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Linux

Linux: Beauty Is More Then Skin Deep

by Earl Moore on July 23, 2008

On 22 July at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention there was a call made by Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical-Ubuntu Linux, to improve the presentation layer of Linux to exceed that of Apple’s OS X:

“The great task in front of us over the next two years is to lift the experience of the Linux desktop from something that is stable and robust and not so pretty, into something that is art,” Shuttleworth said to applause from the audience. “Can we not only emulate, but can we blow right past Apple?” [From Shuttleworth: Make Desktop Linux Better than Apple - eweek]

As a Mac user and sometimes Linux experimenter, I hope this challenge is taken seriously by the open source developer community and it’s undertaken in such a manor to make the presentation beauty more then skin deep. Having a beautiful desktop and windowing system without improving the functional simplicity of the user interface would be a mistake.

In many ways Microsoft Vista is visually more beautiful then Apples OS X but that beauty doesn’t translate to a great user experience. While often overstated, the Apple Mac saying of “it just works” does have some base in truth.

Linux also needs to adopt the goal of going “It just Works” one better.

Competition between the major desktops is good for all of us. Improvements and innovations have a way of “migrating” across the arena. ;-)

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Contemplating OpenSUSE 11

by Earl Moore on June 21, 2008

200806211027.jpg Confession: I haven’t always been a Mac user and I still sometimes stray from the path. :-)

I’ve an older Intel P4 PC (one I built years ago) that I keep around for various purposes. For one, I believe Linux has promise and occasionally I like to install some of the newer releases and take them for a spend. This PC is my testbed for that purpose.

Windows XP and Fedora 9 are currently installed and for a period I had OpenSUSE 10 installed as well. Most of the major Linux released have been on this PC at one time or the other as I’ve cycled through them.

In my experimenting with Linux I’ve found that in general I prefer the KDE desktop over the GNOME one. I not sure why, but for me I find KDE to be more pleasing.

I recently read ArsTechnica’s first look at the newly released OpenSUSE 11 that stated it offers the best KDE 4 experience.

OpenSUSE 11 ships with KDE 4.0.4, which is acceptably stable. It’s not quite ready yet for all KDE users, but it’s far more complete and robust than the original KDE 4.0 release.

I’m tempted to install this newer version of OpenSUSE simply to experience the desktop. I migrated from OpenSUSE 10 to Fedora 8 some time ago and then went to Fedora 9 when it became available…could OpenSUSE 11 lure me back? Perhaps, but Fedora 9 has a lots going for it.

If you currently use a release of Linux I’d be interested to know which Linux Desktop you prefer and why?

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Microsoft: Negative Windows Press

by Earl Moore on April 11, 2008

It’s not turning out to be a good public relations week for Microsoft, as the following links indicate:

Gartner Says Vista Will Collapse. And That’s Why The Yahoo Deal Must Happen - TechCrunch

Microsoft Designed Vista’s UAC to “Annoy Users” - DailyTech

Gartner Analysts Predicting Doom and Gloom for Microsoft Windows - eWeek

Windows at risk of “collapsing,” say analysts - tgdaily

Gartner: Windows is Untenable and Collapsing - the Mac Observer

Windows is ‘collapsing,’ Gartner analysts warn - ComputerWorld

For Microsoft, its ecosystem and its customers, the situation is untenable,” said Silver and MacDonald in their prepared presentation, titled “Windows Is Collapsing: How What Comes Next Will Improve.”

Among Microsoft’s problems, the pair said, is Windows’ rapidly-expanding code base, which makes it virtually impossible to quickly craft a new version with meaningful changes. That was proved by Vista, they said, when Microsoft — frustrated by lack of progress during the five-year development effort on the new operating — hit the “reset” button and dropped back to the more stable code of Windows Server 2003 as the foundation of Vista. - ComputerWorld -

I certainly don’t believe it’s the doom-and-gloom for Microsoft Windows these articles may lead one to believe (have you seen Microsoft’s earnings). Microsoft with its incredible resources will no doubt continue to develop and support the current Windows versions successfully. Perhaps a company with lesser resources couldn’t pull this off.

However, It’s not surprising that Apple has been experiencing market success with its Mac and OS X computer line.

With the less then stunning success of Vista, Microsoft has certainly opened the door for both Linux and Mac OS X as more dependable alternatives to Windows.

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Are Eee computers good news for Linux?

by Earl Moore on February 1, 2008

The Asus Eee Xandros Linux Laptops have been a big hit due to their affordability and hack-ability, but can this laptop success transfer to a desktop machine and long term is this a positive influence for Linux on the desktop?

In addition to the Eee Laptops, Asustek will be releasing a line of Linux-powered PCs in 2008. These Eee PCs will consist of low cost components and a projected initial cost of $200 to $300.

…Asus intends its Linux “E” line to be the low-price leader in every major desktop PC line. - DesktopLinux

While this “Eee” concept has been very successful($) for Asus, I wonder if it’s a good long term influencer for Linux being used on the desktop?

On one hand Linux is getting a lot of exposure to many who could not afford a more capable and costly PC but is it presenting Linux as a cheap, not in the inexpensive sense, disposable OS?

Will non-tech users who purchase these low performance machines see the shortcomings of the “Eee” as being a problem of Linux as well?

Will they be able to separate the PC from OS?

I’m hoping my Linux friend Richard can share some thoughts on these questions.

What do you think?

