I heard about this story from a couple of different sources and it’s only fair to give them credit. The first was the Linux Action Show podcast and the 2nd was a Lifehacker article.

So anyway, the popular proprietary disc burning tool Nero has been released for Linux. The NeroLinux 3 Beta is available free to download at the moment. There is even a choice of RPM or DEB package so it should suit most distos. It’s a nice touch and it’s good to see the publishers are taking Linux seriously. I got the beta DEB for Ubuntu and tried it out, so I thought I’d share some of my thoughts with you fine people

The interface looks nice and kind of takes me back to my days as a Windows user. It was always my burning software of choice on Windows and they seem to have transfered most of the functionality to this Linux version nicely. It’s built on the same API as the Windows version, NeroAPI 6.6 and thats reassuring to know. It does pretty much everything you’d expect from a decent burning tool and for those familiar with the Windows version the GUI will feel nice and familiar. Here are some of the features the publishers are promoting on their website:

• Blu-ray and HD DVD data recording support
• Upgrade to GTK 2.0
• Improved GUI to match current Nero Burning ROM 7

Support for HD formats is nice but I doubt many people have drives capable of using this at the moment, also I notice it says “data” recording which makes me think you probably can’t burn HD films in it yet. The upgrade to GTK 2 is good but hardly anything to crow about and according to reviews of Nero’s last Linux offering the improvement of GUI was a real necessity not a luxury add-on. That’s not to take anything away from the product though, it’s very professional and the beta seems pretty solid, I never had a problem with it. The DEB package installed quickly and painlessly so I can’t fault them there.

I burned a couple of test discs and had a good play, it was all good and worked well but one thing kept cropping up in the back of my mind. Do we really need or for that matter want Nero for Linux? Version 3 is only in beta and no price has been announced yet but with version 2 currently on sale for 19 Euros, I think it’s pretty safe to assume it will be something similar. We already have some really good free disc burning tools in Linux like Gnomebaker and K3B, they offer pretty much the same features and work excellently, so will anyone really pay just to use Nero?

I’m sure some people will and there’s no doubt that for novice Windows users looking to migrate, the chance to use programs they know will be a big bonus. I’m just not sure that seasoned Linux users will embrace Nero with other well-established open source alternatives readily available. Personally I’m quite happy with Gnomebaker, it does everything I ask of it without any complaints, it’s free and crucially it’s open source. I can’t see anything Nero offers me that Gnomebaker doesn’t do already.

However, the very fact that something like Nero has been released for Linux has to be seen as a positive step in my view. We need more software makers to stop just making their products for Windows and Mac and look to target Linux as well. There are plenty of propriatary applications that I think could pull an audience in Linux if they were available, they are mostly high-end packages like Pro Tools, Photoshop CS and Final Cut Pro. As a musician I would love to be able to build a Pro Tools studio around my Linux PC and I don’t think I’m alone in that. One of the most frequent arguments I hear from people for avoiding Linux is “I can’t get the programs I want for it”. If only I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that argument and I suppose it’s a fair point if you’re taking about professional media tools that require some skill to use. The fact that some publishers have opened their eyes and seen the growth of Linux is definitely a good thing I think, hopefully more will follow.

So I’m almost tempted to buy NeroLinux 3 when it comes out, just to encourage more developers to bring their products to Linux but whether I actually will when it comes to parting with my cash, I don’t know. Nero isn’t quite in the same class as Pro Tools or Final Cut Pro now is it

If you’re a fan of Nero I would definitely recommend you take a look at the free beta version available now.

Well Ubuntu 7.04 has been out a few days now and I thought it was time I recorded some thoughts and opinions on it. I had a nightmare getting hold of the ISO on Thursday when it came out but that’s got nothing to do with Ubuntu, it was my ISP being an ass as usual. (See the earlier rant about Tiscali for details)

So… the Fawn, is it any good? Yes of course it’s good, did you really expect me to say anything else I’m a Linux fanboy at heart.

