Zentyal Forum, Linux Small Business Server
News and Announcements => News and Announcements => Topic started by: J. A. Calvo on October 26, 2010, 01:34:08 pm
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Hi Zentyal users,
As we have already mentioned, we've been working on Zentyal Desktop and we're now glad to announce the availability of the first alpha version!
Zentyal Desktop is an Ubuntu package intended to be installed on the desktop clients (workstations) of a network managed by Zentyal Server. It offers authentication against Zentyal LDAP and auto-configuration of desktop clients for the services provided by Zentyal.
Please note that this is still alpha software (it's the first version indeed), so it's not intended for production environments. There are some known issues with the software auto-configuration, but the authentication against the Zentyal Server LDAP should work. As many of the community members have been very interested in testing the Zentyal Desktop, we've decide to release this version.
This version is compatible with Zentyal Server 2.0 for Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 clients. We also plan to release a new version, compatible with Windows XP and 7 clients very soon.
Your help in testing it, giving us feedback, or even sending patches fixing stuff ;) would be really really appreciated. Here you can find all the information about installing and configuring Zentyal Desktop:
http://trac.zentyal.org/wiki/Document/Documentation/ZentyalDesktop/Ubuntu
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Sweet! Ill look forward into trying this out.
This actually falls right into my lap as im currently working on making it easy to use a Linux computer with Zentyal.
/Cheers!
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...we've been working on Zentyal Desktop and we're now glad to announce the availability of the first alpha version!
Please note that this is still alpha software (it's the first version indeed)...
Your help in testing it, giving us feedback, or even sending patches fixing stuff ;) would be really really appreciated.
Hi J. A. Calvo
It is good to see the desktop-client is being reborn.
The documentation indicates that Nautilus is the only means of providing links to Samba shares. This is quite restrictive. Nautilius is not suited to all Ubuntu installations and indeed is not included as a default package in some Ubuntu flavours.
By way of example take Lubuntu: http://lubuntu.net
lubuntu is a faster, more lightweight and energy saving variant of Ubuntu using LXDE, the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. The lubuntu team aims to earn official endorsement from Canonical.
Apps such as Nautilus are deemed to be to heavyweight and resource hungry. Is it possible at this early alpha stage of development to consider a less restrictive policy. A possibility might be to use the default components already provided in Lubuntu 10.10 the file-manager PCmanFM (part of LXDE) and GVFS. This currently provides automatic location and mounting of remote shares in the user home directory.
Lubuntu is very close to becoming an officially recognized Ubuntu derivative, having been established a couple years ago at the direct invitation of Mark Shuttleworth (founder of Canonical), it is here to stay. I request that Zentyal-Desktop be compatible with it and its philosophy.
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Hi SamK,
We don't plan to support any Linux Desktop Environment different than GNOME at the moment. But if anyone could contribute doing it, we will be very glad to integrate it :)
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...if anyone could contribute doing it, we will be very glad to integrate it :)
Have a look here for information which will hopefully be sufficient for integration.
http://forum.zentyal.org/index.php?topic=5358.msg21880
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Got it working ok, seems promising.
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Dear Calvo,
Its really great news that Zentyal Desktop alpha version has been released. But you said that it will support only GNOME environment, where as Ubuntu is dropping GNOME and going for Unity.
http://www.ubuntu-news.net/2010/10/25/ubuntu-11-04-to-ship-unity/
http://unity.ubuntu.com/
I hope and request atleast Zentyal Desktop should (will) work with Unity, as we all planned to load ubuntu at all our clients in future also.
Arun
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I agree that aiming for Gnome is a bit wrong. Not because i dislike Gnome but because there are other benefits from putting Zentyal Desktop lower down into the chain.
If we all help i think it isnt impossible to do this the right way. Many of us has done this numerous times manually but we are completely in the dark when it comes to packaging etc.
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Dear Calvo,
Its really great news that Zentyal Desktop alpha version has been released. But you said that it will support only GNOME environment, where as Ubuntu is dropping GNOME and going for Unity.
http://www.ubuntu-news.net/2010/10/25/ubuntu-11-04-to-ship-unity/
http://unity.ubuntu.com/
I hope and request atleast Zentyal Desktop should (will) work with Unity, as we all planned to load ubuntu at all our clients in future also.
When I talk about supporting only GNOME, I mean with the current version of Zentyal Desktop, that as you can say, is for Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 only.
Unity will come with Ubuntu 11.04, of course there will be a version of Zentyal Desktop for 11.04 next year ;)
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This is awesome! I can't wait to get home and test it :D
Also, as I understand it, Ubuntu is NOT dropping GNOME. Unity is just a shell for GNOME. GNOME will still be there, as will all its underlying technologies, Unity will just be running on top instead of GNOME Shell. :) This should mean that very little, if any, work will be required to make Zentyal desktop work with unity.
