Sun offers Gnome test drive for Solaris users
Continuing its drive to promote the Gnome desktop, Sun Microsystems Inc. today issued a
preview release of Gnome 1.4 for its Solaris 8 operating environment.
The release, entitled "Exploring the Gnome Desktop," is available for free download at
www.sun.com/gnome or on a CD for $9.95 plus shipping.
Leila Chucri, a product line manager at Sun, said this was "an introductory software package
designed to allow workstation and Internet customers to test drive, explore, and evaluate an early
version of the Gnome desktop for the Solaris operating environment, SPARC and Intel Architecture
Editions."
Sun's adoption of Gnome underscores its commitment to open systems strategies that benefit its
enterprise customers, Chucri added.
Sun is making significant
contributions to the Gnome
(GNU Network Object
Model Environment) project
and is collaborating with
other key industry players,
including Red Hat Inc.,
Ximian and
Hewlett-Packard Co., to
ensure it becomes the
leading desktop for Unix
and GNU-Linux-based
systems, she said.
Last August Sun said it
would adopt Gnome 2.x as
a standard component and
future user environment for
Solaris. Although Gnome
2.x will not be available
until mid-2002, Chucri said
Sun is making available
"this unsupported
distribution of Gnome 1.4 that we have built and packaged."
She added that "the recently released Gnome 1.4 (allows) our customers to familiarize themselves
with the advanced capabilities of Gnome and begin formulating plans for moving to this new
desktop."
Inside Gnome 1.4
Gnome 1.4 employs an intuitive desktop interface that enables users to easily locate and access
files and applications, manage workspaces and run a broad range of software, Chucri said.
It also includes several new client software applications and technologies, including the Nautilus
file manager with its new user interface, which makes it easier to organize and find local or remote
files, she said.
Nautilus also has built-in Web browsing capabilities and support for WebDAV, which allows for
collaborative editing and management of files on remote Web servers. Gnome-VFS, a virtual file
system that provides an abstraction to common file system operations like reading, writing, copying
and listing files, is also included, as is Bonobo, a CORBA-based technology that facilitates the
creation of reusable software components and enables rapid creation of custom applications.
GConf, a configuration management system, also simplifies the handling of system and user
preferences, particularly in networked environments, she said.
Among the advantages of Gnome 1.4 is that it has been designed "from the ground up" for tight
integration with the network and the Internet, enabling easy access to global information, Chucri
said.
In addition, Solaris users will be able to run CDE, the current desktop for the Solaris operating
environment, and Java applications seamlessly, she said.
