J_K9 @ Linux

Exams Approaching

I’m sorry for the shortage of posts - juggling schoolwork, revision for exams and the other joys of life has been consuming almost all of my time.

The regular, scheduled posting will return soon

Ubuntu 7.04: A Hit

All of the reviews I have read of Ubuntu’s latest and greatest release have implied the same thing: it’s a hit. I have been running the Beta since a few days after it was released and it has worked flawlessly with the exception of one or two bugs which were already on Launchpad, the Canonical-run service which Ubuntu’s developers use to track the product’s bugs and their status.

There was plenty of talk before the final release about some of Feisty Fawn’s new features, such as the innovative Migration Assistant to aid your transition from Windows to Ubuntu and the Proprietary Drivers Manager to allow you to more easily control which proprietary drivers are installed and in use on your system. There are also some more subtle changes which have been blogged about.

On the developer front, due to the recent (well, fairly recent) Open Sourcing of Java and Sun’s partnership with Canonical a complete Java stack has been made more readily available for those who require it, which is excellent.

Oh, and did you know that Michael Dell, CEO of Dell is running Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn on his newest laptop? This was announced not long after Dell’s decision to pre-install Linux on more of the computers in its range, so it’s good to know that Michael Dell practises what he preaches

In fact, there was such anticipation for this release that celebration parties were organised and blogged about all over the world! I just wish I could have gone to one!

We should also expect to see the first release of Ubuntu Studio, a specialised version of Ubuntu geared towards audio, video and graphics enthusiasts and professionals, in the next few days.

There are plenty of screenshots boasting the graphical elements of Feisty Fawn and I hope to get my hands on the installation CD, or unrestricted internet so that I can upgrade my still-beta laptop soon!

Converting Geeks

Many technology-orientated users, particularly the geekier ones, have heard of Linux. However, the vast majority of these users have never tried it because they have not felt the need to - if Windows suits their needs so (apparently) perfectly, why change?

When I was selected as one of the people to go on the trip to Seattle, one of our designated tasks was to think of and possibly prototype an application which Microsoft might consider investing in. I was placed in a group with three others and, together, we had to develop an idea and a presentation around that idea to take to Microsoft. Before the trip, not one of the three had tried Linux and only one of them was slightly inclined to. Now, two weeks after the trip has ended, two of them are running Linux and are seriously considering running it as their primary OS and the remaining one is going to run Linux soon (if he is not already - I haven’t spoken to him since the trip). I don’t think that’s too bad an effort on my part

So, what happened? Why did these three guys change their minds about Linux and two then go on to try it and enjoy using it? There isn’t a single, specific answer to that, except that they learnt over the trip that Linux is a much more powerful and capable OS than they had believed.

I quote one of them:

Subject: Installing Ubuntu

7.04 beta. It’s gotta be one of the sexiest OS’s I’ve ever seen. I love the default brown, so refreshing after Windows. And such an easy install (so far).

Well, the User Interface and clean design certainly seems to have played a major part in his decision to try Linux and, more specifically, the new (beta) version of Ubuntu. Yes, yes it did:

Subject: Ubuntu!

Screenshot attached. Oh so nice looking.

Well it is very pretty, but it has other advantages as well:

Subject: Ubuntu is genius

It looks amazing. And the GAIM [in] 7.04 is so good. Easy MSN and Google Talk. I’m switchin my desktop. Just need to figure out WINE.

It is also consistently user-friendly across all of the main applications, making it easy to use and configure according to your personal preferences. Not only that, but the APT package management system allows for centralised updates distribution and software installation which surpasses its Windows counterpart (Automatic Updates, which is hardly comparable in terms of functionality):

Subject: Convert?!

I think you may well have converted me to Ubuntu. Can’t really get enough of it!

I just love how easy it is to install stuff using terminal apt-get etc. Having a central place where you can get stuff from = genius!

The other person in my group who recently tried Ubuntu said:

him: does evolution sync with google calendar then?
me: yes
him: OOh
another reason to switch

The “implement support to scratch an itch” principle is one of the reasons that Open Source and Linux were first started, and it’s good to see that this continues to be true today and is appreciated by users.

As these examples show - and there are more - it is misinformation more than anything else that prevents many people, such as power users, from trying Linux. They think of Linux as “that other Operating System” because they have never experienced it. If more people were made aware of Linux’s advantages - even the subtle, minor, less-noticed ones which might be considered irrelevant - the number of downloads of the mainstream Linux distributions would increase drastically.

No Ubuntu 7.04 Release Candidate?

I was expecting a Release Candidate for Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn to be made available yesterday (Thursday), a week before the release of the final version, but apparently the jump has always been from Beta straight to Final just less than a month later and there will be no such Release Candidate. Well, at least not until the final stages in the development of Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon when a Release Candidate will, apparently, be released one week before the Final release.

I think this is a good move by the Ubuntu team because, although compiling and uploading a pre-release does take a lot of time and effort which could be better spent bug-fixing or developing, it allows more people to test an almost-ready version of Ubuntu and thus iron out any final critical bugs which may remain and not previously have been spotted (which is always possible). The users of the Release Candidate could then submit feedback reports and requests to the developers to allow them to apply the final touches to the release before it is made final. I think this is an excellent approach which is much better than the current one. I’ve been running Ubuntu 7.04 Beta since a few days after it came out, and since then I’ve downloaded and installed more updates than I could keep count of. This substantial jump from the Beta release to the Final may only incorporate minor changes to individual applications but one minor change has the potential to cause major problems, and so adding in a Release Candidate will set the point for a reduction of changes and a focus on polishing the distribution before the final version is released and distributed to the public.

Bravo Ubuntu! The team have done a great job with 7.04, as you can read about here and here, and I cannot wait for the Final release on the 19th April! Make sure you’ve all got that noted down in your calendars.

Compiz and Beryl: Reunited

Compiz and Beryl, two OpenGL-accelerated (compositing) window managers which split from each other over half a year ago have now officially reunited. Beryl was forked from Compiz for several reasons, partly because some of Compiz’s developers had different aims for the project and wanted to work on achieving those goals as well as possible.

The problem with forks is that the community is split and so the developers on both sides end up working on the same features independently, inevitably wasting time which could have been spent much more productively if the fork had never taken place. This is why I am so glad that Compiz and Beryl have decided to join forces - because they will finally be able to put their minds together and work on producing an excellent and even more aesthetically pleasing compositing window manager than they could ever have created by themselves.

Best of luck to them, and I look forward to upgrading Beryl 2.0 to the new, combined compositing window manager when it comes out!

Raising Linux Awareness

One of the main problems facing GNU/Linux (henceforth referred to as Linux) is that it simply is not known by the majority of the computer-literate users in this world, and is used on a daily basis by even fewer. It is an excellent Operating System which can satisfy the needs of most demographics bar certain specialised ones, such as gamers, so there is nothing stopping it from hitting the mainstream except marketing funds. You know what? These might not be needed.

Continue reading Raising Linux Awareness…