Linux and Open Source Blog

Monthly Archives: October 2007

7 reasons why Ubuntu is so successful

Posted on by Posted in debian/ubuntu based, linux/unix/os distros, quotes & thoughts .

Most people like it, many others don’t, the fact is that Ubuntu is the king of Linux distributions right now – and for some very good reasons. Below I will attempt to identify those reasons that made Ubuntu the most popular distribution and explain why its success was “inevitable”.

1) A good start: Ubuntu started with a strong background. It wasn’t “yet another” distribution, it was a distribution that had a vision and enough people and money behind it to support that vision.

2) Easy and straightforward installation: From the text-based installer of the first few versions, to the point&click installer of today, ubuntu always had a very straightforward and simple installation. Every step of the installer was explained in a short, yet clear manner that made it easy for everyone to follow the steps of the installation proccedure (almost) regardless of their experience with computers.

3) ShipIt: Sharing “official” CD’s with the Ubuntu logo increased the trust of users towards the distribution and made it much easier for users on slow connections to try it. People could now give away several CD’s to their friends and coworkers which made the general adoption of Linux much faster.

4) Synaptic: If you ask a first-time Ubuntu user to tell you what impressed them most, chances are that the answer will be “synaptic”. Indeed, this application brought APT much closer to the average user and made program installation in Linux a lot easier. Users didn’t have to search for RPMs or worry that they might needed to deal with dependancies, compile from source etc, synaptic solved everything using a very simple interface. When the first versions of Ubuntu came out, the only thing that could be compared to the flexibility and ease of use of APT and Synaptic was Fedora’s YUM, but unfortunately at that time Fedora didn’t have a good front-end for YUM (although Synaptic could be used with YUM, it was not nearly as easy to set up as synaptic and Ubuntu were).

5) Ubuntu forums/Community: The Ubuntu community was, and still is one of the most important factors that promote the growth of Ubuntu. The forums are very active and old users are very friendly and patient towards newcomers. Maybe it has to do with the philosophy of “Ubuntu”…

6) User promotion: Ubuntu is based heavily on the promotion it receives from it’s users. Nearly every person who uses Ubuntu today has beed advised to try it by someone else who had tried it before them and so on. This, combined with the strong influence of Ubuntu to the internet forums related to GNU/Linux, has led to a major increase in it’s adoption .

7) Fragmented competitors: When Ubuntu started it’s “march to glory” there were three “big” distributions, SuSE, Mandriva, and Fedora. Debian and Slackware were popular but were not very appealling to newbies (Debian still had a text based installer…). All of the “big three” were not at their best when Ubuntu came out and started gathering users. SuSE had recently been bought by Novell and was still undergoing internal reconstructions, Mandriva has in the middle of a severe financial crisis, and Fedora was just at FC2 which wasn’t nearly as easy as it now is. This “fragmentation” (or “decay of the distribution maket” if you like) helped many users make the decision to switch to Ubuntu.

There are definately many other reasons why Ubuntu managed to get to the top, and stay there, but making a complete analysis is not within the purposes of this post. Highlighting some of the points that made Ubuntu what it is today, is.

Till next time, keep drinking coffee

5 Ground Rules for upgrading Ubuntu Desktop Edition

Posted on by Posted in debian/ubuntu based, guides, linux/unix/os distros, tips .
  1. Never use apt-get or aptitude.
    Use update-manager instead (see how to below). Update-manager fixes common errors, removes old artwork, etc.
  2. Don’t use any critical applications when upgrading.
    Of course you can browse and such, but the system can’t upgrade all the
    packages at the same time so if you’re running packages that have
    dependencies you might get version conflicts and in the worst case a
    program can crash and you lose work.
  3. Take your time.
    • Upgrading can easily take up to 2 hours depending on your internet connection and computer performance.
    • Take into account that some programs might need some extra attention after the upgrade.
  4. Preferably have another PC with internet close by.
    It’s no must but this way you can always search the internet to find
    solutions for any problems that you might encounter. A live CD is also
    an option.
  5. Read guides.
    They will show you common pitfalls. Learn from other people’s mistakes.

 

KDE 4 Preview

Posted on by Posted in desktop environments, kde, review/preview/tests .

