Dapper Drake verdict: It sucks

The article claims that Dapper is targeted at the business desktop. Aside from all the problems with it, I don't see it as a business desktop. To me, a business desktop has all kinds of administration tools built-in, like automated rollouts, easy customization for creating a default configuration, easy cloning, network installs, remote helpdesk, and something like cfengine for automating patching and maintenance. All of these tools are available piecemeal, but I don't think you can call it a business desktop until these things are built-in and ready to roll.

I think Dapper is about as far away from business as you can get :)

like automated rollouts - kickstart easy customization for creating a default configuration - sabayan easy cloning - see kickstart network installs - you can make your own apt repository on the network just like putting the redhat/suse cds on a http/nfs server remote helpdesk - got me on that one - not sure I have seen this with other distribution either. but there are tons of helpdesk web applications and something like cfengine for automating patching and maintenance - why? you can create your own apt repository for patching and you can install cfengine and configure it just like any other distro.

not a ubuntu fanboy but gees you can make any distro be a business desktop - business desktops are pretty dumbed down and easy to create.

No, it's not a business desktop. A business desktop would have all the business features built-in. If you have to assemble all the pieces yourself it's an ordinary general-purpose distribution. That's not a slam on Ubuntu, just a fact.

Incidentally, I haven't seen any claims of Dapper being a "business" desktop from anyone but the author of this article.

"A business desktop would have all the business features built-in."

what do you mean built in? guess I am not clear on that. but those things you list are built into ubuntu just as much as they are in redhat and suse.

tuxchick2:

A "business desktop" shouldn't have all the administration tools built-in. It should be simple, so the admin doesn't have to spend a lot of time taking things out, and easy for the user, so the admin only needs to add those task-specific things each group of business users needs for their jobs. If it comes with a fairly intuitive GUI but not lots of stuff that are not needed for the job, it won't take a lot of time for the admin to make a custom setup to roll out to various departments.

grouch,

I'd say the perfect business desktop would be debian thin clients running something easy and quick for desktop like kde-lite or XFCE.

Makes administration a snap :D updates to a few computers and you're set. Things locked down pretty tight and if a user needs access, add to the sudo group and you're set.

Now if I can just get my users to fill out an IT request form when they need access to something instead of phoning the help desk I'd be set :)

> Now if I can just get my users to fill out an IT request form when they need access to something instead of phoning the help desk I'd be set :)

You mean they haven't found your cell phone number yet? :)

I saw it in helios' rolodex this morning...I will fax all staff with it here in a bit.

*bows head in resignation*

"crap."

*answers phone*

"help desk, how can I help you?"

I wouldn't say it sucks, but I've run into many (perhaps most) of the same critical bugs, and others the author perhaps hasn't noticed yet. My message list in Thunderbird scrolled at a blistering 1-2fps, but there's a workaround.

I'm currently running Dapper on both of my desktops at home, but that's mostly temporary as I've moved Dapper from my secondary desktop to my primary desktop.

I have installed/upgraded on 5 different machines and three different architectures amd64,ppc,x86 and I have not had one bit of trouble. I used the alternate and the main cd because I was installing on lvm so I needed the alternate. besides that it has worked just fine - no problems at all.

and for mass deployment you can use kickstart which works just fine.

Kickstart is Red Hat, not Debian/Ubuntu.

I only have two (a SONY VGN-A140P and a CyberPower built AMD-based box) but I also have no problems. No printing issues. No samba issues. Nothing.

I've heard as many "sucks" reports as I have "no problems" reports. Surely there must be something in regards to install methods that divides the "sucks" people from the "no problems" people.

One could also guess hardware would be a culprit but with this big of a split, it's hard to imagine that half (we'll call it "half", just for clarity's sake) manage to have the random hardware that works and the other half have the random hardware that doesn't.

"Kickstart is Red Hat, not Debian/Ubuntu."

no its not - it works with debian/ubuntu too

Ah, so it does. My mistake. Cool, Kickstart is easy.