Wednesday Keynote

By SysAdmin1138 on
The biggest thing in the Wednesday keynote was a demo of SuSE Linux Desktop 10beta (SLED10). And in a word, "wow". Novell pulled out the stops when it came to getting the interface worked up and usable, and getting integration working between the various bits.

The interface takes a big cue from Apple and presumably Vista in relying on 3D acceleration to drive desktop chrome. Yes, chrome. Some of the nifty features:
  • Spotlight-like desktop search, complete with live update
  • Darwin-like desktop zoom by hot-key
  • 'Rotating cube' animation for different screens
  • Fast thumbnailing
  • Alt-Tab rotates a transparent version of the app in the background, and updates live
  • Scalable icons
  • Hot-key to 'tile' open applications for selection, also updates live
To me it looks a lot like Mac OS-X. Clearly, this is a desktop that can only run well on a machine with a good 3D card, and this particular elderly Dell that I'm writing this blog-entry on is quite decidedly not butch enough. But this is a full desktop package, not just some fancy spinny things:
  • Novell Open Office has several new features
    • Translators for VB macros into StarBasic. Not 100%, but it can handle most simple macros reportedly.
    • Pivot-table support. Though they did not say if this included database tie-ins
  • A 'Foto' application that looks a lot like a similar ap I've seen on OS.X (name escapes me)
  • 'Basalisk,' a media-player module that works with iPods (a Nano was used in a live demo, no word on playlist support), and includes legal MP3 support. Built in partnership with Real Networks.
This is a very interesting product. It is very flashy, and Novell is clearly working on making it a usable Linux desktop. Things that I'll need to see before I get really excited are:
  • Novell Client. You can get it separate, but it still needs work
  • Simple database tie-in capability with both MS-SQL Server and Oracle. Not just MySQL.
Those are some needed steps, and unfortunately my linux knowledge about ODBC-like things in OpenOffice is nonexistant. But once you can do custom graphs from closed-source databases you are almost to the point of being able to compete with Microsoft.

All in all, this desktop is a major leap ahead from what NLD9 was. Novell is clearly focusing quite a bit of effort into turning Linux into an end-user friendly operating system, and not just a geek-friendly operating-system. They're doing usability studies (they had video of it) of their interfaces, which is something the average Open Source project can't really do. If Novell can turn a profit on this, it represents a major coming forward of Open Source into the marketplace.

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