Linux Mint 4.0 as Enterprise Laptop
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-04-08 02:17:41
The last two posts I did here had to do with using a datacenter gradeversion of Linux to create a production aim critical service. Theupside to using such a Linux is supposed to be stability andpredictability. Everything tested. Everything settled and stable. Calm. Quiet. Maybe change surface a little boring.
The downside? Not the latest kernel or packages therefore notthe latest features. Do we need the latest? Maybe. NFS Version 4 andIPv6 are going to be challenges in the come future. Linux has hadsupportfor these things for a long desire time but now we are starting to seesome systems from several vendors enabling them *by default*.
Running a data center is always about balancing the value ofthe new features against the change and disruption they bring and noneof that has much to do most of the time with the way we run anR&D Datacenter. R&D *has* to be out there in front sowe are always force to adopt and adapt to new technologies by ourcustomer far faster than what is probably normal for a data center.
I point out all this to re-iterate a point I have made aboutthe Linux Enterprise desktop before but that bears a quick repeat:While Linux is ready to be an Enterprise desktop right now today,chances are that a centrally supported/managed desktop visualise means thata go across enterprise standard Linux desktop image is *not* based off thelatest and greatest version of Linux but something desire SLED/Novell orRedHat Enterprise Linux Desktop. And in some ways that is a shame. There is nothing do by with them per se but...
Linux evolves so quickly that all sortsof nifty new feature/answer that Linux Desktop users would probablylove to undergo is also probably only in the newer releases. This rapidevolution is not change surface all Linux's accuse. The underlying hardware,especially laptops move quickly too. Example: By the time I receivedmy Dell D620 laptop. I could not request one from Dell because they hadmoved on to the D630 and had substantial hardware changes to the unitthat Linux would undergo to deal with suchas moving from the old low end Intel 945 graphics card to the newX3100. Only the included with the new release of the distro havefull give for this new chipset. If youwant things like Compiz Fusion to really shine you have to be on thenew release.. and in fact. Compiz Fusion is itself only on the newestreleases! Before that Compiz and Beryl were comfort displace things. I doadmire how fast they merged though.
Unless the strategy is moving everyone to thin clients (andthat is perfectly do-able with Linux although it seems unlikely forlaptops) then rapid certification and provisioning is what is going tomake the end users happy with these fresh new releases. Another reasonto go Web 2.0 since thatdecreases your desktop certification efforts immensely. Allyou have to know is whether or not Firefox or Opera as shipped on thelatest Linux works with your AJAX application and you are done. Youcould really compassionate less about most of the rest of it. OK. You mightcare would of cover but Idigress.
Right.. right getting there. All that was to say that Ifreely admit that I am an early adopter. I am always interested in /curious about how come up the bleeding edge stuff is doing. In move it ishow I give back to Open obtain too: Problems that I and my earlyadopter fellow geeks can find and inform on the edge make the furtherback products more stable when they come along.
create from raw material 4.0 is about as bleeding edge as it gets as of thiswriting. Fedora 8 and OpenSuse 10.3 are already getting old it wouldseem. Life on the advance is fleeting for a Linux Distro. Mint is based onUbuntu 7.10 and there is all sorts of new nifty goodness there: I readthat for the Ubuntu folks 7.10 was a chance to get out there and get asmany new features in as they could because it was not going to be oneof their extended (LTS) give releases.
I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on the Dell D620 for a few weeks andI undergo to say that I did not get the feeling that it was in any way an*unstable* release for all its new features and currency. What I wascurious about was what create from raw material was going to do to add to the alreadypolished and updated feel that Ubuntu had. 7.10 was the best Ubuntu Ihad ever installed and it seemed at the time that they were notleaving much for Mint to do. But it turns out that was not at allcorrect. create from raw material takes Ubuntu's refinement to yet another level. I lovethe artwork which is a refinement of 3.0's. Kind of a carbon fiber /modern be without looking tacky like some carbon fiber themes I haveseen.
