| More details on Red Hat's Global Desktop |
May 10, 2007
 Analysis -- We now know more details about Red Hat's forthcoming Global Desktop, but there's still no download. In fact, the company doesn't plan to push this new Linux desktop online; instead, you're more likely to see it pre-installed on Intel's white box partners' PCs.
Red Hat will be certifying Global Desktop for Intel's vPro PC architecture. The vPro is Intel's attempt to re-invent the business desktop.
The plan is for Intel's white box partners to pre-install Global Desktop on their systems, and sell them to customers. Specifically, Red Hat is targeting Intel's next generation vPro architecture, aka Weybridge, for Global Desktop. The platform is built around Intel's dual-core Core 2 Duo 64-bit processors. These processors offer clock speeds ranging from 1.8GHz to 2.4GHz and have an 800MHz FSB (front side bus). It also includes Intel's latest chipset: the Q35 Express and the 82566DM gigabit network interface connector.
The just-released laptop version, Centrino Pro, also includes Intel's 965 Express chip set, with an integrated GMA X3100 graphics engine. The platform will also include support for draft 802.11n wireless technology as well as support for older 802.11 a/b/g standards.
VPro is built around three ideas: central manageability, security, and energy efficiency. For manageability this dual-core chip family incorporates AMT (advanced management technology). This enables IT managers to remotely push software updates to the system and remotely manage the computer.
The next version of AMT will embed basic network traffic filtering technology into the silicon's firmware itself. Although vPro technology allows for third-party security software, this layer of security will now be included within the platform itself.
For virtualization, vPro comes with Intel VT (virtualization technology), which is supported by Linux 2.6.20's KVM (kernel virtual machine). The vPro chips, though, also support enabling virtual machines, or silos, that house security and management software separately from a user's applications and data. Separating these should make it much harder for a security breech on the user side to be able to spread beyond the user space.
This virtualization scheme works hand in glove with Red Hat's announced plans to supply virtual appliances. These virtual applications can be used for network security, provisioning, monitoring, and asset management, regardless of the state of the desktop operating system. Making it even clearer how closely Red Hat is working with Intel is that Intel announced a very similar plan for the vPro in May of 2006.
If all this makes Global Desktop sound much more like a joint Intel/Red Hat offering rather than a typical Linux desktop distribution, well, you're right. Gerry Riveros, head of Red Hat client solutions marketing, made this even clearer at a press conference at Red Hat's Red Hat Summit in San Diego.
Riveros explained that Red Hat is training and enabling Intel system builders to do front-line support. If they can't resolve a problem, it then escalates to Intel and Red Hat provides the final line of support.
He also said that Global Desktop will be a stripped-down version of the existing RHEL 5 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop). It will include popular applications such as Firefox, OpenOffice, and Evolution. But, while RHEL Desktop 5 "has some 1,500 applications, so we stripped this down to about 700 by getting rid of a lot of things like developer tools and compilers, which helped reduce the hardware requirements for the system."
Since it's based on RHEL 5, we can assume that at least the early versions will be built on the 2.6.18 Linux kernel. It still isn't clear what its desktop interface will be, but it seems that it won't be the OLPC's (One Laptop per Child) Sugar.
Jonathan Blanford, a desktop engineer at Red Hat, said at Red Hat Summit that the current plan is to release a new version of Global Desktop every year. Unlike RHEL Desktop 5, which is supported for seven years, Global Desktop will only be supported for two years.
Blanford also said Global Desktop and Fedora will be developed in tandem. Features and technology developed for Fedora will find their way into the global desktop. "They will be developed hand-in-hand, and what you see in one will be available in the other," said Blanford.
The first version of Global Desktop will be appearing in June. Shipping systems with it on board will soon follow. The relatively inexpensive PCs will primarily be aimed at small businesses and governments in emerging countries. It seems a safe bet that some white box vendor will also offer Global Desktop-equipped PCs in the U.S.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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