Default 9.10 Desktop

Today’s victim… *ahem* I mean guest of course sorry, is the new version of Ubuntu. 9.10 to be precise, the Karmic Koala. The names seem to keep getting worse but is the distro itself getting better? I wanted to find out. So I installed the latest daily build in the lead up to release and got to work kicking the tyres, investigating and randomly tutting while stroking my beard. I’ll try to be fair in describing any rough edges as I realise this testing version is pre-release software, but the final version has actually been released today. So I think it’s fair to give it a look. Here’s how I got on…

Vital Stats:
Distro base – Debian
Packaging – .deb (Managed by the mighty Apt)
Linux Kernel – 2.6.31-14-generic
Default Desktop – Gnome 2.28.1

Installation:

The Boot Menu

I started by grabbing the latest daily build of Karmic from here. In the past I’ve found that a good way to avoid the inevitable rush and server overload on Ubuntu release days. Get the daily build a few days before, and then just add any updates as you go. It works very well for the most part. Of course there can be the rough edges in these pre release versions, they’re meant for testing purposes only. Canonical would never recommend installing them on a production system and they warn that updates may cause breakage, but I’ve always had a positive experience and I accept a certain amount of risk. Besides, you can be doing the developers a service by reporting bugs and testing things. I burned off the live CD image, fired it up and got to work. There’s been a lot of talk about the boot and shut down screens on the new Ubuntu. While most distributions are moving towards the Plymouth bootloader, Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) have taken another route, opting to use Xsplash instead. I’m afraid I’m not a distro developer and I can’t give you a low level run down of either approach really, or their pros and cons, I just know the issue caused quite a fuss. The initial boot time of the liveCD was really slow for some reason. It sat at a completely blank screen for a good 15mins but I left it going because I had a hunch. I noticed the HDD light on the front of the laptop was blinking furiously and I assumed it must be running a filesystem check. That takes a while on my machine so I left it in hope and crossed my fingers. Sure enough, after a while the live session booted up normally. This may have just been a rough edge because of the pre-release nature of this install disc. It might be fixed in the final release, but there should have been some kind of indication on the screen that a disk check was in process. That’s certainly how it used to work. (Edit: I’m pleased to confirm this is fixed in the final release).

Ubiquity

Upon loading the live session I noticed a few nice design changes. It’s a lot more black and orange now rather than brown. They’ve been saying this for the last few releases, “it won’t be as brown this time, honest”, but invariably on booting a new release you see enough brown to make a chocolate factory jealous. Personally, I don’t have a real problem with it and I don’t see what all the fuss is about, but there’s no doubt the visual appearance of the distro has improved again here. That has to be a good thing I guess. Following the install link on the desktop I was greeted with the very familiar Ubuntu Ubiquity installer. It seems not much has changed here but as I’ve said of previous releases, it didn’t need to, it’s already a great installer. I proceeded through the usual steps picking time zone, keyboard language and entering user details as normal. I like little conveniences such as the way it suggests a keyboard language based on your time zone. You can still change it should you need to, but it’s a nice little bit of polish. Partitioning was simple and I used the same scheme I always have, you can find details of that in other reviews. I noticed a new option on the final screen to require a password for decrypting your home folder. I decided not to use it but that’s an interesting development for the more security conscious perhaps. It does worry me a little that encrypting your whole home directory could be problematic if you ever lost the key, as I would be likely to do. I have my home directory as a separate partition too, so this would mean the whole disk partition was hosed if anything went wrong. I prefered the old system of just having an encrypted sub folder in the home directory. Anyway, back at the point. With the all the information entered I set the install on it’s way. There’s a new slide show to watch while you install. I like that, it’s another nice bit of polish but bloody hell I needed something to keep me entertained. The install took about 40mins, almost double what it used to on this hardware. Again this may be attributable to the beta nature of the software, but I have to report as I find. Once the install eventually finished I removed the CD and was left with a system hang. Just a load of funky coloured lines on the screen and no response from the mouse or keyboard. I had to power off manually. Now, to be fair I don’t think this is Ubuntu’s fault. There’s a long standing ACPI bug with my machine and this problem has surfaced on other distros. So I wasn’t too worried about that. The install had worked fine and I was happy.