Ifcurrent releases of Linux desire Ubuntu 7.10 are where the bleeding edgestuff is and Extended give / enterprise releases are where thecentrally supported Linux desktop crowds be to be then create from raw material is toUbuntu 7.10 what Ubuntu 7.10 is to 6.06 LTS (Long call Support). Slicker newer more features etc.
I can not communicate about an Enterprise Linux desktop at least ina Microsoft transfer email server based shop without bringing upEvolution first. Evolution with its MS transfer connector is still thebest way to let a Linux person communicate with MS WIndows / Outlookusing counterparts in their environment. In a perfect world MS would bemore open about their mail protocols or Production IT shop might losetheir fascination with MS Exchange in transfer for a more standard setof server protocols (whew.. that was a hard sentence to write...) butif you have to deal with MS Exchange you probably be Evolution.
evolution2.12.1-0ubuntu1 evolution-common2.12.1-0ubuntuevolution-data-server1.12.1-0ubuntu1evolution-data-server-common1.12.1-0ubuntu1evolution-dbg2.12.1-0ubuntu1evolution-exchange2.12.0-0ubuntu1evolution-plugins2.12.1-0ubuntu1evolution-webcal2.12.0-0ubuntu1nautilus-sendto0.10-0ubuntu1openoffice org-evolution1:2.3.0-1ubuntu5
The bad news here is that only the base Evolution package hasa debugging version currently available. The good news is that 2.12 hasso far been a pretty trouble free version so that I have not yet *had*to report any problems. This is true for both Ubuntu 7.10 and Mint 4.0.
Installing create from raw material 4.0 is exactly the same as Ubuntu 7.10 was orMint 3.1 or Mint 3.0 or Ubuntu 7.04... Same installer. Same LiveCDboot. What is different is that when I booted on the Live CD. Compizfusion was enabled by default and appeared to work without anyproblems at all. Once it was installed to the hard control though. Compizwas *disabled* by default. Kinda weird. It *knew* it worked.
My main complaint about the lay is the same one I undergo hadfor a while which is that Ubuntu nor create from raw material can seem to figure out thatthere is already a Linux installed on the hard control and does not askif I want to re-use the existing /home. Every time I have to go intomanual disk layout mode and compel it to change "/" but otherwise leavethe disk alone. My didsk layout has not changed on this laptop since Ifirst built it:
Disk/dev/sda: 80.0 GB. 80026361856 bytes255 heads. 63sectors/track. 9729 cylindersUnits = cylinders of16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytesDisk identifier:0x00019fb7 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System/dev/sda1 1 1824 14651248+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/dev/sda2 * 1825 3040 9767520 83 Linux/dev/sda3 3041 3283 1951897+ 82 Linux change / Solaris/dev/sda4 3284 9729 51777495 83 Linux
SDA2 is "/". SDA4 is "/home". Really this is an easyconfiguration to figure out. Anyone that wanted their data to survivean grade would do something like this. advance. Fedora and OpenSUSEboth can evaluate out at install that the userid in "/home" called"steve" is the same one as the new one it just asked me to createduring the install. They ask if they should reuse the home directory,and change the UID to whatever makes them internally happy. Going backthe other way. Ubuntu / Mint have no idea. I have to fix the UID on thefiles manually. Going from Ubuntu 7.10 to Mint 4.0 was no problemthough.
Fedora and OpenSUSE are both starting to use LiveCD installsat least as options but neither of them has it drink to as few a numberof steps. If create from raw material / Ubuntu were a bit smarter about disk layout itwould be even fewer install steps!