Step 1: The failed upgrade

I had some issues upgrading my previous installation of Edgy to Feisty as suggested on the Ubuntu site, it failed twice and I wasn’t happy. To be fair to Canonical I think it was more to do with my weird setup than their updater, I know other people who used it and it worked first time for them. I have a lot of unusual development packages on my system and that seemed to cause the problem. The main offending package appeared to be the Python Imaging Library, it caused the updater to error twice and then inform me that my upgrade had failed. I seem to remember compiling this package from source while doing some work on Django, maybe that had something to do with it I’m not sure.

Step 2: The Fresh Install

So, I was left with only one option, to boot from the Feisty CD and do a completely fresh install. I got a familiar error when booting the Live CD, after choosing to install Ubuntu from the menu, my screen went black and I got the following error:

KERNEL PANIC: apic sync error. Try booting with ‘noapic’ option.

I’ve seen this before, it happened with Edgy. It has something to do with my system architecture and I’ve found that just using the noapic option as suggested lets me boot the Live CD and install as normal. After the install the system boots normally and I never see the error again. It’s a strange problem but it doesn’t seem to cause any lasting effects… once you get round it and install

After that the installation went smoothly but I wasn’t prompted to install the restricted driver for my Nvidia video card as I expected. I thought Feisty was supposed to ask me during the install but it didn’t. After the install I enabled the restricted driver easily through the “System / Administration / Restricted Drivers Manager” (pictured), it was a simple tick box and worked first time. The next thing I needed to sort out was my NTFS read/write driver, another thing I thought Feisty might do for me but it didn’t. As it turned out it was easy to do with one apt-get command:

sudo apt-get install ntfs-config

After that I could go to “Applications / System Tools” on the menu and access the config tool (pictured below).

After a quick run of Automatix2 which is not popular in some corners of the Ubuntu community (I’m not getting into that), my Feisty system was ready to go.

Conclusions
Despite a few problems getting the system installed I’m very happy with my new OS. I can’t say I’ve noticed a massive amount of difference from Edgy but I’m sure things will be become apparent as I use it more. It’s still new. I keep my “/home” directory on a separate partition to the system root and it turned out to be a real bonus for me. When I formatted my root and reinstalled I left my home partition alone and found that all my desktop and application settings were preserved for me. This was great, I didn’t need to spend any time setting up my new system, it was already done. How cool is that?

(My Feisty desktop)

So what do I really think of Feisty Fawn? If I’m honest I’m a little disappointed but only because I expect so much from Ubuntu. They’ve set the bar really high, I was surprised that my video drivers and NTFS drivers weren’t automatically set up in the install. I expected a prompt saying “You have an Nvidia video card, do you want to use the restricted driver?” but instead I had to set that stuff up afterwards. Ok it was easy to do and didn’t take to long but I think they could still do a bit better. Make the restricted driver manager more prominent at least.

Overall, Feisty is a great OS and I would recommend that everyone try it. The problems I experienced were basically down to the quirks of my system and shouldn’t really reflect badly on the OS. I suppose I just expected to see more differences from Edgy but in the end perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. Its definitely as good as Edgy and there’s no better compliment I can give than that.

Feisty is definitely my OS of choice, at least until Gutsy Gibbon come out

Well there’s not long to wait now. The new edition of Ubuntu 7.04 “The Feisty Fawn” is due for release tomorrow (Thursday 19th April) and personally I can’t wait. As you probably know by now if you’ve been here before, Ubuntu is my main OS and the new release promises to be the best yet. (Other Linux Distributions are available)

I’ve been trying out Feisty on VMWare since the herd 3 (alpha) release and it’s always been very stable for me. I’ve even heard of many people using an alpha version as their main OS. I’m not sure I’m that brave but it does show the quality of the software. Like most discerning consumers however, my favorite thing about Ubuntu is that it’s free, as in free beer and also free as in free speech

Apart from that though here are some of the main features of Feisty:

• Codec Wizard – for easy installation of restricted codecs
• Improved Virtualisation – Added Hardware Support
• Windows Migration Manager – nuff said
• Desktop Effects – 3D goodness from Beryl and Compiz
• Thin Client – For setting up computer labs with Edubuntu
• Loads more cool stuff

So it’s looking good. You can even get a free Feisty CD shipped to your door with ShipIt so you’ve got no excuses not to be using Ubuntu and freeing yourself I heard that Mark Shuttleworth has already announced the name of Feisty’s successor – Gutsy Gibbon. I’m not sure where they get the names but they make a great OS. Now I’m off to pray for decent bandwidth on the download servers when the ISO is released

I’ll let you know how I get on.