INSTALLATION SLIDE SHOW

Customising The Koala:

Messaging Area

I was pleased to see the machine boot a lot quicker the 2nd time around. I guess my theory about the disk check was right. The default Gnome desktop looks pretty much the same as always with Ubuntu. I like the addition of the new system icons by the clock, they’re very slick. A lot of people will say they have a Mac-like look and that might be fair. The idea was to standardise the look of the desktop a little more I think. The message notification icon ties into programs like Evolution, Empathy, Pidgin, Gwibber and more to give one standard messaging area. I’m not sure if I like this but that’s a personal preference. I find the notifications sometimes aren’t obvious enough, and having them all hidden under one menu I miss messages. That could be my fault for having the attention span of a goldfish though I suppose. Some of the default packages have changed in Karmic. A good example is Empathy replacing Pidgin as the default instant messenger program. I was told this is because Empathy can do both im and voice chats, it also integrates more tightly into the Gnome desktop. I tried to use it for over a week but we just didn’t get along. I still love Pidgin and find it much more intuitive. Luckily Pidgin is only an Apt-Get away, so it’s not like you’re barred from using it. They just seem to be steering people towards Empathy.

My Finished Desktop

Getting all the software I wanted was quick and easy through the extensive Ubuntu repositories. I installed Audacity, Easytag, Abiword and all the other assorted tools I like with ease. Next I decided to customise the layout of the desktop a bit. I usually remove the bottom toolbar in Gnome and replace it with the Avant Window Navigator, this is very easy to do. I move the desktop switcher and window list to the top toolbar and then just delete the lower one. You’ll be able to see this from the screenshots. I also changed the theme to New Wave, which is a bit darker and looks very funky. Settling in on Karmic was easy, mainly because I’m so familiar with Ubuntu now, but also because adding drivers and apps is simple. I felt pretty comfortable in no time.

Ubuntu Software Centre:

Ubuntu Software Centre

One new feature in Karmic that’s received a lot of attention is the Ubuntu Software Centre. Basically it’s an attempt to simplify managing your installed software and applications, that’s how I’d describe it anyway. I have to admit when I first heard about the idea I thought it was terrible, I was sure I’d hate it. The old Add/Remove Software tool was good and didn’t need changing I grumbled to myself. After using Software Centre for a while though I must say I’m a total convert, it’s great! It seems to be modelled on the new “app store” type approach people are becoming used to with their phones, Android, iPhone etc. You can install stuff in the background while still searching for other things and getting stuff done. In the old Add/Remove system you had to make a list of things to change and then once you set it off it was a matter of waiting until it had finished before you could add anything else. A few times I’d start installing a list of programs and then realise I’d forgotten one. Now when you click to install something it just starts and there’s a progress bar in the background. You can still get on with hunting down more new software or even removing stuff without breaking stride. A lot of people have commented on the fact that there’s a price label on each application, and they’re quite upset about it. The righteous indignation is overflowing. It seems pretty obvious to me that Canonical would want to make a new revenue stream out of this. The applications are all marked as free right now, but again it links into the growing “app store” mentality. Some see this commercialisation as evil and with my political views you’d expect me to agree, but I don’t. There’s nothing inherently evil about charging people money for software, lots of GPL software is sold all the time. Despite the confusing name it doesn’t go against the ideals of Free Software at all. As long as the source code is available in some reasonable manner it’s all good by Stallman. It might actually encourage some outside software vendors to start porting their apps to Linux, if there’s a market. I don’t wan’t to be overrun by proprietary closed source apps of course, but I think choice is a good thing and if people can get the apps they want on Linux because of this, that’s a positive isn’t it? Also, if it helps Canonical to make some money back and keep giving us such great free software (both in the beer and speech sense), more power to them. There have been attempts to do this kind of thing in the past with mixed results though, Linspire’s Click’N'Run store springs to mind. I hope this works out for Canonical, as long as we keep the focus on Open Source applications, the monetary side doesn’t bother me.