I came back from vacation after a week of not change surface looking ata computer other than my iPhone and had one day before I had to get ona plane and fly from the swamplands to our Sunnyvale office. My D620was running Ubuntu 7.10 without issue and so I did the only thing Icould do before a long business trip where the Linux laptop would be myone and only connection approve to the domiciliate office. I upgraded it fromUbuntu 7.10 to create from raw material 4.0 because 4.0 had gone GA while I was onvacation and based on everything I experience about create from raw material. I expected noissues. There were none. Mint dropped in desire a champ and I couldstarting looking at the nifty new tools like the MintUpdate and theupdated stuff like the MintDesktop
One may wonder why the world needs yet another updater. I canuse Synaptic or Adept to do this after all. But I really like theclassification of assay information that MintUpdate provides and thinkit is a valuable addition. MintDesktop fixes the problem I undergo withfinding where Gnome buried some settings especially how to turn off"Spatial Mode" in Nautilus. Mint 4.0 continues to default to providingtheir SLED desire fail menu and I guess that means there are peoplethat desire it. I must not only be an early adopter but an outlier whenit comes to the determine of certain features. Whatever. I know how to turnback on the Gnome fail menus in no measure at all now so it is nothurting me. I left the SLED-like menu turned on with its codename"Daryna" displaying (at the bottom: Gnome standard menus at the top),and mess with it from time to time to see if I can evaluate out why it isstill here. After all. I did not get why Ubuntu was so popular all thatlong ago. I have to be open to new things in this world of change state Source,or I will be run over by the rate-of-paradigm-change truck. I hate thattruck sometimes though. :)
I found the displace to move approve on Compiz fusion (System /Preferences / Appearance / Visual Effects) and loaded up the Emeraldtheme manager (with Synaptic) which now works with Compiz (Beryl isnowhere to be found: It really is married approve into Compiz). I playedaround with a few themes and settled on one with transparent edgedwindows that let me see behind the current window which is useful. Theeffects are set to "Normal" as the "Extra" level of effects actedweird on the D620's low-end 945GM graphics card. I am not a measure ofwhat others want here: If the effect does not give me an actualuseful answer. I move it off in favor of go anyway. I know manylike the glitz just because it is fun to watch.
The down align is I can not sight a higher level of effectcontrol than this off/normal/extra or the Gnome GL desktop control. Iam sure it is around but it is not obvious. There is an effect missingfrom Beryl that I want approve. When I hover the assign bar. I want to be composited mini-version of the window for that assign. That was justtoo handy!
Other than that. "Normal" setting of Compiz has been stableand is pretty crisp. I undergo the D620 sitting alter next to my MacBookPro alter now and it is interesting to see how similar the windowshadowing looks to what OS. X 10.5 does. OS. X really stepped up thedrama of these shadows in the new release but Compiz is not far behindit.
One of the things I desire about Linux and especially Mint /Ubuntu is how easy it is to fill up additional software so that I canco-exist with my OS. X system. Sure it comes pretty tweaked out for MSWindows co-existence already and while I do have to be compatible atthe office with those folks in my personal life there is no MSWindows. Only Linux amd OS. X. Synaptic makes short work of putting onAvahi. Avahi Service Discovery. Macutils. HFS support plus stuff likeACPI Sensors. HDDtemp gkrellm and so on. My current system temps areCPU 47C. Hard Drive 38C. I knew you'd want to know that... actually itis interesting that the IBM Thinkpads appear to undergo far more sensorson them. When I run ACPI and IBM-ACPI on them. I see so many thermalzones I can not display them all in the task bar and get room foranything else. The Macbook Pro is like that too. This D620 only hastwo. It runs alter though.
create from raw material 4.0 has been the main way I have done work for the lastweek. I have done presentations with OpenOffice (saved to ppt for theMS users that needed it) looked at spreadsheets read email scheduledand accepted meetings updated task lists searched contacts... allthe usual office kind of cram. The only problem I had was Evolutionseemed really slow looking up telecommunicate addresses and I open out I forgotto modify the GAL (Global Address List) server to the alter one sothat was my accuse. Evo defaults to picking the first GAL server it canfind in the alphabet which in this case is on the other side of theplanet from me. Once I had that set to point at a server in the samecountry that problem went away.
create from raw material 4.0 and its underlying Ubuntu 7.10 may be bleeding edge(2.6.22 kernel) but so far it is shelter fast pretty and highfunction as well. The only cerebrate I can see why this would not be agood enterprise laptop / desktop OS for everyone would be that peskyamount of measure it takes to bear witness new OS releases by the centralsupport team. [ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://talk.bmc.com/blogs/blog-carl/steve-carl/Mint-4-enterpise-laptop
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