I was browsing the Ubuntu Forums today and someone asked “How can I export my playlists from RhythmBox?”, how easy must that be I thought. I was wrong. I had a look under the “music” menu thinking there would be an export option and there wasn’t.

Here’s the options I got under the playlist menu.


Oh well, you must just right-click the playlist and do it there… right??? (see below)

…Wrong! I was beginning to think it wasn’t possible. I spent ages searching for a solution on the net, I even tried finding out where Rhythmbox had put the playlists in the file system so I could maybe grab them from there. No luck.

Then I had an idea. This is what happens when you select a playlist in the right hand column and then go to the “Music / Playlist” menu again.

Hallelujah!! The “save to file” option magically appears.

It shouldn’t be this hard to find the function though, there should be an option on the context menu at least and probably an export option on the main “music” menu, which then allows you to choose a playlist to export after you click it. Hopefully the Rhythmbox developers will make this feature a bit more intuitive in the future.

I still love Rhythmbox though don’t get me wrong, I just thought I’d post my solution in case anyone else gets caught out by this like I did.

The OpenMoko project is aiming to give us a fully open-source, Linux platform for phones and mobile devices. “Free your phone” it says on their main page, that sounds good to me. Apparently it will implement a full Linux Kernel on your phone (provided the hardware is capable of course) and allow developers full access to the platform, the idea is to promote innovation and development in mobile phone software thought the hacker community. Personally I love it and I think it could have a big impact on the somewhat stagnant world of mobile device development.

The project is backed by the manufacturer FIC and they deserve great credit for this. They’ve made a new handset for OpenMoko called the Neo1973 (pictured), I’m not sure about the name but the phone looks pretty cool. It lacks a camera though and this may put some punters off. The ability to bring up a bash shell and install things with apt-get on the device will have Linux geeks like me frothing at the mouth already.

Imagine it, if I want a decent media player on my phone I could install Amarok, Rhythmbox or any other Linux media player right onto my phone. How cool is that? Not happy with your phones web browser then just install Firefox, Opera or whatever else takes your fancy. You could even write one if you wanted.

The Neo1973 is due for release to the consumer market in September this year, it should retail for $350. I think the hardware has some way to go, there’s no camera or wireless Internet support yet but hopefully future revisions of the handset will implement these. I admire the decision to exclude wireless because only closed-source solutions were available from a developers point of view, I just don’t think most end-users will be so understanding. Full specs can be found in the OpenMoko wiki.

The software will also be made available for other devices in the future so you won’t have to use the Neo1973 but no date has yet been announced. This little baby is basically a full Linux box with a touchscreen and a cell phone interface, it’s a hackers dream and the possibilities are endless for it in the future. It’s certainly one to keep your eye on. It’s true that Linux phones isn’t exactly a new thing with other handsets already running on it but they generally have some closed-source software on top, OpenMoko is full VIP backstage access. It could be something special.

I found another great application on my Ubuntu desktop today I hadn’t used before. It’s a photo editor/manager called F-Spot, kind of like an open-source Picasa if you will. I thought I’d share my experiences.

It all came about because I signed up for a Flickr account, a bit late in the game I know but I’ve never bothered with Filckr before. Mainly because I don’t have a decent digital camera, thats a problem. I have a new camera phone on the way which is good enough for what I need and with the ability to integrate my Flickr feed with my Jaiku account I decided it was time to sign up. I thought I’d probably use Picasa to manage my photos and upload to Flickr, I always have in the past. When I tried to use it though I had real trouble, it just crashed on me twice as soon as I opened it and I wasn’t a happy bunny. Then I noticed the little F-Spot icon on the menu and thought I might as well give it a shot.

(managing my photos with F-Spot)

It’s great, the time line slider widget at the top is really cool and integration with Flickr worked like a dream, I would even go as far as to say I like it more than Picasa and it came installed with Ubuntu. How cool is that? Another example of how open-source rules.

(uploading to Flickr)

Now the poor people who follow me on Jaiku will have to look at my ugly mug as well as read my rantings