Leadership By Numbers

The Linux Notes Client is part of the Workplace Client Technology (WCT) platform and has been released a year early. Now, that may sound like a radical turn of events to be an early release by 12 months in an industry that has become accustomed to perennial setbacks—but the strangest revelation was to discover that when I was accepted into the early beta program, it was already in its third release. Beta 3 and no one leaked this information? Amazing.

When I received the downloads, I had to wait a day or so to get the documentation (which turned out to be quite sparse for the client install) so my initial installs were rushed, and quite rough. It is officially supported on RHEL4.3, which you can get directly from RedHat for about $179 (US). Don't be disheartened if you aren't a RedHat user or are reluctant to buy another operating system. Did you know that RedHat sells their software primarily on a subscription basis? This means that you can register for a free evaluation, with 30 days of support. After the 30 days, you still have RHEL—but you can't get any updates.

I'm going to encourage anyone interested in the Linux Notes Client (LNC) to use the commercial Linux distros which are officially supported. Novell's SuSE is next on the list.

You can also try out CentOS, which is code compatible with Redhat, and we can cross our fingers that more Linux distros (e.g., Ubuntu) will be supported for the NLC.

The guidelines which came with the early beta stipulated that the installation was to be done under the 'root' account, an unusual choice for Linux applications. Even with all the other suggestions in the Beta Quickplace Forum, I was unable to make a complete installation.

On the first try, I worked with a VM image of RHEL from VMWare. It's great to get a complete VM of RHEL, but it turned out to come packaged in three different disk images that had to be pulled together, and I could never quite get it to work. So, then I tried the CentOS 4.3 release, which I built in a VM. It almost worked. For some reason, setting routing for the DNS server was troublesome, but despite that problem, the LNC install would finish, but not completely run. Very frustrating. I really did expect it run on CentOS.

Finally, I got the RHEL 4.3, installed into a VM, fixed the same weird DNS issue I had in CentOS and installed LNC. It failed.

Why? Well, because despite the guidelines, 'root' really wasn't the right choice. To get the LNC working correctly, it needs to be installed with a user's account, and it's easiest to put it in their own home directory. When I downloaded the latest edition, over the weekend, I read the updated installation instructions which are very clear to not use the 'root.'

I'm not going to complain, because this is beta code, and I'm just too happy that it works. It works GREAT !!

After the installation was working, I found that I needed to create a connection document in the local address book for my server connection (don't know why, it may have been confused by all the VM NICs). Other than the connection document, I'm quite impressed by it. It's a little other-worldly to see the Notes interface working in Linux, with of the Notes pop-ups, dialogbox fields, layout regions and such.

It's brought me back to the original moment of wonder I had when I could build applications hosted on a Netware server running Notes (it wasn't called Domino with version 3.3x) for both Windows and Macintosh clients. Now, I can run Domino on Linux for Windows, Macintosh, WAS Portal, and, finally, Linux clients. This is just way too cool. It's a fundamental distinction, maybe even a hallmark for IBM/Lotus, that Notes is truly a collaboration platform for the users of any hardware and system configuration. Doesn't that just seem what an enterprise collaboration should be able to provide?

Many of us have worked so long in a Windows world, that it's almost a surprise to find that the Linux community views the Notes client as a collaborative/development platform, rather than merely a corporate outlook-alternate. This is very, very positive--because as the Linux community talks up the collaborative framework of Notes/Domino, that message spreads out to everyone else (http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;1707641487;fp;2;fpid;3).

Outside of the user group presentation which I did last Thursday night, I've had some conversations with several MS Business Partners who were clearly dismayed by the DLN (that's my impression). Some of them had been encouraged by the open-source affiliations of Microsoft with JBoss, SAMBA and the Mono project. Having the DLN capable of extending the huge amount of existing Domino applications, as well as competing on the messaging side is eroding their hopes for open territory. Instead, IBM/Lotus has continued to make good on their commitment to open-source and open-standards, and having a Linux client creates a compelling vision of the value of Domino/Notes.

What's next? Why a great acronym, of course. C'mon, something this cool can't allowed to be tagged by the same team that gave us Domino Offline Services (DOLS). If Napoleon Dynamite can speak of Ligers and Tions, then we should be able to come up with something suitable for the Tux.

Linocs?

No? Maybe I'm not the best at this, I'll take any recommendations.