Easier PPA Access:

Adding A PPA

One thing I really like about Karmic is how adding PPAs has been simplified. A PPA is a Personal Package Archive, and they’re basically an additional little repository of Ubuntu packages you can add, usually hosted on Launchpad.net. They’re useful because it means developers can provide newer versions of their software and you can subscribe to get the updates, rather than wait for the main repos to catch up, if the package is even in there. A good example of this is the Chromium web browser which I added via a PPA. I use the daily development build of Chromium from Launchpad and it works surprisingly well. Previously, you had to add the source location to your system config file, then go and get a key file for the PPA, import it and verify everything. It was quite a protracted process. Now it’s been made much quicker. They’ve created a new PPA namespace so you can just add something by typing “ppa:chromium-daily/ppa” in your software sources, and the rest is all taken care of. I love this, it’s really handy, but I do have to wonder how hard it would have been to use something like AptURL to automatically add the PPA with one or two clicks. It seems like they’ve come so far and stopped just inches short of the finishing line. Maybe that could be added in the next release. Some people may say it’s dangerous making experimental or development repos so easily available for even novices to install, but I think it would be a step forward and could add more eyeballs to test new packages. You could have a confirmation screen when people click a “ppa://” url.

Conclusions:
Ease Of Installation & Use: 4/5
Stability & Speed: 4/5
Community & Documentation: 5/5
Features: 3/5
Overall: 4/5

Chromium Browser

I’m impressed with Karmic, it’s a very solid release with some nice improvements over Jaunty. The Software Centre is a great addition and I hope it will be pushed up stream to the likes of Debian. Canonical have been criticised in the past for not contributing enough back to the upstream projects they depend on, but I think that’s a little harsh. Let’s see what they do with this and then judge. I also hope the new model of bringing in commercial applications and giving easy access in an “App Store” setting works for them. The new icons and overall look of Karmic is really slick, probably the best looking Ubuntu yet. There were a few rough edges in the version I tested but it was pre-release, now that the final release has hit the web today I’ll be interested to see how many of those have been fixed. Ubuntu has evolved a lot over the years and I think it’s still in a strong position looking forward. Unlike some I’m not a raving fanboy, but I’m also not an Ubuntu hater either. There seems to be a lot of those around, success makes you unpopular in a lot of quarters I suppose. I appreciate what Ubuntu brings to the Linux world, just as I appreciate what Fedora brings and all the other great distributions out there. Ubuntu is making good ground into the mainstream consciousness and we can all benefit from that I hope. Yes there’s a long way to go, but the next few years are an exciting time to be a Linux fan.

Gwibber

I would recommend Ubuntu Karmic to new users without much hesitation. I still like Linux Mint and Mandriva for the complete novice, but Ubuntu is a good option too. The documentation and support around it are certainly a force to be reckoned with. There are plenty of good sources of help online and help are never too far away. Different distributions suit different users and situations, but Ubuntu has proved itself very versatile. It’s going from strength to strength and I think it has a bright future. Check out Karmic for yourself and let me know what you think int he comments.

