They say that lightning never strikes twice, and for all I know, it never has. But will it? The question on my mind right now is whether or not it counts if lightning strikes once at home and once in the enterprise. That's the dilema of the day. Let’s put it this way… outstanding bugs aside, Novell hit a home run with SUSE Linux 10.1. There is no question that it is one of the most impressive desktop Linux distros ever released. Currently, it’s the second most popular desktop Linux distribution in the world (according to DistroWatch.com page hit rankings) with Ubuntu coming in at #1 and Fedora at #3. Those three distros, in my opinion (and apparently everyone else in the world), are at the top of the desktop Linux heap.
Hot on the heels of their popular free desktop release, Novell is unleashing their professional-grade desktop on the world this summer in the form of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLED 10 to the techies. They like their acronyms), and all signs point to it being one hell of a release… according to the feature-set alone. It will be the first commercially offered desktop distro to offer XGL as an option, as well as including applications for remote desktop and published apps, VPN, multimedia apps (with working MP3 playback out of the box), Macromedia Flash, Sun Java, VoIP client, and Beagle desktop search to name just a few. The full listing follows, but if you give me a few minutes of your time I will take you on a journey through this fine desktop and let you decide for yourself if lightning is actually capable of striking twice.
Features (as of this writing)
Linux kernel 2.6.16.16
X.org 6.9.0 (XGL/Compiz is also included)
GNOME 2.12.2 / KDE 3.5.1 desktop environments
gcc 4.1 / glibc 2.4
Novell Evolution 2.6 email/collaboration
Mozilla Firefox 1.5 web browser
OpenOffice.org 2.0.2 Novell Edition
Citrix ICA Client 9.0, rdesktop, and TightVNC remote connectivity tools
Beagle desktop search tool 0.2.3 (with Firefox and Evolution integration)
Banshee music player 0.10.9
Gaim 1.5 instant messenger
RealPlayer 10.0
Macromedia Flash Player 7.0
Sun Java 1.4.2
LinPhone 1.2 VoIP client
Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0.5
GIMP 2.2.10 image editor
Seamless Windows networking (including Active Directory support)
MP3 support out of the box
Bluetooth and wireless networking support
System Requirements:
Pentium III 500MHz or higher (Pentium 4 2.4GHz or higher, any AMD, AMD64, or Intel EM64T processor recommended)
256MB RAM (512MB recommended)
800MB of available disk space (2.5GB recommended)
800x600 display resolution (1024x768 or higher recommended)