KDE 4 is coming. It’s starting to look and behave mature enough to use it on a normal desktop. This article is a little introduction to what you might be expecting from the brand new KDE due later this year.

It’s been a whole month when I’ve investigated the new environment called KDE 4. Honestly I wanted to wait till “Beta 3″, which should have appeared on 5th October. But as you all can see it has never happened. On the IRC channel #kde4-devel I was informed that the “Beta 3″ should have been tagged yesterday but unfortunately it didn’t turn out to be true. Not waiting any longer I made my mind and I have updated the SVN and have run the cmake.

First glance

Right after running the KDE you can tell at once that new wallpaper is far more beautiful than the grey old one and the marvelous contrasting flower is well matched to the bottom bar. Unluckily it does nothing more than displaying the clock. The taskbar despite the fact it was on the bar didn’t display processes and all the effort I made to add there any applet or the Pager was in vain, and ended with a complete crash of the bar. The only thing I succeeded in was to put there the Kickoff menubar.

desktop

Kickoff – the new KDE menu

The first appearance of Kickoff was in SUSE Linux 10.2 as a new menu for KDE. The icons were arranged in five categories: Favorite, Applications, My Computer, Recently used, Leave. There is nothing more than the search box that helps you finding applications and documents. It’s too early to discuss about the new KDE menu even talking about its appearance. IMHO I wish that the searching engine wouldn’t be based on Nepomuk or Strigi. I’d like to mention that it is only the initial version of this menu in KDE.

kick_fav

kick_app

kick_com

kick_lea

Kget – is still surprising

I’ve talked about this program a lot so far. Even now there has changed a lot of stuff, not only the appearance but the functionality. I’ll shortly remind that Kget is the download accelerator that provides you quequing, placing files in a specific directory chosen by some criteria. This version is enriched with the Transfer Graph applet, which shows you the graph of the download speed of current file. It’s the third applet like this. The first two are: Pie Graph and Bar Chart.

Kget

Kget_bar

Kget_pie

amarok

Kget_all

Plasma – new applets

I’m used to some sort of nice rule. All the time I check the state of KDE 4 I meet new Plasmoids – so is now. The first one is the old well-known Network Monitor which transformed from two flushing monitors to the graph that shows the traffic flow.

pla_net

The next two applets are quite new. The first one is the System Monitor. This applet in the intention of the creators will inform you about the state of the main parts of your PC. In the future you can expect for reading ACPI information such as temperature or fan speed. Unfortunately at the moment the applet tries to perform only the usage of the disc space.

pla_sysmon

Today the best applet I’ve tried was the Color Picker. It helps you to “pick” the color of any pixel on the screen. Using the standard tool, the “pipette”, you are provided with the color in a few color formats. Very interesting feature it seems to be the probe history that shows a few earlier tries.

pla_color

KWin Composite – defaultly enabled

It seems that KWin Composite effects are defaultly enabled. You can notice shadows under windows and the animated windows’ minimization. There are also available features from Compiz Fusion that pointing at the left top corner of the screen you are starting something similar to Scale plugin. Switching between windows using Alt+Tab displays thumbs of the windows. Quite interesting is the fact that KRunner looks different from when the Composite effects are disabled.

krunner

switcher

KSysGuard – the system guard

The System Guard has also changed its appearance by the new background under the graphs.

system_monitor

KStyle / KWin – styles and decorations

It is a rule that I always look very carefully at the appearance comparing Oxygen with Bespin (the unoffical style). IMHO Oxygen still seems too less contrast. I think authors are deserving of credit for continuous improvement. From the last version they improved the appearance of tabs and the highlightment of elements and buttons. The scrollbar turns to green under the mouse point. But still it is far away from mockups in the Internet.

oxygen

bespin

At last the buttons have tooltips. Now you don’t have to think which button closes the window :)

oxy

plastik

Dolphin and Kate – the new appearance

It is the high time to see how some applications look like in Oxygen. I’ve tried the file manager Dolphin and the text editor Kate.

dolphin

kate

Amarok – at least there is some noise!

At the end I’ve checked my favourite audio player. The best way to describe it is to say “sometimes better. sometimes worse”. This time I couldn’t manage to make a collection, not even play one mp3 :/ But instead I could connect to Jamendo and listen to their songs. Thanks to that you can see how the Amarok looks like.

amarok

This article is a direct translation of text published on author’s blog: KDE 4 rev 723381

Google wins in blind search test

Posted on by Posted in review/preview/tests, surveys .

