Me with my guest badge!

So for those of  you who don’t know or follow my twitter feed, my aunt is a IT Pro Advisor at Microsoft Canada.  You may also know that my opinion of Microsoft hasn’t been the highest (as expressed often in this blog).

The purpose of my visit was to ask successful people how they got to where they are in their field, which holds my interest.  The people were incredibly kind and interesting and really let me pick their brains. Continue reading

The latest release of Ubuntu has hit the streets.  The much-acclaimed “Karmic Koala” (Ubuntu 9.10’s codename) is now out in earnest, bringing many usability enhancements as well as technical ones.

Really, there’s not much to say except get it.

www.ubuntu.com

Make sure to use the torrents if you can, just to relieve server tension.

Because I can’t update incredibly often, I’ll use this post to point you to OMG! UBUNTU!, probably the best Ubuntu blog I’ve seen out there.  Regularly updated, OMG! UBUNTU! gives you the low-down on everything Ubuntu-related, including upcoming plans.

Via Wired Online

This is assuming that the government of North Korea *is* behind the attacks against South Korea and the USA.  The question implied in the Wired article is whether such a cyber-attack should be considered an act of war (for the record, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance is starting to shift towards considering it one, based on experience in a 2007 attack by a Russian botnet against the entire country of Estonia).  Personally, I believe that a government-sponsored attack against cybernetic infrastructure should be considered an act of aggression, no different than bombing hydroelectric dams or poisoning the water system.  In the West – especially in the West – so much is done over internal, national networks that to take those down would be *more* dangerous than poisoning the water main of a major city (think about it:  if Canada’s internet went down East-West-North communications would be severely curtailed, and that’s the least of it:  Provincial health authorities would be unable to relay important information, traffic would stop flowing in many urban centres, news services would be down as well as cellular networks (upon which Canada relies heavily), the Canadian Banks would be down, the RCMP and Provincial Police Forces would have to enforce order, and so forth.  A state the size and population density (or lack thereof) of Canada can not function without its communications networks.  America has a more modular political system – each state could assume responsibility for their own wellbeing; as I understand it, each state has their own military force of some kind (state troopers?) and has an executive which has wide-ranging powers.  Canada has one military, one executive.  The only way a provincial authority can exert force is through its municipal and provincial police.

So yes, a government-sponsored cyber-attack should be grounds for war or at least very very very strong sanctions and a retaliatory cyber-attack (which I’m sure Canada could mount much more effectively than North Korea and the US even more effectively)

Getting involved in cyber-warfare is one of the career possibilities I am possibilitiatizing right now with the Canadian Forces, so this is particularly interesting.

On a lighter note, Wired has a list of 100 *basic* skills for Geeks.  I do #44 and I should show #77-79 to my Computer Science/Engineering teacher who runs KCVI’s robotics club (and is very good).

Reading the Ubuntu Planet (a aggregation of the blogs belonging to all the members of the Ubuntu Project) I stumbled across this gem:

Bold Prediction:  Bug 1 will be closed in the next 24 months

This is a reference to Ubuntu’s famed Bug 1: Microsoft has majority market share (“Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace.  This is a bug, which Ubuntu is designed to fix.”)

The writer references another writer who identifies (correctly) Linux to be at GhandiCon3 (from the famous Ghandi quote promoting non-violent revolution: “First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”).  Linux has certainly been ignored.  Then laughed at (“Linux?  Nothing runs on Linux!”).  When Microsoft is issuing Get the “Facts” campaigns and trying to sue Linux supporters into submission (like TomTom GPS), we’re definitely at GhandiCon3 (Then they fight you).  Whether we will win, well, that’s to be determind.  I am hopeful, however, that the Google Chrome OS will go far to helping us win.

Do I think Microsoft will lose majority market share (Note, this is not wiped out) by June 2011?  Not really.  Do I hope they do?  Yes.  Remember, it’s not just Linux that needs to make the dent, but Apple’s OS X (which poses little threat to Linux as long as it stays bound to the Apple Macintosh).  As far as crises that would percipitate this go I see US Antitrust breaking up Microsoft, Microsoft flopping with Windows7, or computer manufacturers refusing to put up with the grief that Microsoft gives them (like defining what a “netbook” is despite not actually making computers, Per-Processor Licensing Fees, and the like).  Microsoft’s market share is dependent on its stranglehold of the manufacturers and if that collapses, Microsoft would collapse (in relative terms, of course).

Until then, the open source community can just keep making the best software they can and wait for GhandiCon4.

Talk About A Bombshell (Which everyone knew was coming eventually, but we pretend to be surprised anyways)

Google, the big little company we all know and love, has decided that a logical extension of their vision for Google Chrome is the Chrome Operating System.  While the original Chrome was marketed as being similar to an OS in how it handled the web, Google decided that the desktop OS is built for an age where people are tied to desktop applications.  Google says that ChromeOS will be a lightweight, fast-to-boot-fast-to-run OS that focuses on getting people to the web.  While aimed at netbooks, it will also be available for desktops and laptops (so presumably not a Moblin-like interface).

