So I finally broke down and installed the 3rd beta of RedHat's upcoming release (called Phoebe). The install is smooth - I chose to install Workstation tools + just about everything else (Gnome 2.2, KDE 3.1, etc), sans the servers. I will focus mostly on what I didn't like, so let me get the stuff I liked out of the way.

• The interface didn't change much from RH8, but some important tweaks have been made. It is easier to shutdown the machine (more on that later). The non-default software now sits in the proper menus directories (where as before it was all in the Extra menu). Both Gnome & KDE looked pretty smooth, though RH will probably have to wait for Gnome 2.2.1 before shipping final product (there are some showstopper bugs in 2.2 [I've run across them] that have apparently been fixed in 2.2.1 according to bugzilla).
• Most importantly, for people who will be running the software on a workstation, rather than a server, this release has a lot of updated drivers, including for my beloved high-end audio card (drivers were unavailable in RH8.0).
• The initial impressions are good. Both GNOME & KDE desktops are now more or less fully functional. It wasn't so in RH8.0: Gnome 2.0 was just freshly out of the oven and it showed. Many features that I consider essential were still missing. KDE was between 3.0 and 3.1, and though fully functional, was in the process of turning from an ugly duckling into a swan. Not so in the current release: Gnome is more or less baked and KDE is absolutely top notch. In fact, most of the problems in this release are with the way RedHat packaged the distro, rather than with any one particular component.
• Finally a front-end for samba: you type in smb:/// into the file manager and go network browsing. Perhaps, for newbies a Network Neighborhood icon pointing to smb:/// would be good. However, none of the applications seem to be able to access any files sitting on the remote shares, which makes the feature kind of useless. One has to copy the file locally and open it that way. PITA. Note that smb:/// was included in RH8.0 as well, but I could not get it work at all.

The rest of this article are things I didn't like.

Mozilla.

• Middle-click on the tab does not close it. This feature is available on the Moz Windows, and I'd hate to see it omitted on Linux. Perhaps it is something in the prefs.js file, but it should work out of the box. Not having this feature prevents me from wasting time in the office more efficiently.
• In addition, since RH is not really interested in Mozilla Mail or the other components, perhaps, it is time to consider using Phoenix browser as the default. It is slimmer and has a faster startup time. See the 10 things Phoenix is better at than Mozilla

OpenOffice 1.0.2

• Well, there are the well known problems of taking forever to load, so I won't dwell on that.
• The application as whole doesn't feel as polished as MS Office by a long stretch. For one it doesn't look like anything else on the system. The default set of toolbar buttons looks dated and completely wrong for office work. Here is an idea - copy the MS Word setup, it's been tested by millions. The 'Load URL' dropdown on the toolbar is totally out of place (this is not a browser). The 'Apply Style' dropdown also doesn't really belong there (by default), since it only has one style there. Space, people, space. All this is configurable, of course. And given that RedHat has taken a knife to both KDE and GNOME to make them look the same, it stands to reason that they should rearrange the toolbar on OO to make it standard as well.
• The default font style is way being small to look at (Nimbus 12). I had to crank it up to 24 to even see the text. The oddest thing in the world is that when I then opened this document in MS Word and tried to change the font to Verdana 10, that font looked really small as well. Just for kicks, I opened a new document and Verdana 10 looked perfectly fine.
• I could not find a way to restart bullet numbering (i.e. Bullet 1, bullet 2, some random text, then Bullet 3. OO always restarts with Bullet 1). Maybe there is a way, but it was not obvious. Another problem is the strange screen garbling.
• On the other hand, I loved the text autocomplete feature. Sometimes it actually completed my thoughts. After a while, I came to rely on this feature.

GNOME

• The GNOME desktop is kind of slow (although a bit faster than on RH8.0), though I suspect Nautilus is to blame. There is a bit of a pause as I go from folder to folder in Nautilus. Perhaps something should be done with the "perceived" speed of the app, if all real speed improvements have been applied. "Slow" is in context of comparison to KDE or WinXP and the difference in speed is not huge but definetely detectable on 2Ghz box.
• Some (most) applications in Gnome are based on GTK 1.x or hell knows what else, causing the desktop to have an ugly and inconsistent look. Evolution, GnuCash looks so Windows 3.1. OpenOffice looks totally out of place. Ironically, Mozilla, with its XUL built UI, is the only application that looks like it belongs. Hopefully as more native Gnome apps (or at least GTK 2.x) come online, it'll be a better experience. The project should run, not walk, to port everything in sight to GTK 2.x. In fact, I can't bring myself to even use any GTK 1.x apps, they are unpleasant to look at. Gnome, I guess is at the stage similar to what Windows 95 was when it came out: most of the apps were 16-bit and you couldn't really see why 32-bit was better.
• There are some usability issues. I prefer that when I double-click on the title bar, that the application would maximize/restore. Instead, the Linux tradition is that the window would roll up. I find this completely useless. Unfortunately GNOME has no option for toggling this functionality. The KDE desktop had this option for a while and, when I switched sessions to KDE, I immediately turned this feature on. Update: Since the publication of this article, several people emailed me saying that GNOME does indeed have this feature. You have to hunt for it, but deep inside the Gconf application tree there is a toggle for this functionality.
• I minimize all apps by clicking the 'Show Desktop' icon, that I added to the taskbar toolbar. I then right click on a file on the desktop (a png image) and select Properties for this file. In addition to the Properties dialog, all the windows that were minimized before came up.
• Something else that Gnome should address is how windows are resized. Currently you can only resize the window either from bottom right or bottom left. Why can't I resize the window from the top corners?
• The 'Show Desktop' applet that I've added to the taskbar toolbar has an outline around it. Why???
• Years of using windows gave me a habit of double-clicking on the system menu to close the app. Try as I might, I couldn't find a way to turn it on in either GNOME or KDE.
• GNOME's goal in software design of "less is more" is a mixed bag. I love the Themes applet, where you simply pick a theme that changes everything (icons, windows, colors, fonts, etc...) On the other hand, if you want fine control, you could go into details and pick your preferences. This is opposed to the KDE implementation which makes you pick separate colors, fonts, icons, windows decorations, etc... GNOME's way is definetely better here. However, the "less is more" mantra falls flat on its face when the features are simply missing, like the ones I've described in the preceeding paragraphs.
• The "Priority Text beside icons" feature in some applications (gedit, etc...) is excellent, nicely mimics a similar feature in IE and Outlook Express and is definetely a bright side of "less is more" philosophy.
• Oh, and did I mention that Gnome's Open/Save dialogs suck? Let me repeat it then: they suck.

