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Ubuntu Is Hyper-Active At OSCON
ruphus13 writes "Ubuntu and Canonical have been very active at OSCON this year. They showcased a new distro, announced improvements to their code-hosting platform, and made Mark Shuttleworth available for a couple of talks and panel sessions. Quoting: 'Ubuntu Netbook Remix, a complete distribution designed to run on Atom-based Netbook PCs. The main difference that sets it apart from its big brother Hardy Heron is the Ubuntu Mobile Edition (UME) Launcher, a user interface created specifically for use on the teensy screens and keyboards of today's popular ultra-portable computers.' Canonical also announced Version 2.0 of Launchpad, their code-hosting platform. Enhancements include 'a planned API that'll allow third-party applications to authenticate, query and modify data in the massive Launchpad database, without a user needing to manually access the system via a browser.' Mark Shuttleworth went on to state that Linux's market share will grow when it has better eye-candy than Apple's."
they will come...
I think Shuttleworth might be on to something there.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Wake me up when I can actually install it on my HP laptop and have the drivers actually work. I'm pretty disillusioned with Hardy Heron on this one. Ubuntu's supporters have got as bad as Microsoft's "Just wait until the next version, then it'll work..."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
At least, not in the markets where linux is competing against it. It's ease of use, and the "it-just-works" factor.
Vista has better "eye candy" than XP, even arguably better than OSX, but many people aren't switching because it's not just about "candy." It's about user experience, in which animation and soothing visuals play only a part. Simplicity is more important than prettiness, and the ability of the user to know somewhat intuitively what a button will do goes a lot farther than 3D visual effects.
I disagree with that last statement of the article. It's not the eye candy that's the clincher. It's the user-friendliness, tightness and seamlessness of integration, consistency across the interface and hardware compatibility.
I have people telling me they want Apple computers, and they have never seen the UI of OS X.
They want Apple computers because of marketing and hype. They are becoming trendy status symbols. (Put the flame-throwers away, I'm not commenting on quality here). Linux doesn't have a marketing department. That is why Linux won't take a sizable chunk out of the desktop market.
People draw comparisons to Firefox and its adoption, but Firefox grew when it adopted a marketing campaign. People seem to forget that.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
What I like about Ubuntu is that as a whole, the community takes the biggest problem with a given platform from an end user standpoint, and then provides an open solution that sticks to the common design rules of the software it compliments. The software doesn't stick out, is modular, sticks to standards (or provides a defacto method that tries to emulate already existing standards), and it seems like it could be drop-in software that would work in any distribution.
It's kind of the antithesis of YaST, for example, which seems like you couldn't separate one part from the other, and it also seems like if you use any other tool to mess with the files YaST has touched, then YaST will either have a problem or ignore it and pretend it never existed. (I'm not sure if this has changed, the last time I used SuSE was version 9)
As a user of Ubuntu, it gives me security by making me feel like if the distribution ever became anything users didn't want, they could easily take these parts and fork. Also as a user, it makes me feel like they are trying to develop software that works for the end user primarily and not as a advantage that only this distribution can have to attract users and keep them. One reason why I use OSS is because I don't feel like my data is tied to anything, and I can always use it. Ubuntu makes me feel that way about the software as well. It really is closely rooted to Debian in that way and really I feel it ties Debian together with some sealant in the cracks and some polish as well. Good job everyone and thanks!
Twinstiq, game news
Actually, if you're looking for a global menubar for GNOME, there is one, it's just not an official part of GNOME.
http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/
Install some deb files, add the applet to a panel, and you're done. Menus will automatically reappear in their own windows if you remove it later.
Forget the UI, it's usable and that's what matters. What Ubuntu needs now is support from other players in the software market.
Honestly, I'm pretty well convinced at this point that Ubuntu is "ready". I know tons of people that would switch to it if they could. The crux of the problem is that the major applications these people depend on (or at least, are used to using) don't run on it. What Ubuntu needs more than anything is to make deals with the major players in various software markets (graphics, video, gaming, CAD, simulation, RAD languages, etc) to port their applications. I don't know how this could happen, but I'm pretty sure it's necessary for us to see major adoption.
