Reflections on Lisa02

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Ian Reinhart Geiser wrote:

> 
> Greetings
> 	Zack and I just got done with doing the Lisa02 Convention here in Philly and
> wanted to share a few experiences from that event.

Thank you for taking the trouble to write this report for you co-KDE-ers. I wish
it happened more often after a public appearance of KDE at conferences and and
exhibitions.

> 	As background Lisa is a USENIX technical conference.  So the 15 and under
> linux crowd is very very slim.  Most of these guys have been manageing  or
> dealing with Unix longer Linux has been around.  They are the ones who are
> on an island now, and management wants these weirdos to be gone.  KDE makes
> their Solaris cad/cam workstations seem less weird and play better with their
> users and IT staff.  We really where popular and got quite a few positive
> visitors and maby some big opportunities to get KDE noticed.
> 
> 	First some quotes:
> 		"Konqueror is the browser I use when I need things to work."
> 		"That [kio_fish] is the coolest thing I have seen all day."
> 		"The kde print system is awesome"
> 		"KDE rocks!"
> 
> 	The biggest hits of the show where:
> 		KDE Print system

Not quite a surprise.

> 		KDE Kiosk mode

This will become even more important in coming months. This, combined with
some sort of central setup/configuration/administration tool, which is able
to cover thousands of client machines and their user profiles is probably
decisive to get KDE (and Linux) onto the enterprise desktops in any noticeable
amount...

> 		KIO Fish

;-)

> 		and Konqi

My experience too. Show Konqi's multiple talents (based on the kparts and
"protocols://", have 10 tabs open with 2 web sites, an ftp site, a "print:/Manager"
window, a local file manager, a "smb:/" environment, a "fish:/" window, a "man:/"
page, and "info:/" page, an "audiocd:/" and "ldap:/" tab -- and you have a crowd
of interested people around you from 9:00 to 1 hour after the official close of
the doors... ;-)

> 		(KOffice while in most peoples opinion was not quite ready for 
> 		prime time was very promiseing and impressive)
> 
> 	Mind you this was a systems administrator show, these guys don't manage one
> toy linux box, they are manageing 5-500 desktops running solaris, irix and
> hpux.  We actually got quite a few negative responses to crystal and keramic.
> This was because they did not want to have the UI change so much and where
> more concerned that we where wasting our time with eyecandy than with more
> meaningful features.  Remember these are the guys who like the fact that CDE 
> even though it sucks has remained unchanged long enough to learn. This was 
> calmed when I was able to show them how to push out the old style with little 
> trouble.   Although they were very pleased to see that Keramic even though 
> its more glitz was not noticeably slower than hicolor on a PPC 450Mhz box 
> serving on remote X.
> 
> 	The KDE Print system really amazed quite a few people.  We even where
> mentioned in the Printing BOF meeting (BOF meetings are meetings where admins 
> all got together talked about how they solved certain problems) later that 
> night.  Great job in that dept there guys!

I hope those of you with network printers around take the chance to look at
the new "skli" utility (in kdenonbeta now), which can make printer settings
visible over SNMP (you need to have installed the "scli" utility). I think
skli can be the germ for an overall network device management suite -- also
something were KDE could make big gains amongst admins of large networks...

> 	KIO Fish has the power of voodoo.  It can entice even the most hardcore old
> school unix admin to use Kate, just so he dosent have to use vi over a
> 2400baud connection ever again.  I wish I had KVim there to really impress
> them. 
> 
> 	Kiosk mode is basicly what unix admins have always wanted.  While not 100%
> perfect it did impress quite a few admins who need to control how the users
> are using their desktop.  No-one had an aversion to the method of
> configuring the system, save for the docs where kind of light, but remember
> these guys are unix admins and where thankful we did not use the C or guile
> style of config files :)
> 
> 	Not everything was perfect though, there where some questions we got over and
> over again so obviously there are some unaddressed issues.
> 
> 	a) Where can we get good packages of KDE for RH 7.1/7.2/7.3/8.0
> 		Remember this is America and RH == Linux, worse, very few companies
> 		are running latest and greatest.  Most run RH 7.2 or 7.3 with some hacks.
> 		I know we would like to keep our head in the sand on this one, but maby we
> 		need to rethink this.
> 
> 	b) When will KDE be out for solaris 8/9?
> 		Yes i know we have random packages for random install configs out there
> 		for solaris 7/8/9, but those don't make it to who really needs them.
> 
> 		Cool thing out of this, SUN was more than willing to give me a copy of
> 		Solaris 9 and working on getting me more developer access to their
> 		systems.  The current party line is "We want to give our users more options
> 		than they already have".  (Read this how you will, but note CDE was the only
> 		thing running on all solaris boxes there, so I think they have yet to find a 
> 		usable alternitave to it yet.)  If anyone is interested in working with me
> 		on this please drop me a private email.
> 
> 		In short we should be on the Sun freeware site and CD shortly.
> 
> 	Lastly, we got an invitation from CMP (the publisher of Dr Dobbs and
> SysAdmin Magazine)  to submit press releases and papers for publication.  They 
> sounded like they would even do the press releases for free.  If anyone knows 
> how we can most efficiently set this up let me know and we can get this 
> rolling.
> 
> 	Cheers
> 	-ian reinhart geiser
> - - --
> ========================================
> A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard
> 		-- Prof. Steiner
> ========================================