YOU CAN GET UBUNTU KARMIC HERE

Onwards and upwards…
I’ve been so busy travelling around, running live events and god knows what else in the last 2 months. I’ve hardly had any time to do proper in depth reviews. As the winter draws in and things calm down a little though that should change. What better way to spend the cold months than wrapped up indoors on a comfy seat warming yourself by the glow of a blazing laptop. There are quite a few big releases due out soon. Fedora, OpenSuse and many others. I’ll aim to get into them all. If there’s something you’d like to see here, please leave a comment or drop me an email. I suspect my next stop may be the new Fedora. So if you’d care to join me you’re more than welcome, bring a warm coat and some sensible shoes…

Wow, what a week it’s been. I’m so late with my usual Sunday blog post this time because we were in Wolverhampton doing Oggcamp. I’ll get into that more later of course, but I’m just trying to recover and get some energy back at the moment after 3 days of non stop work and partying. It was epic. Let’s get into it…

We skipped doing a live Linux Outlaws on Monday night but instead released our interview with Randal Schwartz. The downloads for that took off quickly, mainly due to Randal’s celebrity status I assume. Then he mentioned us a few times on FLOSS Weekly and it took off even more. I just hope our server can cope! On Wednesday Fab arrived from Germany and I collected him from the airport. We then went to pick up the PA for the weekend from my mate Keith. With all that lot loaded into my tiny Nissan Micra and looking pretty comical, we headed back home. In the evening we went for a few beers with my oldest and best friend Will (AKA Chemist), I’ve known him 26 years now (what a scary thought), we met in nursery school at the age of 3. It turned into a later night than I’d expected, but was great fun nevertheless.

A competing event - photo by Darren & Amy

On Thursday we did a live show from here. We had a lot of people joining in and I came up with the mad idea that we should try to release it almost straight after. To achieve this we bypassed our usual hours of editing and did the show all in one go, with music mixed in on the fly by me. At the end I just compressed the audio a bit and cut it to length. Fab did a great job of encoding and releasing. All in all, we got the show out in under 2 hours from saying “goodbye” on the broadcast to hitting the RSS feeds. I’m amazed by that, and I think it came out sounding pretty good in light of it. The reason for all this rushing was because I had to pick up the hire car for Oggcamp the next morning, load it up and hit the road to Wolverhampton pretty handy. We managed that, and despite my inability to get to grips with the “automatic handbrake” on the executive car I’d hired, the trip was great. We swung past Liverpool Airport and collected our friend Kevan on the way. We met up with many more friends in Wolverhampton: Anna, Alistair and more, for the Lugradio Pre Party. It was a very late night, involved lots of drinking and talking, great fun. The Next day we hit Lugradio Live 2009 a bit late after sleeping in. So late in fact that the hotel restaurant had finished serving food, they wouldn’t do room service or even bar food, but I managed to sweet talk the receptionist into getting the chef to make us 4 BLTs. I’m still not entirely sure how, but I’ll have to try and recapture that persuasive skill in other areas of my life. Fab gave his talk on Linux in schools at LRL and it went down a storm. I thought he did brilliantly and the room was packed out. I was really happy for him. You may notice I’m glossing over some stuff here because of there’s just so much of it. We stuck around to see Andy “Blackadder” Robinson and Bruno Bord talk in the main room, they were both excellent. It was then time for the last ever (they swear this time) Lugradio Live & Unleashed. Jono was wearing the Chinny Racoon suit from last year, and he must have been sweating his nuts off under those lights. Adam kept telling me how ill he felt all day from the pre party antics. Despite this you would never have guessed from the show, it was great. Hilarious as ever, with plenty of audience interaction. Later, I took Fab and a large party of other folks to the curry house right by the hotel. He experienced his first Vindaloo, which I think he’ll remember for a while. I’m much more of a wimp and stuck to a mild curry. There was some German swearing and sweating but he ate the whole thing and enjoyed it. A hell of an introduction to Indian cuisine I must say, not sure I could have handled it. The after party at the hotel was sponsored by Microsoft apparently, but there were no free drinks or food and we got kicked out at 11:30pm. So what they actually paid for I have no idea. The karaoke perhaps? Either way, they clearly don’t know how to throw a party, and I can’t say I’m surprised. The Fedora party in Berlin was 10 times better, another victory for Free Software! We carried on drinking in the hotel bar till about 3 or 4am, mainly thanks to the legendary Phillip Newborough (of Crunchbang fame) and his rucksack full of beer. Probably not the wisest move ever when I was head of the Oggcamp crew, and I’d set the call time for 9am, arrgh!!!

