. The technical difference
between the terms is simple: an operating system is software that controls
the hardware and lets you use the computer. An operating environment is an
operating system plus an array of tools and utilities that allow you to use
the system for a specified purpose. In this case the operating environment
is geared toward both system administration in a corporate environment and
software development using the Java programming language.
What this means is that you can substitute the operating system module for a
different one and still retain the same functionality and purpose for the
operating environment. Sun is already developing a version of Java Desktop
System that uses Solaris instead of GNU/Linux. Despite the abysmal hardware
support and restrictive licensing that Solaris generally offers, it should
still be a better choice than the SUSE-based release that Sun currently
offers. It would be a different story if they'd used a modern GNU/Linux
distribution like SUSE 9.1 or even 9.0, but the basis for JDS2 is SUSE 8.1,
which uses the 2.4.19 Linux kernel. At this point in Linux development,
2.4.19 is prehistoric -- it's about a year and a half old.
I bet you could probably upgrade the operating system while leaving the
interface and the rest of the environment intact by installing a newer
version of SUSE after JDS is on the system. I had the opportunity to try it
on my laptop system and it seemed to work at first (JDS was recognized as a
viable distribution to upgrade to SUSE 9.1 from) but I didn't have enough
space to install all of the packages that I needed with the existing
partition setup, so I had to repartition and thus lost the ability to test
the upgrade further.
Features
Sun Java Desktop System Release 2 comes with more software firepower than
almost any other GNU/Linux distribution on the market. It's not that it has
more in terms of the number of packages -- certainly it doesn't have more
than what is contained on all of the Debian CDs, or even in the full SUSE
installation -- but it has more specially designed software than any other
distribution. Specifically I'm talking about:
YaST2, the SUSE setup tool
SaX2, the SUSE X Window configuration tool
Java System Update Service
StarOffice 7
Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE)
Sun Control Station 2.1
Sun Java Desktop System Configuration Manager
Remote Desktop Takeover
Sun Java Studio Standard 5 update 1
Enhanced language capabilities, including improved support for Chinese and
new support for Japanese, Korean, and Brazilian Portuguese
As components of SUSE's distribution, YaST and SaX are part of the same
backbone that provides automatic hardware detection and manual configuration
through graphical dialogues. YaST also provides an excellent control panel
for managing your system's network and other administrative duties that
would otherwise have to be done by editing text files by hand.
SaX makes configuring the X Server an easy task if your hardware is
supported. You can change the screen resolution and color depth or change
hardware settings for your video card and monitor if necessary.
The Java System Update Service is much like Red Hat Network and SUSE's YaST
Online Update. It downloads security patches and bug fixes on a schedule (or
at your convenience) and installs them for you automatically. This is what
you're buying when you pay the yearly license fee. If you don't renew your
agreement at the end of one year, you will no longer have access to software
updates through this service.
Sun StarOffice 7 is an excellent alternative to Microsoft Office. It has a
more-than-competent word processor that can read from and write to the Word
.DOC file format; a spreadsheet that can do most of what Excel can do; an
equation solver; a database program; and a presentation and slide show
production program like PowerPoint. Those who are heavily entrenched in
Microsoft Office may find it difficult to switch or adjust to a different
office suite at first, but if you will be using StarOffice exclusively
within a company, you'll have little trouble being productive with it.
The Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) 1.4.2 application development environment
is included with Java Desktop System, something that doesn't come with very
many other GNU/Linux distributions because of licensing issues with Sun. Of
course this being their own operating environment, they can't run into those
hurdles. J2SE consists of the Java Development Kit (JDK) and the Java
Runtime Environment (JRE) and provides the necessary functionality for
developing and using software written in the Java language.
The Sun Control Station 2.1 is a resurrection of the Sun Cobalt Control
Station product that was previously discontinued. Control Station allows a
system administrator to remotely administer, update, and control all nodes
on the network that are running Java Desktop System. Through Control Station
you can apply patches to some or all machines remotely, track and apply
system images, enable or disable services, or any number of custom control
modules that you can either get from Sun or design yourself.
The Sun Java Desktop System Configuration Manager is a comprehensive
graphical utility for assigning rights and restrictions to users and groups.