In a blind “taste test” searchers chose Google, then Microsoft and Yahoo. That’s according to the results of a poll created last week by the Google Operating System blog. Participants could try out three unidentified search engines and vote which had the best results. The results are in and 51 percent of the more than 2,000 people who voted said Google had the best results. That was followed by 35 percent for Live Search and 30 percent for Yahoo. In comments to the blog post people said they were surprised Microsoft was ahead of Yahoo, but also surprised Google’s percentage wasn’t higher.

Interestingly, some of the most frequent queries included “Google,” “Microsoft,” “sex,” “cow” and “Liverpool.”

Mozilla: We’re Ready to Rock the Mobile Web Now

Posted on by Posted in applications/software, browsers, Mobility .

Mozilla and Mobile

People ask us all the time about what Mozilla’s going to do about the mobile web, and I’m very excited to announce that we plan to rock it. Here’s some information about what we’re planning to do with hiring, technology, partnerships, and products, and how you can get involved. Short summary: we are serious about bringing the Firefox experience and technology to mobile devices.

Why increase Mozilla’s presence in mobile?

* A large portion of the world accesses the Internet from mobile devices, and this will become increasingly true over time (mobile devices outsell computers 20-1). Each Firefox install is an individual choice by a person to download something that didn’t ship by default on their computer. Why not offer that option for mobile devices?

* Firefox the most popular open-source browser on the planet with > 100 million active users. Bringing Firefox add-ons, the Mozilla platform (including XUL), open source, and a large and passionate community to the closed and fragmented mobile platform will do the world some serious good.

* Firefox and Mozilla give device manufacturers the best of both worlds: shared investment in the core open-source project plus the flexibility they need to customize the browser for their devices.

* You can already get a Mozilla-based browser for the Nokia N800 and Firefox is a key part of Ubuntu Mobile and the new Intel Internet Project, and most recently ARM has put serious effort towards Firefox on mobile devices.

* Through Joey, we’ve seen how the desktop and mobile browsing experiences can be bridged to build a better experience for both. Wouldn’t it be great if your bookmarks, history, extensions, etc. from Firefox on your computer just worked on your phone?

Just what are we announcing?

* Mozilla will add mobile devices to the first class/tier-1 platform set for Mozilla2. This means we will make core platform decisions with mobile devices as first-class citizens.

* We will ship a version of “Mobile Firefox” which can, among other things, run Firefox extensions on mobile devices and allow others to build rich applications via XUL.

* Mozilla will expand its small team of full-time mobile contributors to focus on the technology and application needs of mobile devices. In particular two new folks just joined:

** Christian Sejersen, recently the head of browsers at Openwave which has shipped over 1 billion mobile browsers, joined Mozilla Monday. He’ll be heading up the platform engineering effort and setting up a R&D center in Copenhagen, Denmark.

** Brad Lassey just joined Mozilla from France Telecom R&D. He’s already been an active contributor to our mobile efforts and can now focus on Mozilla mobile full time.

These folks will accelerate the tremendous work already done by Doug Turner, Chris Hofmann and the entire Mozilla community. The efforts in mobile will be magnified by all aspects of our kick-ass community in everything from testing, to UI design, to core engineering. Together we will accelerate the development and use of mobile-ready Mozilla technology.

Why now?

* Getting a no-compromise web experience on devices requires significant memory (>=64MB) as well as significant CPU horsepower. High end devices today are just approaching these requirements and will be commonplace soon For example, the iPhone has 128MB of DRAM and somewhere between a 400 to 600 MHz processor. It is somewhere between 10x-100x slower on scripting benchmarks than a new MacBook Pro and somewhere between 3-5x slower than an old T40 laptop on the same wifi network. But rapid improvements in mobile processors will close this gap within a few years. There are chips out there today that are faster than the one in the iPhone and integrate graphics, cpu, and i/o (wifi/3g/wimax) on one die. Intel has recently re-entered this market which will keep things interesting. Most exciting of all ARM has announced that by 2010 devices will be shipping with a processor 8x faster than what’s in the iPhone!

