Tag Archives: Ubuntu

Desktop Refresher

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I was inspired by the Lifehacker Desktop Show and Tell to show off my new desktop look.

In traditional Lifehacker style, I’ll mention the pictured applications. The operating system is obviously Ubuntu. Avant Window Navigator is my dock. The IM application is Pidgin, which includes the Facebook Chat and MusicTracker (displays currently playing song in my away message) plugins. I’m using 3 Screenlets: Now Playing (displays currently playing track and album art), Sysmonitor (displays current system information) and Trash. Finally, it shows one of my new favorite productivity applications: Gnome Do. “Do” is a launcher that can be extended by a number of plugins. For example, you type Super(Win)+Space to launch Do and then start typing what you want to do. Start typing an artist’s name, like “beat”, and then pressing “enter” will open all my Beatles songs in Rhythmbox. Typing the first few letters of a friend’s screen name and then “enter” will open a chat with them in Pidgin. Those types of things are useful. Oh, and I got my wallpaper from iunewind.com.

My August 08 Desktop featuring Avant, Pidgin, Now Playing Screenlet, Sysmonitor Screenlet, and Gnome-Do

My August 08 Desktop featuring Avant, Pidgin, Now Playing Screenlet, Sysmonitor Screenlet, and Gnome-Do

Fresh Gnome Look

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Until recently, I didn’t toy much with the default “look” of Ubuntu. I changed my wallpaper and that was about it. But one of the great things about Linux is how customizable it is. I hadn’t toyed around much with Screenlets or Avant Window Navigator, despite having both of them installed. I’ve been showing both of them off to various people for the last few months and I decided it was about time I changed the look of my desktop (laptop) a bit.

My new Gnome desktop

My new Gnome desktop

All-in-all, I’m liking Screenlets, but I’m still not 100% sold on Avant. People like it because it looks like the Mac launcher thing, but I just don’t know if it adds anything all that useful. But now that I’ve reorganized my menus, Avant feels like a much more important part of my desktop. Also, I really feel like this wallpaper sums up my feelings on my desktop makeover. It makes me feel like my system is capable of seemingly impossible things! If you’re curious what the default Ubuntu desktop look like, you can check it out here.

The Perfect Storm

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In my hurry to finish Monday’s post on Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix, I failed to fully grasp the announcement of Dell’s new “mini-Inspiron” netbook/UMPC/MID/subnotebook/whathaveyou. It’s going to ship running the new Ubuntu software (or WinXP) by the end of the month. We’re talking about a main-stream, awesome subnotebook that a ton of people already want (including me), and it’s going to be running Ubuntu. This is going to be huge for the Ubuntu community right off the bat. Bravo, Mr. Shuttleworth. If Apple can get people to use Macs by creating nifty iPods and iPhones, I think Ubuntu can get people to use Linux by creating killer subnotebooks. These new Dells look amazing with a 9″ widescreen, 8-in-1 card reader, webcam, direct media playback buttons, and the Intel Atom. All that for under $500? I only hope they have wireless N and an SSD hard drive option. If they do, these notebooks will quickly take the industry by storm. In fact, with the impending release of Intel’s Atom, Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix, and Dell’s mini-Inspiron, it seems like the perfect storm’s a-brewin’, and I’m loving every minute of it! It seems like the only thing that could affect the forecast is a little bit of Wind. Eeek!

Ubuntu Netbook Remix

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As was expected, Ubuntu announced a new version of its operating system specifically targeted toward netbooks [via Engadget]. This is following the success of OLPC XO laptop in bringing about subnotebooks such as the now famous Asus Eee PC and a number of followers including the HP MiniNote, Elonex ONE, Everex Cloudbook, MSI Wind, the newly announced Dell mini-Inspiron, and many more. A subnotebook is meant to be an extremely small, inexpensive, ultra-lightweight portable computer that is geared towards people who simply want to be able to carry around a computer to browse the internet, check email, compose documents, and play simple games. They’re not meant to replace a desktop computer or more full-featured laptop, but they focus on ultra-portability. Many of these subnotebooks have featured Linux-based operating systems to keep costs down and promote ease of use, but now it seems like nearly all of them offer a more expensive Windows XP option. With the success of the Intel Atom processor, it appears as though this genre of computer will continue to grow in the future and many manufacturers are trying to get in on it.

One of the main criticisms of the Linux-based operating systems used on these notebooks (besides the fact that some people just want nothing to do with Linux) is that the Linux distros being used have been lacking some functionality. Enter Ubuntu, a.k.a. “Linux for Human Beings“. Canonical’s announcement of a light-weight, full-featured version of Ubuntu that can be incorporated for free into any of these sub-notebooks has got to be good news for manufacturers. With companies like Dell already incorporating Ubuntu-loaded products into their lineup, it is only a matter of time before Ubuntu becomes an even more accessible operating system alternative to MS Windows and Mac OS.

