Sun Microsystems has shipped out demo version of its Sun Java Desktop System. The demo CD"s were being sent out last week.
Sun specifies that the what is on the CD is only a demo and that speed is not indicative of the actual production version. Specifically, all the applications run off of the CD. One 110 meg file is copied to the HD which form what I have seen is the desktop shell.
The CD installed flawlessly on a standard PC. Installing the CD through virtualization software such as VMWare and Virtual PC also possible. Suprisingly enough, the installation menus remind me of the Red Hat installer. The Sun Desktop however seems much faster and more fluid.
The Desktop is a standard Gnome looking linux desktop. The demo cd also includes supports for braille devices which I though was interesting.
The Sun Desktop demo comes installed with StarOffice 7, RealPlayer, Java 2 (JRE), Acrobat Reader, Flash player, evolution email client, and a bunch of other applications.
The demo runs linux kernel 2.4.19-4GB.