KDE

• RedHat's implementation of 3.1 leaves much to be desired. The pure beauty of KDE 3.1 has been lost. For people that haven't seen how gourgeous it is, I'd suggest checking out KnoppixKDE. Be that as it may, RH simply presents a workable desktop, which looks good enough. I did manage to turn on the Keramik theme, but I couldn't find a way to turn on transparent menus (my box's got cycles to burn) or icons (I think they are simply not present).
• KDE has now managed to create a desktop that works, has just about every feature one could ask for. So far it has outclassed Gnome, though Gnome is likely to catch up fast.
• I can't say this enough: the File Open/Save common dialogs in KDE kick enourmous tushi. This is especially powerful in combination with Quanta Plus. You can open a file from the FTP server, edit it with the Quanta (HomeSite like application) and save the file back to the server by clicking Save. My only beef with that is that upon Save, Quanta resets the Dynamic Word Wrap setting - another excellent feature.

Kdevelop.

• I tried to create a simple project by going to Project/New and just picking default settings. When it was all done huffing and puffing, I noticed that there is no Finish button. Instead one has to press the Exit button. I then tried to run the app, but I got this instead:

  /bin/sh /home/johnson/firstproject/admin/missing --run automake --foreign Makefile 
  aclocal.m4:3009: your implementation of AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE comes from an 
  aclocal.m4:3009: old Automake version. You should recreate aclocal.m4 
  aclocal.m4:3009: with aclocal and run automake again. 
  gmake[1]: *** [Makefile.in] Error 1 
  gmake[1]: Leaving directory `/home/johnson/firstproject' 
  gmake: *** [all] Error 2 
  *** failed ***   
  

  Easy fix, but one that needs to be made.

Red Hat's implementation

• Though RH is pretty consistent between desktops, I found small but annoying differences. For instance, the .doc files are handled by OpenOffice in GNOME but by Kword in KDE. I was under impression (after reading a couple of recent articles) that both desktops were working from the same MIME database. Maybe not.
• My biggest beef is that Kpackage (the best RPM management tool ever) was not included. Instead, RedHat's Package Management was included, which is fine for packages on the CD, but not for external RPMs. While RedHat's tool installed RPMs fine, I saw no obvious way to uninstall RPMs that I downloaded.
  While we are on this subject, something has to be done about the way RPMs (or other package types) are delivered to the user. Case and point: I downloaded and installed LinNeighborhood. After the installation, there is zero clue as to what to do next - not an icon on the desktop, nothing on the Start (or kicker or foot) menu, no trace whatsoever. This is where I missed KPackage the most: it can tell what will be installed, where it will be installed, what are the dependencies, etc... And given that this release of RedHat is somewhat targeted toward desktop users, it's a problem that needs to be addressed.
• Another inconsistency is the manner in which the desktops can shutdown. While in KDE you nearly have to beg (i.e. Click a lot of buttons) to shutdown the PC, in Gnome you are presented with a dialog box asking to either log out, restart or shutdown. Hopefully RH rectifies the problem before the shipping version.
• Lack of NTFS support is also pretty ridiculous. I would even settle for read-only. Other distros have this too.
• Lastly, the Open Office and Evolution icons on the taskbar are kind of plain jane. If you change KDE theme to Keramik, the contrast is especially huge because this theme is very flashy.

Notes

• Actually, I was taken aback by how much faster front-runner KDE apps opened as opposed to similar GNOME apps (in their respective environments). Konqueror would just fly through directories, while Nautilus limped. The Konqueror Web Browser would also open up in a second or two, while Mozilla took 5-10, even in the Gnome desktop. In general, Konqueror has reached the critical mass in its combination of features and speed and the application is truly superb right now. Kword opened in a fraction of a second, while OpenWriter took 10-15. To be fair, AbiWord opened as fast as Kword. Kmail just popped up, while Evolution took its sweet time. Maybe I am comparing apples to oranges, but those are the default Gnome apps.
• Overall, if they fix the inconsistencies, it'll be a pretty good release. Normally, I am a Windows developer. My employer, however, is throwing out the Sun boxes and replacing them with Linux, so we have to interface with applications living on these computers, causing us to have to brush up on Linux. Supposedly, there is always the proverbial "ONE" application that's not available for Linux, which stops people from abandoning Windows (assuming they want to do that). I have found my "ONE" application, other than my Windows development tools. Lack of Shockwave plugin for Linux. My 3 year old kid likes to go to nickjr.com, which uses Shockwave in its stunningly beautiful (as shockwave and flash goes) games for children. I simply can't deny him this web site. Update: Since the publication of this article many people have suggested using CrossOver Plugin product (it is not free) which will allow the Windows version of the Shockwave plugin (in addition to QuickTime and others) to function inside Linux. While this is a good solution, I'll wait and see if it works with the shipping version of RH8.1 before plunking down cash.