* The user demand for a full browsing experience on mobile devices is clear. If you weren’t sure about this before you should be after the launch of the iPhone.

* We’ve seen through Mozilla on the Nokia N800 and Minimo that it is possible to build a great experience on devices by using the Mozilla code.

* We are wrapping up work on Gecko 1.9 and there is room post 1.9 to make significant changes to the architecture for improved performance and memory use on devices. Things like reducing the use of XPCOM, unifying memory management under MMgc, and other improvements from Mozilla 2 will make Mozilla a great platform for all devices from mobile phones to your desktop. The use of a single source base gives us the leverage that makes OSS work so well.

Is this the right time?

Absolutely! Up until very recently device limitations required writing new mobile browsers from the ground up. Being able to leverage all the investments in the Mozilla platform across both desktops and devices is the right approach. There is far from a dominant player in this marketplace and even the best mobile browsers today have compromises in user experience, performance, and compatibility. There is still *plenty* of room for innovation.

When?

As mentioned above, Mozilla browsers are already available to N800 users and you can use Joey today to extend your Firefox desktop browsing experience to your phone. We’ll continue to invest in Joey and will work closely with partners who want to ship Mozilla browsers today. Mobile Firefox will arrive later (certainly not before 2008).

What about Minimo?

Minimo was an experiment in mapping the desktop browser experience to a specific mobile context. While we don’t currently plan to develop that project further, it has already provided us with valuable information about how Gecko operates in mobile environments, has helped us reduce footprint, and has given us a platform for initial experimentation in user experience.

Does this mean that Firefox 3 will run on my phone?

No. This project is focused on Mozilla technology that will ship after Firefox 3. We’re at least as excited as you about getting Mozilla’s great web capabilities into your hands, literally, but it’s a big undertaking, and won’t be something that we can wrap up in time for Firefox 3.

What mobile devices will Firefox run on?

We haven’t yet determined what our target platforms will be. If you’re a mobile device or software-stack developer, your insight and support will be very helpful in determining which configurations we can and should support in our initial efforts.

How can I get involved?

Join us on IRC at #mobile, in the newsgroups, or ping me. We need your help!

OpenOffice.org 2.3: New features, extensions and the much anticipated charting tool

Posted on by Posted in applications/software, office suites, open source, review/preview/tests .

Unlike previous 2.x releases, OpenOffice.org 2.3 is a new and enhanced feature release rather than a bug fix. There are several smart changes, a whole new approach to adding new features and of course the much anticipated new charting tool. This is definitely a release to get to know.

I’ll plunge right into what’s new:

  • A bunch of new and enhanced features like restoring the user-defined movement path in Impress and applying better default print settings in Calc. Check the release notes for complete information from OpenOffice.org.
  • A significantly different chart tool.
  • New extensions provided by Sun and other vendors. You will need to run 2.3 for the extensions to work. Read more about the new extensions on the OpenOffice.org web site.

Top 10 Tools I Can’t Live Without

Posted on by Posted in general topics, review/preview/tests .

We all have our own unique ways of working. A large part of any persons individual productivity is the tools they use. Here is my top 10 Must Have Tools (and why), please add yours in the comments!