While it will be Linux-based (like Android but seperate), ChromeOS will build many things from the ground up.  Now, I probably won’t wind up using ChromeOS (this is purely speculatory with no screenshots or anything) as I like the full-fledged Desktop OS provided by Ubuntu, but because the project is open source and builds on open source projects there will be a lot of new material coming in to the FLOSS ecosystem which will inevitably be picked up by the mainstream Linuxes.

I incorrectly reported on Twitter (based on a misunderstanding of Gizmodo) that it would be able to run Windows and OS X apps.  As far as I can tell, there won’t be apps per say but rather web-based applications which can be run on any operating system from any modern browser.  This, needless to say, makes more sense, though I am dissappointed because geting Win/Mac compatibility in an open source project would mean Win/Mac compatibility for the Linux universe.

So yes, I’m excited.  Can’t wait to see where this goes.  I am a fan of Chrome as a browser (if it only did Flash it’d be my default on Linux – it’s alpha is great) and I’m sure Google will do a great job on ChromeOS

I’ve made no secret of my (intense) dislike for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, and today I got some good news.

Via TechCrunch

According to NetApplications, Microsoft’s forced-use browser Internet Explorer lost 11.4% of the browser market between the three versions currently in the wild (the recent IE8, the first-IE-with-tabs-finally-half-baked-standards-support-they-could-have-gone-all-the-way-but-noooo IE7, and the it-just-won’t-die-no-matter-how-many-times-I-whack-it-with-a-sledgehammer-AHHH-AHHHH-AHHHHH IE6).  While IE7’s loss in popularity is explainable – people upgrading/being forced to upgrade to IE8 – and IE6’s persistence is starting to wane because it lacks certain features like tabs and any notion of security, the nice thing is that it’s losing to the renewed competition in the Second Browser Wars.  Where it was once mainly between Netscape and Internet Explorer, there’s now Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox (Netscape’s next of kin), Opera,Apple’s Safari, and the new and very impressive Google Chrome.  As the Internet Explorer line has done very little in the way of innovation (A small browser called NetCaptor invented them in 1998 and after losing market share to the tabbed Opera, Firefox, and Safari, IE integrated them in 2006) this isn’t surprising.

What is surprising (though not at all unwelcome) is that people are taking enough interest in quality to look past the default, to revolt from the dictatorship of Good Enough.  All the new entrants to the browser wars bring new innovations – Firefox with extensions, Opera with Unite and many others, Chrome with Tab Sequestration – and people are realizing that what comes installed on their computer really isn’t that good.

Anyway, the numbers speak for themselves.

The reason I haven’t posted in forever is that I’ve been planning to bring you a huge review of different Linux distros and specifically how they implement KDE.

Well, that’s the “reason”…

I was planning to do that, but got sidetracked.  However, there is news on that front:

I am now a Konvert (this, to the uninitiated, is a reference to the sometimes annoying habit of KDE developers naming their apps with K, like KMail, amaroK, AKregator, etc).  When I decided to update Ubuntu from 32 bit to 64 bit I decided to try installing Fedora while I had a clean computer.  Fedora and I, well we just didn’t get along.  Package management was confusing.  So I went to more familiar territory:  Kubuntu.  And fell in love.  Now, it should be said that package management is the same as in Fedora, but as soon as you start installing GNOME packages (like Cheese) you get Ubuntu’s Add/Remove and Synaptic Package Manager.  It’s cheating, yet, but nice cheating.

Anyways, I’m here to show off my nice shiny KDE 4.2 desktop.

This is my KDE4 desktop with Qwit running my Twitter stream

Just a short overview of the desktop:

I’m running Kubuntu 9.04 64 bit.  I added a few Folder Views to contain the icons.  My twitter application is a gem called Qwit.  I have a few Photo plasmoids as well to personalize my desktop.  I’m using a plasmoid called STask to make all my open apps only use an icon instead of a windows-like bar.

I love it.  Kubuntu’s installation is easy, and though I had to wrestle with Jockey (Ubuntu’s Restricted Driver Manager) for a while, it’s great.  The plasmoids really sell it for me.  They can do just about everything.

I’m using a theme called Bespin that you have to compile from source but doesn’t like 64 bits.  I happened to find, however, a DEB of the respository while absolved me of having to compile the code.  Much much much nicer than the default Oxygen.

I grew up on GNOME so this is new to me.  But I love it.  There are a few problems, mostly to do with artefacting on some windows, but I’m looking into fixing it.

btw, new blog policy:  I know I haven’t posted in *forever* but the new rules are a Post A Day.  Yep.  Let’s see how far this goes.

Last thursday, Canonical released the latest beta of their uberpopular Ubuntu Linux OS, officially called Ubuntu 9.04 and nicknamed Jaunty Jackalope.