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sorry for perhaps a late reply but i have to argue against a nautilus approach.
1: nautilus is not the only gvfs enabled file-browser. its allready said that pcmanfm should also be supported, and thought it indead supports gvfs in the new alpha versions of pcmanfm2 i would recomend to use thunnar instead.
thunar is already out of beta and it can run on a current xfce 4.6.x and will most likely be the default in xfce 4.7 desktop, but it could also easily be installed on lxde, openbox or gnome desktop.
Q: so why not just nautilus instead of thunar?
A: [1]nautilus is dependant to much on gnome, why gnome is a good desktop its quite resources hungry meaning that your system will be slower.
[2] zentyal desktop will at some point be included in a thin/thick client environment. that means that the bigger your netboot will be the slower it gets. meaning that you would be better of using lxde or xfce than a full-blown gnome.
so whatever you deside think about this: what will happen when we include this in our LTSP.
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I tried to install Zentyal-desktop on a ubuntu 10.10 (x64 bits) client connected to a ubuntu server 10.04 (x64) runnng latest zentyal pacakge (installation date october 27th).
Installation went correctly on the client but authentication always fails.
I re read all the configuration how to provided by the zentyal team (adding firewall rule, creating users after the set up...) and I thougt having done everything according to the good practices.
Moreover the user account seems to be correct (I can log onto the server with ssh using the login / password freshly added) but gnome authentication screen (client side) always fails.
How can I troubleshoot the connection process
Thanks in advance for any help
Snarf
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I also have this problem, if you get anywhere snarf, please let me know! :)
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Yes, there is a bug that avoids proper authentication if the hostname of the server is different to "ubuntu". You can workaround it editing your /etc/ldap.conf file and change all the ocurrences of dc=ubuntu to dc=yourhostname.
A new 0.2 version fixing this and with other improvements will be released very soon.
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Hi,
Just to let you know that the 0.2 version of Zentyal Desktop for Ubuntu has been published right now.
In addition to some bugfixing, it comes with an almost complete rewrite of the code in Perl. This is due to the need of having some multi-platform common code between the Ubuntu and Windows versions.
Take into account that this is still alpha software (not even beta), and it's not ready for production.
We are waiting for your testing and feedback ;)
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0.2 works very well for me :D
When can we expect to see roaming profiles? Is that likely to be 0.3 or is that still a long way off? Also, are there plans to cache passwords so that i could login to my laptop even if it were out of range of the wireless network? At present i have to use a separate local account...
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Hi,
Yes, a first version of roaming profiles will be in 0.3 asap. Regarding to the passwords, yes, we would like to do something like that, but there is no date set for that yet...
Thanks for your feedback!
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0.2 works fine
Thanks
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Dear Calvo,
Its great to know that development on Desktop is going fast ...
Now I became greedy, when can we have the stable version ;)
Arun
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Dear Calvo,
Its really great news that Zentyal Desktop alpha version has been released. But you said that it will support only GNOME environment, where as Ubuntu is dropping GNOME and going for Unity.
http://www.ubuntu-news.net/2010/10/25/ubuntu-11-04-to-ship-unity/
http://unity.ubuntu.com/
I hope and request atleast Zentyal Desktop should (will) work with Unity, as we all planned to load ubuntu at all our clients in future also.
I thought Unity was planned only as default for the netbook edition :$
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Hi,
Thank you Zentyal team for your work.
zentyal-desktop 0.2 works also for me (at least connection, i will check the shares and other stuff after ..)
Bye
Snarf
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Hi SamK,
We don't plan to support any Linux Desktop Environment different than GNOME at the moment. But if anyone could contribute doing it, we will be very glad to integrate it :)
May I ask why we'd rather make Linux and our tools cater to Windows users, than to make them so they cater to ourselves, as Linux users? Seems kinda' bass-ackwards to me...
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I am waiting for Zentyal Desktop stable version release ...... When are we planning for that ..
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Good morning everyone,
I have just installed zentyal in my network to work as a file server and print sharing. Can I save the folders or the documents created by my users in the file server module to an external drive? If so, how can I do it? Thank you.
I think zentyal is the best for ubuntu networks since we are using ubuntu in our workstations. I am planning also to deploy it as a router and used the whole module and avail of the professional service.
best regard
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When can we have the Zentyal Desktop for Ubuntu 11.04
Arun
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I'm afraid that probably the next version of Zentyal Desktop will be for Ubuntu 11.08 rather than for 11.04. We are now focused on the development of Zentyal 2.2.
Of course any community contribution will be always welcome :)