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Canonical Announces Ubuntu App Showdown
alphadogg writes "Linux developers will soon have a chance to compete for prizes of laptops and smartphones, thanks to Canonical's announcement this week of the Ubuntu App Showdown contest. Developers will have from June 18 until July 9 — a total of three weeks — to create an app using Canonical's Quickly development tool, which combines Python and GTK into a single Ubuntu-centric package. The resulting apps will be judged by a five-member panel, with the developers of the top three receiving new Nokia N9 smartphones."
http://developer.ubuntu.com/2012/06/ubuntu-app-showdown-no-longer-requires-quickly/
If starting off a relative on Linux, I'd probably use pure XFCE debian, or possibly mint...
Well if I were starting off a relative on Linux, I'd give them a printout of the source code and a computer with freedos installed and tell them to get at it.
If they're not willing to put in any effort, they don't have any business using Linux.
If it requires Unity, it can stay on Ubuntu and nothing of value will be lost or hampered. Unity, like the MS Ribbon but with darker clown barf
You might as well start your relatives on Arch, or with an assembler and instructions to write all their own code.
There's a reason that Linux hasn't taken hold on the desktop, and it's because the developers and users are all out of touch with the needs of the average end user. Your relatives want something easy to use, not some purist's idea of the 'Perfect Linux'.
$900 laptop for 3 weeks @ 40 hrs/week is $7.50/hr. Not bad!
You can sell apps on the Ubuntu Software Center and have been able to for some time.
Thanks. Linux needs distro specific app development tools. Please, fragment Linux, that'll really help the Linux-on-the-desktop cause...
Or maybe it might be a good move to declare some distro (which, for practical reasons could be Ubuntu) the one mainline Linux distro. Then try to make that as compatible, supported and polished as possible. Sure, everybody wouldn't like every aspect of it, but we would just draw strict lines. This would be much more practical than the current unfocused pool of various desktops and development environments. Even in this scenario the other choices could still flourish (so that you can have the choice if you really want it).
> MS brings computing to the masses and everyone gets pissed and cries.
MS brought viruses to the masses. They didn't do squat to bring computing the masses. The best they could do was ride IBM's coat tails and screw things up every step of the way.
Microsoft did it's best to DESTROY the companies that brought computing to the masses: Apple included.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Well, I would be glad for once to use some UI tools that are specific to my distro instead of being so generic that they are basically useless, requiring me to handle everything from command line. We're in 2012, and yet I've had to manually edit xorg.conf to use an external projector and change its resolution.
Yeah, I know, the abundance of options and choices and distros should be considered a bless.
But for once I would like something just tailored for basic usage on a desktop environment, instead of messing with config files for hours, just because every window/sound/desktop manager seems to have to support every possible use case, from mobile to server farm configurations; and by the time that every specific corner case has been adressed, we're not sure anymore that the most common usage it's working as intended.
Ubuntu it's a desktop oriented distro, so it's obvious it needs desktop oriented tools. You need a complex RDP/remote communication for your GUI? fine, install a distro that uses X11 instead of wayland. You need some specific dsp tools that require using your soundcard in a way that Pulse Audio doesn't? Use a distro where it's not installed by default.
But please, at least for once, just give me a linux distro where I shouldn't be scared to hell at the idea of using an external display because I've no idea how Xorg / DRI / GDM / GNOME / Kernel drivers could react to its presence (or just between them); where the idea that using a GUI open a file on a multimedia device is not an act against god. A distro where "standby" and "suspend" shouldn't be considered some crazy man words because, you know, integrating a working, desktop oriented system inside the kernel could adversely affect the performance on 32 cores workstations. Heck, a distro where the whole Kernel Driver->ALSA->Pulse->gstreamer->SDLAudio->WhoKnowsWhatElse is not required because i'm not trying to run a dedicated shoutcast server and at the same time trying to record the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra on a 96 tracks mixer, but I'm just trying to play a fucking, miserable mp3.
Is this a sign they are working on something for MeeGo/Harmattan or the N9 hardware? Or is it just that they had a bunch they wanted to get rid of?
Knowledge Brings Fear
If you want to spend hundreds of millions USD to publicize Linux be my guest, but please dont turn linux into windows or mac
I'm positive, don't belive me look at my karma
That's a bit pessimistic, don't you think? My mom uses linux and has far fewer troubles than she did when she was using Windows. Face it: most of what our relatives do with their computers takes place within a web browser, and browsers behave pretty much the same on linux as they do on other operating systems.
Have you used the Software Center in 12.04? I think it's both easy to navigate and slick looking. There amount of things available for purchase have increased greatly over the last two releases.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
I had the same attitude as you 2.5 years ago as I'd fallen for all of the hype, and almost went back to Windows when fed up with Ubuntu's flaws rather than give the other distros a try. I finally decided to at least try a few, and found they were just as easy to use as Ubuntu -- but a lot more stable and usually far more likely to listen to lowly users like me. Don't believe the FUD, Ubuntu isn't any more user friendly than other distros, and in many ways it's less so...
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
I think this contest is a great idea. Linux needs apps that are unique to Linux that people love.
It seems like every other OS has some, that people miss when they leave that platform and maybe find a sustitute that isn't quite the same thing.
There are no apps like that on Linux for me. My main apps are apps that run answhere: Firefox, Visual Slickedit, Eclipse, Gmail Chat.
The closest I've come to feeling enthusiastic about a linux desktop app is the KDE file manager Dolphin. With just a few easy preferences choices I was able to make it into something very much like Total Commander on Windows, but in some ways better. I love the convenience of the Places panel for quickly finding mounted drives
I agree, and I don't really care if my Karma takes a hit. I think Unity had the same development path as KDE4: It was a steaming pile of crap in the start but it has rounded into a really nice piece. When I upgrade my laptop I plan on installing Ubuntu with Unity (as opposed to the current laptop's Lubuntu install).
I call it 'The Aristocrats'