There are just a few points that I’ll mention here where I think Canonical, Ubuntu’s parent company, is making particularly good decisions. First, they’re optimizing their release for Intel’s Atom processors via the Moblin project (Mobile Linux Internet). The Atom processor was designed to be used in subnotebooks and mobile internet devices (MIDs) so that you can have good processing power with little power consumption (long battery life). In other words, I think it’s good that Canonical’s focused on creating a custom operating system specifically for the hardware that it will be used on. This will make it an ideal choice for the new and old devices using Atom.

Canonical also appears to be working with ISVs to make sure that a lot of software will be available on this platform. This could mean an increase in software (and hardware) portability to the Linux platform. It’s also great that they’re giving preference to hardware with open-source drivers available. This will give preference to Intel, who has open-sourced their video and wireless drivers, while excluding companies like Broadcom and nVidia who insist that their hardware stay closed-source. Considering how much this subnotebook field could grow over the next year or two, this could pressure these closed-source companies into change their tune. This would be fantastic for the Linux community.

I look forward to hearing a lot more about this in the near future.

Say Cheese!

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Well here’s a way to kill two birds with one stone. I’ve been meaning to try out the new WordPress gallery feature on my blog. I’ve also been meaning to see if my Ezonics EzCam IV (EZ-314) webcam works under Ubuntu now. Since it does (plug ‘n play), I was able to mess around with a new program in Ubuntu called Cheese, which allows you to add effects to video from your webcam kind of like Apple’s PhotoBooth. Here’s the result!

Ubuntu Day 8.04

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Today marks the release of Ubuntu 8.04, code named “Hardy Heron”. This is the day that occurs twice a year to celebrate the culmination of 6 months of hard work from the folks at Ubuntu, Gnome, Linux Kernel, and the thousands of other free software organizations who’s work is combined to make Ubuntu possible. I have been using the beta version of Ubuntu 8.04 for about a month now, and I can honestly say that I’m really loving it. I’ve got it made, since my ThinkPad contains only free hardware. My graphics card is the fantastic on-board Intel X3100, for which Intel has wisely released all the specifications. This means that Intel graphics work better than almost any other graphics card on Linux. This is especially true compared to nVidia and ATI cards, which many people have. ATI and nVidia do not give good support to the Linux community. This means that Linux users are stuck using their buggy drivers or open-source ones that have been reverse-engineered and are not full-featured. I have an nVidia 6600GT on my desktop, so I will see how things are working on it in a day or two. All-in-all, I think this is a great release from Ubuntu. I can’t help but stand back and marvel at what can be accomplished in the free software community.

In honor of Ubuntu Day, I will be turning my laptop into a make-shift freedom toaster. I’ll be burning and handing out copies of my favorite operating system to anyone who wants to have a look. Try that one with MS Windows or Mac OS! Want to try it out yourself? Go download a copy for free or get a free copy in the mail! If downloads are going too slowly, you can always use BitTorrent (see the list half-way down the page).

Selling free software

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I think one of the best examples of how free software can work great (and be even be sold) is Dell’s adoption of Ubuntu. They can take free software (Ubuntu) and custom-tailor it to work on their specific laptops and desktops. They can even custom-compile their own Linux kernels that they don’t contain extemporaneous junk for hardware not in their computers. This could make an overall fast and efficient machine! Their software has to remain free, so people can examine it and suggest ways to improve Dell’s flavor of Ubuntu, tell Dell about something that’s in Ubuntu that’s they’d like to see automatically included in the Dell release (like DVD support), and they can even submit patches to Dell if they know how to code. Plus, if Dell finds a problem and figures out how to solve it, the fix can be pulled back upstream to the regular Ubuntu release. Even more importantly, a user can decide to take Dell’s flavor of Ubuntu and make their own version of it (if Dell does something poorly that they won’t fix it, for example). Not to mention, Dell is a big company. If they’re having problems getting hardware that will work under Ubuntu, there’s going to be more pressure for hardware vendors to support their products freely.

Some people are attracted to Ubuntu and other Linux distributions because many of them don’t cost anything. Thus, a computer can be $100 cheaper to buy because Dell doesn’t have to charge you the $100 for a Microsoft Windows license. What I’d like to see is for Dell to actually charge a little bit of money for Ubuntu. Not $100, mind you, but how about $20-30? I don’t want Dell keeping the profits from this though. Rather, I’d like to see them make some major contributions to the FSF and the Ubuntu project. Or they could make the $20-30 donation optional. The FSF even encourages the selling of free software. This will help foster growth of their system, and it’s a solid investment on their behalf. Plus, I don’t think many users would complain about being charged a nominal fee as long as they know it’s to help support the growth of their new operating system.