Here’s how it breaks down:

What’s Different?

There are few major new features in 9.04, most of it being under the hood. However, there are some remarkable new additions:

1. EXT4 filesystem. The next generation of the popular EXT filesystem family isn’t default (the old stalwart EXT3 is), but it is included as an option. It offers significant speed boosts and increased fidelity over EXT3. All tests are done with EXT4.
2. Internals. Mark Shuttleworth, the owner of Canonical and leader of the Ubuntu Project, named this development release Jaunty Jackalope for a reason other than J was the next letter in line for a nickname (previous names have included Feisty Fawn, Gutsy Gibbon, Hardy Heron, and (my favourite) Intrepid Ibex. October’s release is Karmic Koala.). Shuttleworth made good on his promise to make significant, SIGNIFICANT boosts to Ubuntu’s speed, which has been slowing with each progressive release until it was on par with Mac OS X when tested on the Mac Mini.
3. Notify-OSD. This is perhaps the biggest UI change to come to Ubuntu. Instead of the standard notifications which involved a poorly-rendered bubble telling you that your battery is low or that someone has posted to Twitter, Notify-OSD takes that and gives it a sleek, modern feel mirroring the Growl project on the Mac (not a part of OS X, mind). They also added support for brightness and volume meters with NOSD, and the result is a significant and very practical piece of eye candy.
4. New Visual Styles. It’s a running joke that Ubuntu will get a new theme… next release. We’ve been with the default Human theme more or less the same since I jumped on Ubuntu in April 2007’s 7.04 Feisty Fawn release. Shuttleworth has made a sacred promise to do an utterly complete desktop overhaul for 9.10 (October 2009) but for now the most popular community themes that are jostling to be default have been included! These are DarkRoom (the previous alternate theme) Dust and Dust Sand (the former one of the most popular Linux themes these days and a variation that is somewhat mac-like) and New Wave (which I think it worse than Human and looks like lint). Nice, multiple wallpapers as well. There is a new bootscreen which I am divided on… I kind of like the old one but I know that the progress bar it used hasn’t matched up with the progress bars in the OS since at best the Intrepid Cycle.
5. Various touchups. Things like the logout/restart/shutdown/etc menus have a very nice little effect of their own and various other subtle effects.

Installation:

Installation was a breeze. I downloaded the ISO from www.ubuntu.com and burned it to a CD. I popped it in and installed. After about 30 minutes, all my drivers were there (except for wireless, which was easily obtained by using a wireless adapter from a nearby desktop and Ubuntu got the driver for me. Very easy). It easily allowed me to partition my disk so that the /home (like My Documents in Windows) and my / (like C:\ in Windows) were on different partitions, allowing me to upgrade cleanly from release to release in the future (I did a complete wipe this time to get the EXT4 filesystem).

Bootup and First Login:

Bootup was amazing. After 10 seconds of BIOS, Ubuntu booted up in 19 seconds (after 2 seconds of countdown from GRUB which can be easily removed). After logging in at the new login window I could completely use the desktop in 1-3 seconds. This is simply amazing. For Windows it takes about 20 seconds after login to be able to use the desktop. Unfortuneately, Human is still the default theme but I rectified that with the included Dust theme.

GNOME:

The included GNOME 2.26 Desktop is a nice incremental upgrade. Some added class, definitely (little things like the wallpaper fading when you switch it). Much better handling of different monitors. I often plug my computer into the TV to watch stuff but I’ve always had to log out and back in to get the TV to recognize my laptop. No longer: I just need to set my laptop to the right resolution and it’s plug and play.

Brasero, Ubuntu’s do-all CD/DVD burning application, has matured alot, and I really like it. I’ve been using it for a while and it’s definitely always getting easier to use.

I know OpenOffice 3.0 isn’t technically part of GNOME, but I’m excited to use it nonetheless. I had been using an unofficial, slightly unstable stream because OO3 had problems with Intrepid (hence it wasn’t included). Now it’s great.

Conclusions:

Overall, a very strong beta. Even though it is definitely not as big of an upgrade as other Ubuntu releases, it is still, IMHO, worth it and I am greatly enjoying the enhanced performance that I have gleaned from it.

Ubuntu 9.04 Beta can be downloaded at www.ubuntu.com.

I was at Best Buy today and looking at their netbooks when I realized “Hey.  None of these run Linux”.  I asked a clerk and they don’t carry the Linux models at all.  Seeing as Windows is a secondary option on these machines when Linux is the first, this disturbed me on several levels.

The first was that people were being denied the chance to make a choice about their OS.  Even though Linux is invariably smaller, faster, more stable, and more secure, certain stores have entered into agreements with Microsoft that forbid their selling of these products.  Prime example is Walmart, who despite the amazing success of their Linux PC lines with Everex gPC and the EeePC, pulled them off shelves at the behest of Microsoft.

If you compare features of Windows and (lets say) Ubuntu Linux, Ubuntu wins hands down.  Take a look:

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