The Live Show - Photo by Darren & Amy

I made it up in time for the 9am call, even had a shower and sneaked a bacon sandwich out of breakfast area (this was becoming a habit). I then took all the crew up to the main room and we got to work. Tony, Laura and most of the others were already there working hard. The fantastic volunteers we had got the breakout rooms sorted, set up projectors and generally made our lives so much easier. I’ve already thanked them a few times, but one more won’t hurt. You guys are amazing, you know who you are. Tony and I rigged the PA and miraculously it all worked. The whole day went off perfectly, a little too perfectly in fact and I kept expecting something to explode in our faces. But it didn’t. The live show went well, people cheered, and laughed, and hopefully had a lot of fun. I certainly did. I’m not going to go into massive detail about the event here because I’ll be writing a proper article for our Linux Outlaws blog soon. I’ll update this with links when I have them. As the show finished we packed everything up and headed to a local Chinese banquet place on mass. There were about 25 of us in the end and the food was amazing. I was a little worried when I was handed a bill for £275, but thankfully realised pretty quickly it was for all of us. After some more drinking and LOTS more chatting in the hotel bar we tried to get an earlier night this time, about 1am. I had to get the hire car back home for 11am the next day, a feat I didn’t manage in the end but I avoided extra charges. Maybe I had remembered those persuasion skills after all.

I’ve been home just over a day now and I still can’t quite take it all in. It was such an amazing experience and the constant flow of nice comments, photos and general feedback from people really makes me smile. We haven’t decided for sure yet if we’ll do another Oggcamp, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say I’d put a few quid on it, if I were a betting man. We drove back yesterday and just flaked out after really, I wasn’t any use for much else. Although, having said that I just remembered I did edit a new episode of the Software Freedom Law Show in the afternoon. No rest for the wicked. That episode should be out now if you want to have a listen.

Upcoming:

This week I’ve got a lot of sorting out to do, running PA kit around and returning it to various friends. I’ve got some work to catch up on, audio editing to do, I need to write up my experience of Ubuntu Karmic, and plenty of other stuff. It’s the Ubuntu Release Party in Manchester this Friday, I should be there for that. I’ve also got tickets to see Eddie Izzard live at the Echo Arena on Saturday night. I have to take Fab back to the airport tomorrow too, he’s off back to Germany again. It was good to catch up and hang out in person for a while. There is also Chester LUG on Thursday night which I REALLY should attend that, seeing as I’ve missed a couple. It’s gonna be tough with so much else going on though. I might not be up to it. I don’t want them to feel neglected, it’s just that something always comes up around Chester LUG time for me lately. We’ll have to see. No doubt there will be plenty going on, so I’ll report back next weekend. Take care till then.

Dan

Howdy peeps, it’s another Sunday afternoon so you know what that means right? It’s time for a Weekly Rewind (my recent lateness with these aside). After much traveling and excitement lately, I’m actually writing to you from boring old home this week. It’s nice and comfy though and I’m appreciative of what I have. Many others in the world would kill to be where I am, literally. So, on that rather serious note, let’s get into the events of the week.

On Monday we did a live episode of Linux Outlaws as usual, and it went off beautifully. We were a little delayed in starting but had a great laugh and I really enjoyed the recording. I also edited a new episode of the Software Freedom Law Show earlier in the day. That was released on Tuesday by Bradley I believe. Speaking of Tuesday, I went to the dentist then but escaped without any major work being done. I’m very lucky to have really strong teeth. I’m pushing 30 now and still have no fillings. I guess I have to thank my mum for the genes there. I wish I could say it’s because I’ve spent my life religiously looking after them, but that would be a big fat lie. It’s mostly luck. I installed Ubuntu Karmic on my laptop later in the day and got to testing it. I’ll write up my thoughts tomorrow and aim to publish that this week. I also heard from Popey that the Oggcamp mugs I ordered had arrived. I even blogged about it. They look good. Read the rest of this entry »

