Not Ready for Prime Time...
Written: Dec 06 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Nice GUI
Cons: Many downrev components, limited installation options
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| dlash's Full Review: Caldera OpenLinux |
Caldera's Open Linux eServer 2.3 distribution has been touted as the easiest Linux to install, and offers a fairly complete suite of Linux utilities along with a few Caldera enhancements. Unfortunately, it falls short of the mark when one attempts to use it with many current tools.
I recently had occasion to install this release in a test environment using a generic Pentium 133 system (ASUS motherboard, 96MB RAM, 30GB IDE HD). The installation process started off badly since my system was unwilling to boot from the distribution CD, though it does support bootable CDROM. I used my NT system to create boot diskettes from the provided images on the CD, and got the process started. The GUI installation environment is attractive and easy to use, though it does not offer many options along the way. Caldera has chosen to utilize separate partitions for swap and each file system, rather than the typical slices within a partition or volume. While this presents no serious problems, it is less flexible than other implementations. Support for a variety of graphics and input devices appears to be good, and I had no problems getting the X-Windows environment working properly.
The trouble started when I rebooted my system after completing the installation and desktop preferences personalization process. After shutting the system down, it would not start again without the boot diskettes. I brought the system back up, and began researching the problem in the on-line installation instructions which are only accessible AFTER the system has been installed. I learned that the boot code had to be written to the MBR during installation - not surprising, but that option was specifically NOT RECOMMENDED by the prompts in the installation process. Since no remedial path was offered, I began the installation process a second time.
Once again the process went smoothly, though the file copying process took upwards of an hour on my old P5-133. This time, I was not tripped up by the misleading instructions, and sailed merrily forward to a successful, bootable installation. After a short period of exploration, I began the business of installing the tools I intended to test, and utilities required to support my work. I planned to load SSL/SSH and Java 2 for starters.
After a bit of web surfing, I located the desired packages and downloaded them to my machine. Sadly, the installation process for the SSL and SSH packages failed immediately since they depended on GLIBC5 which is not part of the Caldera distribution. So I went out and fetched the GLIBC packages, and proceeded to install them from the source distribution. This process completed, I restarted my system... or rather, I tried to restart my system. No go. Time to reinstall....
A day later, I had the system freshly installed and running again. After some research in the on-line doc, I located the KDE software installation tools, and searched Caldera's site for updates. There were dozens of them! Naturally, I wanted my system to be fully up to date, so I began the lengthy process of downloading and installing all the newer package releases and updates from Caldera, including the GLIBC package required for SSL/SSH support. Great news!! I was able to install SSL and SSH successfully after this effort, and the system was still bootable!
Not so great news... the KDE system admin interface stopped working once all the software patches were loaded. Next, I tried to install Sun's JDK 1.3. The installation failed due to unsatisfied dependencies. After three installations spread over 5 days and nights of effort, I had a maimed system incapable of supporting the application tools I set it up to run in the first place. I sent a note to a Unix buddy who forwarded my tale of woe to an engineer at Caldera. The engineer replied defensively, impuning my knowledge and skill, but admitting to a half-dozen known problems with various patches and packages offered on the Caldera site. He also cited several fixes that had been completed, but were not incorporated in the posted software. Unfortunately, he saw nothing amiss in this situation!
I have been using, administering, developing and training in the UNIX environment for nearly 20 years, and I am certain I could ultimately make the Caldera release work. But corporate users at whom this product is targeted have neither the time, nor the patience, nor the expert manpower to fight their way through these hurdles to make "free" software usable. My conclusion is that Caldera's eServer release is NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME. Need a Linux server? Pick up a copy of Red Hat at your local supermarket, and drive on!
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
dlash
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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