The Remote Desktop Takeover utility allows an authorized user to remotely
view and interact with other users' desktops, thereby enabling them to help
and guide users or troubleshoot remote machines. This appears to work much
like the Remote Desktop function in Windows XP Professional and other
third-party virtual network connection software.
The special features of JDS 2 -- the Configuration Manager, Control Station
and Remote Desktop Takeover -- will not work with the previous edition of
JDS, so you'll have to upgrade all of your systems if you're using JDS 2003
and want to take advantage of the new administrative programs in Java
Desktop System 2.
I can't tell you much about Sun Java Studio Standard 5 Update 1 because I'm
not a Java programmer. Despite the inclusion of this advanced IDE (and the
fact that it's based on NetBeans), Sun also includes NetBeans 3.6, which is
another fancy GUI-based Java IDE.
Lastly, JDS 2 includes enhanced language capabilities, including improved
support for Chinese and new support for Japanese, Korean, and Brazilian
Portuguese.
Using Sun Java Desktop System
>From what little I saw of the desktop, JDS's GNOME-based interface was
streamlined, productivity-minded, and aesthetically pleasing. It takes the
familiarity of Windows XP, removes all of the extra garbage, and puts all of
the right tools in all of the right places while remaining easy to
customize. It reminded me vaguely of BlueCurve, but better.
Conclusions
Sun Java Desktop System 2 is a good example of a great idea poorly
implemented. The base system is exactly the same as the original 2003
release, the only difference being the addition of the rest of the operating
environment: proprietary system management tools and the Java development
software. Those are significant enhancements, but considering the atrocious
functionality that the base system has, the primary focus should have been
on improving the range of hardware support rather than adding more software.
The idea of an operating environment specifically designed for Java
development with the look and feel of a streamlined GNOME desktop intrigues
me enough to want to learn Java just so I can use it. Only the licensing and
the poor hardware support stand in the way of my use of this operating
environment, and if it were more sensibly licensed I would recommend it to
others who have older systems.
Sun hopes that JDS2 will displace older versions of Microsoft Windows in
emerging markets, especially in Asia and South America. Given the expanded
language support for these regions and the fact that older versions of
Windows are certain to be using outdated hardware, Java Desktop System 2 may
do quite well in those markets.
I recommend Sun consider making some changes:
Licensing: change it. If it hasn't occurred to Sun that they're losing
customers because of this atrocious license agreement, let me be the first
to turn them on to it. Actually I'd be the second to try. The more you
tighten your licensing grip, the more customers will slip through your
fingers and find other solutions.
Hardware: It's what runs the software. I tried four systems, three of which
were distinctly different, and none of them would properly run this
software. I'm sure that there are many more systems out there that are
nothing like mine that also will have at least some degree of difficulty
installing or running JDS2. Sun needs to think about using a newer kernel at
the very least, and at best a newer version of the whole operating system
that runs the JDS environment.
Phony phone support really sucks. If you give me a phone number and tell me
that this is where to get support, and then I call and there is no one to
answer the phone -- or worse yet, there is only voice mail without the
possibility of reaching a support tech -- then I become a very unhappy
customer. What's worse, when I do get a return call the person calling can
hardly communicate with me because English is clearly not his native tongue.
The purpose of his call is to tell me that I can get support only if I go
through the Web site registration and use the online form to send a support
request, which has a one-business-day turnaround time. What if I don't have
access to a machine that can get online? This "support" is horrible and the
whole process is not in line with the reputation that Sun has for such
services.
Paper documentation would be nice. How are you supposed to read PDF files on
a CD if you can't even get the system working?
Purpose Operating environment
Manufacturer Sun Microsystems
Architectures i386
License Mostly under the GNU GPL, but some parts are tightly restricted by
Sun
Market "Emerging markets" in Asia and South America; corporations that are
trying to migrate from an old version of MS Windows
Price (retail) $50 annually (click here to order JDS 2 at the Sun online
store)
Previous version Java Desktop System 2003
Product Web site Click here
Jem Matzan is the author of three books, a freelance journalist, and
editor-in-chief of The Jem Report.
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