  1. FirefoxFirefox – I started out with Mosaic, then Netscape. For years I was an Internet Explorer user but then Microsoft dropped the ball and the Mozilla team ran with it. Firefox is stable, extensible and fast enough. One of the killer features that made me defect was the tabbed browsing. Of course most web browsers now have that feature. Firefox plus Greasemonkey takes an already rockin’ browser into a world of its own.
  2. ScribeFire – One of my main jobs is writing on blogs. This means lots of linking, bookmarking, making notes and of course the actual writing. I would say using Scribefire I can do it all in half the time. Scribefire is a Firefox plugin that provides blogging tools including a centralized word-like text editing interface.
  3. SkypeSkype – Many of my calls are long distance as it is rare for me to have a client in the same country as I live. Skype makes these calls free or much cheaper and allows me to roam around and not be tied to a land-line. With my trusty headset I might look like a geek but I can hear and be heard right across the globe.
  4. Fastmail – While many people swear by the free Google GMail my web email service of choice is the paid service at Fastmail. The main advantage is as well as having a web client you can also access your email using imap, allowing me to sync my desktop client and see in a web browser exactly the same email store.
  5. WebDav – Talking of web based storage, a fantastic way to get your files on the go is WebDav. Drag and drop your files and folders just like you were working locally. Check out your web host to see if this is an option.
  6. SSH – This is an extremely nerdy choice but it has been a life saver in the past. SSH allows you a secure command line login to your remote server. On Windows of course you can use Remote Desktop, and other platforms will have VNC, but when the proverbial hits the fan you can rely on SSH and old school commands to get the job done.
  7. WordPress – I love WordPress, I wouldn’t recommend any other blogging platform for the individual or small team. But WordPress can be so much more than a blog! Use it for publishing your corporate website, internal project documentation, team collaboration, making notes, bookmarking, even as a discussion platform.
  8. Photoshop – There are cheaper options. I will probably never use even half the features. Photoshop still rules. There is little it can’t do, and if you wander into any design studio you can be sure there will be at least one machine running it. Productivity means being able to do what you need to do well and fast. Once you have learned it, Photoshop makes that happen for working with images.
  9. BlogBridge – I need my RSS feeds and I need them with me. While many people can argue in favor of their fave web clients I keep returning to BlogBridge happily time after time. It is a Java based desktop application so works wherever Java works and stores your feeds offline so you can read on the train, in the air or bus home.
  10. Flickr – Flickr for me is more than just an online photo gallery, it is a photography archive, a community and a source of royalty-free images (Creative Commons Licensed pics). It’s useful, fun and a constant source of education.

Fluxbox 1.0 Released! Finally!

Posted on by Posted in applications/software, news, system .

Finally after almost four and a half years with 0.9.x release we got to 1.0.0! This release includes a lot of bugfixes, new styles, updated language support, better shaped corners nd much more. Grab it here!

More info about the release here.

What is FluxBox
Fluxbox Fluxbox is a windowmanager for X.
It’s based on the Blackbox 0.61.1 code. Fluxbox looks like blackbox and handles styles, colors, window placement and similar thing exactly like blackbox (100% theme/style compability).

So what’s the difference between fluxbox and blackbox then?
The answer is: LOTS!
Here is a list of features that fluxbox already has, or is in the works…

Features
Implemented:

  • Configurable window tabs. |
  • Iconbar (for minimized/iconified windows) |
  • Wheel scroll changes workspace
  • Configurable titlebar (placement of buttons, new buttons etc) |
  • KDE support |
  • New native integrated keygrabber (supports emacs like keychains)
  • Maximize over slit option
  • Partial GNOME support
  • Extended Window Manager Hints support
  • Slit dockap ordering
  • Other minor features

Control multimedia applications with ReMoot

Posted on by Posted in applications/software, multimedia, open source .

You can manage most of today’s multimedia applications easily with ReMoot, a universal remote control program. ReMoot even provides an esoteric way of controlling your PC remotely from your cell phone or PDA, earning it top geek points.

Start by going to the ReMoot site and clicking on Source Download to get the latest version, 0.4. The software consists of Perl and Ruby scripts. After the quick download completes, open a console, go to the directory where you downloaded everything, and type these commands as root:

tar zxf remoot-0.4.tar.gz
cd remoot-0.4
chmod +x re*
cp remoot* /usr/bin
cp rewww00t* /usr/bin

ReMoot comprises three scripts: the basic remoot script itself, which you use to command the different multimedia applications; remoot-remote, which shows onscreen graphical controls; and rewww00t, which lets you govern your PC via a Web interface. You need Perl to use remoot, and you need Ruby to use rewww00t. If you don’t already have these available, use your favorite package manager to get perl, perl-Tk, and ruby. You’ll also need Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA), but most distributions already include it, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

Begin by checking that ReMoot is actually working. Open your favorite music program, such as Amarok, and start playing something. From a console, try some commands, such as remoot volup and remoot voldown to turn the volume up or down, or remoot next to advance through the tracks.

Remoot commands Description
remoot voldown Turn the volume down.
remoot play Start playing.
remoot stop Stop playing.
remoot prev Go back to the previous track.

