Talk:Java Desktop System

Untitled
I'll upload a screenshot of JDS when uploading has been enabled on Wiki again...

SuSE Linux and Solaris?
Does that make sense?

''The name reflects Sun's intention to promote this as a venue for corporate users to deploy software written for the Java platform; it is actually built on top of Unix and currently uses a SuSE-based Linux distribution. JDS is included with Solaris 10 (upon installation of Solaris one has the choice of using either the CDE or JDS), and in the future it will also be available for Sun's Sun Ray thin-client system.''

JDS is built on top of Unix and uses a ... Linux distribution. JDS is included with Solaris 10.

It's Linux... or is it Solaris? I'm confused.


 * it's available for both platforms.

Actual content
So, it runs on the Solaris OS, using X Windows for a GUI, and GNOME for a desktop environment, and various other bits for actual software one can use. What precisely is the Sun contribution here, or is this just really a re-skinned/themed/customized GNOME installation? --maru  (talk)  contribs 04:40, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Part of the "Sun contribution" is the inclusion of some non-GNOME (and some non-free) applications out of the box, such as RealPlayer, Adobe Acrobat Reader and StarOffice, which other free desktops either can't or won't ship.

As well as that, Sun has locally-maintained feature, build and bugfix patches, and commits hundreds of thousands of person hours (and sponsorship dollars) directly to the GNOME, OpenOffice and Mozilla communities, amongst others. Some of those hours are devoted to making sure their stuff works on Solaris at all, which in some cases isn't trivial. Others are in more general areas like accessibility, usability, performance, multi-head support and (until recently) documentation, which all GNOME distros benefit from.

There's also a highly-secure "Trusted" version of JDS, which is unique to Solaris.

The OpenSolaris project pages also list projects under way to improve the user experience for things like printing and network connection management, where typically Solaris has lagged a bit because it does things a bit differently from Linux. You can also expect to see new GUIs supporting techonologies like ZFS, zones and dtrace, which are currently unique to Solaris. 192.18.101.5 11:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Pretentious sentences
Why does it read like this page was attacked by a Microsoft zealot? "Familiar interface" doesn't mean "it looks like Windows". Windows evolved parallel to other window managers and took a lot of features from them. Whoever wrote that needs to grow up! Hendrixski 18:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Windows is the major-marketshare OS/window manager it closely resembles, though. Hell, KDE is popular with people coming to Linux from Windows because it, too, looks like Windows. Windows is the interface most familiar to most PC users today. 88.217.45.254 08:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)