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[Ubuntu 6.06 v. SLED 10]

I have been running Novell SLED10 RC3 for almost two weeks now and and so far have been very pleased with results. The system as a whole feels very well put together and is pretty slick. From the screenshots/screencasts I had seen earlier of the new GNOME menu developed my Novell I had my doubts. After actually using it though, I have started to change my mind. I still don’t believe there was anything inherently “hard” or “confusing” about the old menu (applications, places, system) and the new menu sometimes feels like it take s me more steps to do some tasks. I feel I am qualified enough to make that assumption given that I have rolled out an LTSP server at work with GNOME desktops on the clients and none of my users (a lot of them with varying computer illiteratacy) have had no problems finding applications or browsing to files (locally or on the network share). With that said, the new menu does grow on you. The new Control Center and Applications browser are nice and the integration with Beagle is great. This is also one of the smoothest Xgl setups I have tested yet. Package management with SuSE (err, OpenSuSE?) 10.1 was horrific and supposedly it has improved in more recent updates and in SLED 10 but I haven’t really tested it.

So how does it compare to Ubuntu 6.06?

• One thing I do miss are all the available applications you can find in Ubuntu’s repositories. There really is no comparison here.
• Because you can easily run Xgl and Beagle on Ubuntu they are nearly even in that regard (though SLED 10 might have a slight advantage for now on Xgl).
• Ubuntu’s update manager is one of the best, if not the best, in the business! Again, really no comparison.
• Deskbar! I really miss the Deskbar applet and I have yet to find a package for it for SLED 10 or OpenSuSe 10.1. I can’t figure out why this package is not included, especially since it’s a nice tool to use with Beagle and Beagle is Novell’s baby.

One other minor annoyance is that they have locked down the panel so that you can’t move it (either by dragging or through properties!), and they have locked to to the bottom of the screen! Sure you can venture all the way into gconf-editor and find the key to unlock it but it’s a hassle. I read in their usability study that they did so because users would “accidentally” move their panel off the screen and would not be able to find it??? Why not just disable dragging it then and leaving the actual properties option to change the screen location?

[SLED 10 Menu for Ubuntu]

You can now get the SLED 10 menu for Ubuntu. I found this blog post last night with links to the repo you need to install it. It’s slightly modified to work with Ubuntu (ex. Install Software opens Synaptic).

Angelic Penquins: SLED menu for Ubuntu (Uslab) Now in Repo

[Solaris 10 06/06]

I installed the most recent Solaris release over the weekend, totally wiping out my previous Solaris 10 install. I needed a clean install because all of the testing I have done on it made it cluttered. This release also includes ZFS, which is cool.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 16th, 2006 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Solaris, Linux. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.