Update: 02/02/2008

My friend Richard Querin over at Renaissance Man responded with “Why Low-End PC’s with Linux are a Great Thing.”

Definitely some good points for consideration, but I’m still not totally convinced. I don’t think low-end PC’s with Linux will be a great influence for long-term Linux growth on the desktop.

When non-tech users of these low-end PC’s reach the point of wanting to upgrade and purchase a more capable/traditional PC, will they also think about a more “traditional” operating system? I think they probably will.

I agree about the exposure of open source applications to non-tech people in general. Most people don’t realize how many great “free” applications are available.

This could become the real foot in the “desktop door” for Linux. People become dependent on applications more then operating systems, and if a favorite application runs mainly on Linux then Linux will be a definite choice for their future PCs.

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Linux: Fedora 8

by Earl Moore on November 9, 2007

Fedora 8 was released this week (Nov 8th) and out of curiosity I installed a copy of it on my self-built test box. The install process went off without a hitch. All devices were recognized and proper drivers installed. This hasn’t always been the case on this PC as many variants of Linux have stumbled with the on-board Promise Controller and ATI graphics card.

Fedora 8 uses the GNOME 2.20 desktop with a visual style called Nodoka and has a number of new features.

Features of this version of Fedora include:

  • This release features GNOME 2.20. GNOME now includes mail notification in the Evolution mail client, the ability to fill in PDF forms in the Evince document viewer, improved file management, a revamped Appearance control panel applet, a revised help system, and many other enhancements.

  • Online Desktop provides a desktop experience designed around online services. A preview of Online Desktop is provided via BigBoard, which is a optional sidebar in GNOME.

  • KDE 3.5.8 is available in the KDE Live image as well as the regular DVD. The KDE 4 (Beta) Development Environment is available in the repository.

  • Xfce 4.4.1 is available as part of this release.

  • NetworkManager 0.7 provides improved wireless network management support. It includes support for multiple devices and provides the capability of system-wide configuration, among many other enhancements.

  • PulseAudio is now installed and enabled by default. PulseAudio is an advanced sound server compatible with nearly all existing Linux sound systems. PulseAudio allows for hot-switching audio outputs, individual volume controls for each audio stream, networked audio, and more.

  • CodecBuddy is now included, and promotes free, superior quality, open formats to end users trying to play multimedia content under patent encumbered or proprietary formats.

  • Compiz Fusion, the compositing window manager that re-merges Compiz and Beryl, is installed by default. To enable Compiz Fusion in GNOME, use the System → Preferences →Desktop Effects tool. Ongoing, long term Xorg work continues to enable Compiz by default.

  • The completely free and open source Java environment called IcedTea is installed by default. IcedTea is derived from OpenJDK, includes a browser plugin based on GCJ, and is available for both x86 and x86_64 architectures. GCJ is still the default on PPC architecture.

  • OpenOffice.org 2.3, with many new features, is available as part of Fedora 8.

  • Bluetooth devices and tools now have better graphical and system integration.

  • Laptop users benefit from the “quirks” feature in HAL, including better suspend/resume and multimedia keyboard support.

  • There is now improved power management thanks to both a tickless kernel in x86 and x86_64 architectures, and a reduction in unnecessary processor wakeups via powertop.

  • This release of Fedora has a new look and feel, called Infinity, from the Fedora Art team.

  • Nodoka, a fresh new GNOME theme created specially for Fedora, is available in this release.

  • A new online browser home page, http://start.fedoraproject.org, appears in this release.

  • Fedora continues to improve its many proactive security features, and FORTIFY_SOURCE has now been enhanced to cover C++ in addition to C, which prevents many security exploits.

  • A brand new graphical firewall configuration tool, system-config-firewall, replaces system-config-securitylevel.

  • This release offers Kiosk functionality via SELinux, among many new enhancements and security policy changes.

  • The glibc package in Fedora 8 now has support for passwords using SHA256 and SHA512 hashing. Before only DES and MD5 were available. The tools to create passwords have not been extended yet, but if such passwords are created in others ways, glibc will recognize and honor them.

  • Secure remote management capability is now provided for Xen, KVM, and QEMU in Fedora 8 virtualization.

  • Eclipse 3.3 (Europa), a new release of the acclaimed development platform, is available as part of this release.

  • In this release, the performance of yum, Pirut, and Pup have been significantly improved.

  • The Add/Remove Programs tool, pirut, introduces a new graphical interface for managing software repositories. Use Edit → Repositories to enable/disable any of the installed software repositories.

  • Live installations are faster and require a smaller root filesystem. The file system layout has also changed somewhat. System files for the Live images are now under LiveOS/, and a newREADME file has been provided as a short introduction to the live image.

  • Transifex provides a web-based translation interface to allow users to contribute translation work for Fedora hosted projects as well as being able to provide translations to upstream directly to any upstream project.

  • Integration of unique build IDs into Fedora’s software building infrastructure now provides enhanced debugging capabilities and core dumps.

  • Fedora now offers easier rebranding of Fedora derivatives via a generic-logos software package. Changes in Fedora’s mirror structure also make creation of derivatives easier.

  • The pam_console module usage has been removed in favor of access control via HAL, which modernizes the desktop.

  • Fedora 8 features a 2.6.23 based kernel.

My first impression of Fedora 8 is very good. I find I may even prefer this version/distribution of Linux to the latest Ubuntu version.

Only time will tell if it continues to deliver that impression.


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