– by Robin “Roblimo” Miller –
Here I am with a downloaded and burned Redmond Linux (beta 3) CD, on an old desktop from Amnet Computer that was built specifically to run Linux. You’d think a distribution like Redmond Linux, made with installation ease as a primary goal, would glide onto this box smoother than a glass of spring water slips down a desert wanderer’s throat. And it does. But Redmond Linux still isn’t quite “there” yet.Installation Notes
To successfully install Redmond Linux on a simple desktop box you must first learn to perform the following tasks:

• Inserting a CD in a CD drive right side up
• Turning computer “on” with the switch
• Clicking on a “next” button
• Playing on-screen Solitaire
• Removing a CD from a CD drive

You do not need to win at Solitaire for the install to work. Indeed, you can probably go watch TV or read a book instead, and the installation will go just as smoothly.

Video detection and setup, at least with my generic video card and monitor, was flawless, a literal “no brainer.” Setting up my Epson inkjet printer took (I counted) four mouseclicks.

The next step is to pick a root password and make a user or two. Then Redmond Linux will drop you into a KDE desktop with the prettiest “default” background and theme you’ve ever seen.

(I had a little problem getting sound to work at first, but the fix was easy: plug in the speakers.)

Setting up the modem is the hardest part of the installation. You need know and type in your ISP’s phone number, your login name, and your password. But once you get beyond these hurdles, your Redmond Linux system is ready to go. And now you come to a major problem: You are not going to go very far.

Where are the applications?

The only applications included with Redmond Linux right now are KOffice, Mozilla, and a demo version of a commercial financial management program for Linux that crashed the first time I tried to start it. I needed more applications than what came with the “stripped” distro in order to use Redmond Linux in any meaningful way, and they weren’t there. I figured I could probably download them from the company’s Web site, so I went there. But the download page was nothing but a list of mirrors where I could get the same ISOs I already had. I went to the support page and still found nothing to download.

Sure, there are some nice utilities already bundled, like a word processor, image viewer and graphics creation software, a spreadsheet and some others.
This is a great start, except for the fact that they are mostly not-quite the latest KOffice components, and not all of them are as functional as they ought to be. KWord, especially, the word processor in Redmond Linux, has crashed on me every time I have tried to use it, and today’s test was no exception. Word processing is an absolutely basic function for a home or small business computer. Without reliable word processing, a student can’t even use a computer to do homework. I tried downloading AbiWord RPMs and installing them, but ran into dependency problems. I managed to install StarOffice 5.2 from a CD, but not many people have StarOffice CDs sitting around. Redmond Linux could take care of this problem by packaging a recent build of OpenOffice, the Open Source successor to StarOffice, on a second CD, along with several other useful (or fun) programs.

Add a later Mozilla than the 8.X version included, and include pico as a console text editor instead of forcing new Linux users to wrestle with vi if they have reason to do a little command line work, and this would truly be Linux you could install on a non-technical relative’s machine with confidence that they’d be able to use it without calling you for help all the time.

Everything from Redmond Linux itself is beautiful
I tried setting up a network with the included point/click tools. And succeeded, no problem, no thinking required at all. This is the easiest network setup I’ve ever seen in any OS, even easier than Mac 9.1. I was not able to test interoperability with Windows boxes because my home is Microsoft-free, and I do not have a CD burner so I could not test that function, but everything else worked as advertised, except for the flaws in some of the “outside” software I already mentioned.

I cannot praise Redmond Linux’s basic KDE menu structure and default screens enough. They not only look great, but are organized better and more intuitively than those I have seen with any other Linux distribution. This may be no big deal to an old Linux head, but for a new user or one who only uses a computer to perform simple functions, menu structure can be more important than the kernel version inside the box.