While there obviously are some amazing and great tools that come with Ubuntu, it needs to be possible for someone to use those few applications they need. Companies need to start offering Ubuntu versions of their products. If that happens, it's game, set, match. And I actually think this would be possible: considering how disheartened many people feel about Vista, convincing them to port to another platform in order to reduce their dependency on MS might not be so difficult anymore. People seem to be finally seeing the pattern than dependence on a moving target like Windows can come back to bite them.
I think a few deals in this direction might actually have the potential to push Ubuntu into the mass market.
When Apple introduces eye-candy, they use it sparingly themselves, and make a great API and developer tools so developers can also use it in their apps.
Linux eye-candy seems to hit a dead end, where all it gets used for is for the original project that developed it to see how many different flashy effects they can make.
The Linux projects need to realize that it is not about the flashy eye-candy itself--it's about providing more capabilities to application developers.
Shiny, and fast, and cheap, and useful.
And compatible.
Ubuntu (and many other popular distros) have been trying to get there. Last missing part was "Shiny" - Compiz and other similar eye-candies may get them there.
Are you sure that was the last missing part? There's still a problem with getting manufacturers of PC components designed for home use to work wholeheartedly with the Ubuntu community. I don't see penguin logos on boxes, and not everybody has a working printer and enough paper to print out a distribution's hardware compatibility list and carry it into a local computer store.
As a developer myself for OS X and Linux, I still prefer Slackware over anything else distribution-wise. Give 12.1 a try; it's not anymore "behind" than any other distribution, it just doesn't depend on a memory hungry framework that some distributions install (package management, settings management(uggh think openSuse) and it comes with gcc by default. it doesn't depend on offline package management, for someone modified apt-get to work with tgzs (slapt-get and swaret). And yes, you can download the kernel source from the ftp, build it, and install it along with the compiled modules without any struggle over dependencies. It's still "Linux", at least the one you are in search of ;).
Also, I want to say that I think Ubuntu can be defined as an OS by itself (that uses the Linux kernel) is if they create a nice X11 interface that defines what Ubuntu is. The main issue between any 2 distributions is that other than the package management and any special apps they include, everything else is the same, and if not there, can be built and added. just for shits and giggles I compiled apt-get, and grabbed a few apps to test out. i also tested out the deb2tgz app that converts it to slackware packages, and I had the default gnome desktop that Ubuntu comes with on a Slackware machine. That's just the easibility of the friendly applications it comes with; if I only want it to look like the default DE that Ubuntu uses, I can put it on anything that runs an X11 server with a decent video card.
Oh well, the reason I am posting these opinions that I have is that I think Ubuntu can really become something other than "another user-friendly Linux distribution" if they design a special DE that truely integrates every piece of code that they run off the GNU based OS that runs off of the Linux kernel. Sort of the same way Apple has OS X running off of and is integrated with the Darwin OS, that runs off of xnu, the mach kernel.
When Shuttleworth is saying that Linux Desktop still needs eye-candy polish to compete with Apple, he's probably referring to Ubuntu per se. A properly configured Compiz Fusion and Emerald (with stuff like shadows and plugins like Group and Tab, Expo) coupled with Screenlets and Avant Window Navigator/Kiba-Dock and proper themes looks almost as good as a Mac if not better. Obviously though, all that stuff is not easy to configure for newcomers, so what *Ubuntu* needs to do in terms of eye-candy is to streamline the process of its configuration.
Linux Desktop in general is *not* trailing behind any other OS, and in fact, it may be leading in terms of special effects. Distributions such as Ubuntu just haven't made it accessible to general public yet.
You make no sense. They would have to chose their player anyway. Synaptic is not harder than google to use just search for video player ans install any of them. How is this any harder than on a Mac? It even downloads it for you.
And i forgot because i do not use it, but in Ubuntu there is an "Install applications" somewhere in the menu which is another front end for apt. Way more simpler than synaptic and way more simpler than anything else i saw on any OS for the non-technical people.
Here is the only video of OSCON 2008 I could find.
It's a shame really since I myself would never be able to go to the US to one so I wished they'd put more stuff up.
If anyone finds any more videos please reply.