ReMoot supports several different programs, all with the same commands. For example, whether you’re listening to music with Amarok or watching a video with xine or Kaffeine, the remoot stop command will produce the same effect in the player program. As long as you’re running a program known by ReMoot, you’ll get consistent results. This lets you configure the multimedia keys on your keyboard in a single way that will work no matter which program you happen to be using at the time.

Programs known by ReMoot
Amarok Kaffeine Quod Libet
Audacious KsCD Totem
Exaile MPlayer xine

However, some of these programs require tweaks to work properly. Check the ReMoot wiki site if something doesn’t work as expected.

ReMoot can control several programs at the same time. If you pause Amarok, for instance, and then want to start it again, the remoot playpause command won’t start any other programs that might be running but instead will continue with Amarok. If you want to continue with other programs, you have to reactivate them manually before ReMoot will work with them.

If you are more graphically oriented, the remoot-remote program shows a bare-bones window with all available commands. No matter which program is running, you can click on one of these buttons to command the currently playing program. The company promises that a new version will feature icons instead of text.

If you really want to earn a “geek award,” start the rewww00t program (check the name carefully; it usually includes a version number) and navigate to yourOwnURL:14300. You’ll see clickable links that operate on your multimedia. With rewww00t, you could use your cell phone or PDA to connect to your server (though you’d have to open firewall ports and do some other things in order to get this to work) and turn the volume up from anywhere in the world. That may be of little use, but it’s interesting!

Program the multimedia keysWith the scripts installed and working, you can get Linux to perform certain commands whenever you press a multimedia key. Following the instructions in the article “Customize your laptop keyboard with X and KDE,” you should:

  • Open the Control Center.
  • Click on the Regional & Accessibility tab.
  • Pick the Input Actions option.
  • Add a group with the New Group command (give it a name such as Multimedia).

Then, for each key you want to program:

  • Add a new action to the group.
  • Go to the General tab.
  • Fill in the Action Name field.
  • Set the Action Type to Keyboard Shortcut -> Command/URL (Simple).
  • Go to the Keyboard Shortcut tab.
  • Click on the button and then press the Multimedia key (remember, you can use modifiers such as Shift, Alt, and Control).
  • Go to the Command/URL Settings tab.
  • Type in the appropriate command (for example, use remoot volup for the Volume Up key).

That’s all there is to it. ReMoot makes handling multimedia keys both simpler and more powerful.

Dell Preps for Next Linux Desktop Release

Posted on by Posted in debian/ubuntu based, desktop & laptop pc, hardware, linux/unix/os distros, news .

A major desktop Linux upgrade is set to be released on October 18. Michael Dell is expected to personally use it. And the PC giant will pre-load it on selected desktops and notebooks. Buzz about this next Linux release — dubbed Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon — is growing across the web. But what exactly does Gutsy Gibbon (aka Ubuntu 7.10) offer to desktop customers and solutions providers? Here’s a look.

Canonical (the company that develops Ubuntu) has outlined a long-term road map for the operating system. During the UbuntuLive conference back in July, Canonical CTO Matt Zimmerman said Ubuntu 7.10 would feature several core enhancements for desktop and server users. On the desktop, 7.10 will support:

  • a 3D interface out of the box
  • multi-monitor configuration
  • laptop power profiling
  • more details still to come

On the server, 7.10 will offer:

  • Turn-key web administration
  • One-step server recipes
  • Proactive security with AppArmor, an increasingly popular open source security option
  • “desktop” type simplicity

So, what does that mean to Ubuntu resellers and customers? Quite a lot. Ubuntu moved from niche status into the spotlight when Michael Dell himself began running the operating system.

If Ubuntu 7.1o continues that positive buzz, it could help desktop Linux to gradually become a mainstream operating system. But don’t expect that to happen overnight. In an exclusive TechIQ interview with Dell’s Linux gurus last month, the company indicated that it would take a slow-and-steady approach to Ubuntu. Translation: Don’t expect Dell to throw marketing dollars at Ubuntu PCs just yet.

I do not expect that to happen for at least another year because Dell doesn’t want to over promise and under deliver to frustrated Windows users and small business owners who are seeking alternatives.

In the meantime, the countdown to Ubuntu 7.10 continues. And the buzz surrounding Ubuntu 7.1 will only grow louder as the upgrade’s October 18 launch date approaches.