Sadly, the server behind the “Update Wizard” is not running yet, nor is the one behind the (paid subscription) GamePak. I would dearly love to test these. If they work as well as the basic installation, I will happily pay a nominal monthly or annual fee for them. Free is nice, but so is ease of use. I don’t know about you, but if I can click on a button and have my computer automatically updated and can download and install new software with a couple of clicks (even if the downloads take half the night at modem speed) I have no trouble letting go of a few bucks.

I can hardly wait for the “complete” Redmond Linux
What I have seen of Redmond Linux so far screams “WINNER!” For Linux users on a corporate Windows network, the Network Neighborhood for Linux feature, by itself, may be reason enough to get excited about Redmond Linux. More broadly, this is the kind of Linux distribution Windows users who want to switch painlessly to Linux have been hoping to find for years.

I am eager to look at Redmond Linux again, as soon as they get their first production release out the door, hopefully with more applications bundled, backed by download servers full of updates (and a steady stream of new software), even if full access to those servers requires a paid subscription.

Anonymous Reader writes “Embedded Linux vendor LynuxWorks joined the growing chorus of responses to Microsoft’s recent efforts to portray Embedded Linux as inferior to Windows XP Embedded from both technical and business perspectives. Embedded Linux vendors have countered that Microsoft’s document contains numerous inaccuracies and is based on distorted characterizations of the Embedded Linux operating system as well as of the vendors of Embedded Linux. Read the LynuxWorks response at LinuxDevices.com.”

NewsFactor Network writes “The desktop metaphor is under attack these days. Usability experts and computer scientists like Don Norman, David Gelernter and George Robertson have declared the metaphor “dead.” The complexities blamed on the desktop metaphor are not the fault of the metaphor itself, but of its implementation in mainstream systems. The default hard disk icon is part of the desktop metaphor. And the icon is the cause of the complexity created by the desktop”

From CNet: “Intel provided PC buyers with some new options on Monday, as
double data rate memory quietly made its debut alongside the Pentium
4.”

Dre writes “See http://dot.kde.org/1008632158/. Thanks, Andreas Pour.” and Timothy R. Butler writes “”The KDE Project has announced the release
of KOffice 1.1.1, the official KDE office suite. The new release
promises better stability, which could help make KOffice the suite of
choice for light productivity needs.” More…”

LinuxPlanet: “During the course of writing this week’s column, I found myself looking at the font presentation in KDE 2.2.1 and thinking: ‘yes, these are anti-aliased, but by golly is the kerning completely screwed on this thing.’ I checked the KDE site, and sure enough, there was at least one bug report about the problem… I plucked down the relevant RPM files from the KDE site and upgraded the environment. Unfortunately, things are pretty much the same with the on-screen display.” Read more here.

BBC: “The heart of a new light-emitting diode (LED) developed in Cambridge, UK, can be controlled so precisely that it emits just one single photon of light each time it is switched on. The device could be a key component in quantum cryptography, a code-making technology which, it is hoped, will be uncrackable.” Read more here.

ComputerUser.com: “On August 7, the Court of Appeal in the Sixth Appellate District of California said a lower-court judge was correct in finding the state has jurisdiction over Matthew Pavlovich, and ordered him to stand trial in California. Pavlovich, an open-source developer who played a role in the creation of DVD-playing software for Linux known as LiViD, is one of a number of defendants targeted in a lawsuit filed by the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA). Pavlovich, who was a student at Purdue University in Indiana at the time of the filing of the complaint and now resides in Texas, claimed to have no contacts in California and argued that the state has no jurisdiction over him.” Read more here.

PC World: “Immunity is impossible, but the open-source operating system may be protected… Why? Is Linux totally impervious to an e-mail virus? In theory, no. But in practice, it comes close.” Read more here.

ZDNet: “At the end of November Microsoft posted a document on its Web site comparing the Windows XP Embedded and embedded Linux operating systems, with the emphasis on the technical and business inferiority of Linux. Embedded Linux distributors argue that the document not only distorts the value of Linux, but contains inaccuracies. The following is a point-by-point response to Microsoft’s attack from Lineo, one of the companies of which Microsoft is most critical.”