[TriLUG] Who runs Red Hat and KDE

[Jon Carnes]

On Sun, 2003-05-25 at 17:27, karl thiele wrote:

> As you are a long time user, I will repeat my questions, what is your 
> strategy? Do you run RH and KDE?

I'm one of the old fart Unix guys on this list, so the GUI (or lack of
GUI) doesn't much matter to me.

For corporate use I love Red Hat and focus more on the applications and
services than on which GUI is installed - but yes I use KDE.  As long as
the Desktop doesn't get in the way of the corporate apps that my clients
run then I'm happy (more important - my clients are happy!).  Red Hat
does a great job there.

Personally I run Mandrake at home (and KDE).  For legal reasons,
Mandrake is able to provide more built-in functionality for encryption
and VPN technology than Red Hat. As much as I like that added
functionality though I still recommend Red Hat for my clients, and
OpenBSD when they need encryption or VPN technology.
 
In my experience Red Hat puts out the most stable and reliable OS on the
market.  OpenBSD puts out the most secure (and stable) OS for the
market.

> >And as to the upgrades, well Linux has been a moving target for a long
> >time! Upgrades and new functionality come out daily. Red Hat has been a
> >lot of help in that area.
> >
> Not my point, irrelevant to what I was asking.

Then quit complaining about folks having to upgrade. I interpreted that
as the main point of your complaint: you didn't like the way Red Hat
integrated KDE into the OS - and only releasing KDE updates with new
distributions releases.

> >
> >So I should cry for non-techies who have problems keeping up with the
> >development pace of Linux?  Please! You have got to be kidding me.
> >
> No I am not kidding. Depends on what you want for linux for yourself and 
> for it's success. I do not epect newbies to run out of kernel.org, but 
> if they want a new program they should not be dependent on a supplier of 
> a distribution. 

First of all, if they are dependent on Red Hat it is because of the
dependability of the OS and its integrated services and applications.
Secondly, how many Newbie users do you know that are stopped from
running an application on Red Hat due to RH's KDE integration? Thirdly,
how dependable do you think Red Hat would be if they ran the latest KDE
from CVS (the one that supports your mythical "new program").

The current distribution runs *everything* that I ask of it and
everything that my clients have asked it to do.  If a new app comes into
use and folks demand it - you can bet that Red Hat will integrate it
into the distribution.  And if you want to play with it right away (and
you insist on using Red Hat) then check out Rawhide.  If you can help
get your "new program" working on Rawhide, then you might just get it
included in the next stable Red Hat release.

Again, Red Hat's focus is to deliver a stable OS that has many reliable
applications and services integrated into it. Providing cutting edge
access to KDE out of CVS is not one of their priorities. 

> M$ certainly does not pose any obsticles to purchaning 
> and installing new software on thier OS, one reason for thier success.
> Do we want Linux to be useable by everyone? Majority of busness types 
> who use computers are non-techies.

Red Hat certainly does not pose any obstacles to purchasing and
installing new software on their OS, and this is one reason for their
success. On the other hand, M$ throws up barrier after barrier, after
license, after EULA, after FUD.  You're not going to win any argument in
a LUG mailing list by using that kind of mis-information!

Linux is usable by everyone. A large part of my consulting business is
migrating businesses off of "proprietary" OS's and applications and over
to Open Source OS's and applications. My clients love Red Hat! 
Especially the look and feel of RHL 9.

To the non-techies it is all the same to them: M$ or Linux, KDE or Gnome
- it makes no difference.  Their concentration is on the ability to do
the job (and on the cost).  Once I show them that Linux works in their
environment, and with minimal retraining, they are sold.

The key thing *I* have to overcome is M$'s FUD. 

Jon Carnes