Good day all. You’ve probably heard me mention organising things for Oggcamp here often. It’s a first foray into the events field for Linux Outlaws and Ubuntu UK Podcast. I’ve been trying to sort out merchandise for people to take home on the day. It works well in 2 ways because people get something they want to keep (they’ve even told us this), and we can get some money back towards out towards costs. Booking the venue, getting refreshments, AV equipment and all kinds of other stuff isn’t cheap. There’s a lot to consider. I originally wanted to have t-shirts but sourcing those proved more problematic than I’d expected. At least in a price range I was happy with. We hit on the idea of mugs, and now thanks to the lovely people at Mugstore.co.uk we actually have them, woo hoo!!! They’re safely tucked away at Popey’s house ready to be delivered to Wolverhampton. The mugs will be available with donations of £5 or more, which is a reasonable amount I think. Not too much for the average person to pay, but still enough to give us some help towards costs.

Are you ready to see them? Drum roll please… come on tap the table or something don’t hang me out to dry here Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings all, hope this posting finds you well. So, first up I should admit that I lied in last week’s very brief catch up. I missed Weekly Rewind 33 but I said I’d just use that number for this week. Since then someone suggested retiring number 33 and going straight to 34. I thought that was an interesting notion, and it signifies that it’ll always be the one that got away. So I’m going with it. So long Weekly Rewind 33, we’ll miss you. With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, let’s get into a proper it, it might be more accurate to call this a Weekend Rewind.

I’ll quickly gloss over events from earlier in the week, it was mostly listed in the bullets points of this post anyway. So on Monday we did Linux Outlaws Live as always, and it went really well. I edited that episode on Tuesday and Wednesday amongst other jobs. It was released on Friday as Fab was struggling with flu, which is understandable. I did some work on an article for a free newspaper in Manchester around the same time. I mentioned that briefly last week and it got some people excited. I’m not sure when it’ll be out but I’m trying to organize an online version for all you non-UK folks to enjoy. I’ll let you know when I have more information, promise. I ordered the special mugs for OggCamp and coordinated all that early in the week too. Just in case you don’t know the sketch, you can pickup a mug with any donation over £5 made at OggCamp on Sunday 25th October in Wolverhampton. If you don’t know what the event itself is yet,  where have you been? You can find more by clicking the banner in the sidebar there. Speaking of OggCamp, I had a major breakthrough with the PA for the event this week. All thanks to a good mate of mine. He’s sorting out a rig I can bring down with me and set up. Once a noise boy, always a noise boy. Read the rest of this entry »

Ok folks, it’s been a while. Almost 2 weeks since I last blogged at length. Since returning from Portland life has been more than a little crazy, and it doesn’t show any sign of slowing down in the coming weeks. I’ve missed a Weekly Rewind, it had to happen eventually but number 33 was the one to get away. Technically that’s not accurate as I will number the next one 33, I’m not skipping a number but I’ve missed a week anyway. It seemed a bit pointless trying to do it now, 5 days late. So because I’m so pressed for time I’m going to use bullet points to get the information in. Are you ready? Go for you guns…

In no precise order, I have been:

• Recording, producing and releasing Linux Outlaws and Rathole Radio as normal.
• Writing an article on the proposed UK 3 strikes law for a Manchester paper. More on that when it’s released.
• Attending Liverpool LUG last night. Remember people, LivLUG and prosper!!!
• Organising OggCamp. The PA is sorted, car hire too. I also ordered a load of mugs for the event. It’s gonna rock.
• Panicking about my mum going into hospital for an operation. She’s home and recovering now.
• Interviewing Randal Schwartz for Linux Outlaws.
• Fighting the crush to get tickets for our little gang to attend LRL 2009.
• Recovering from jet lag, all done with that now. It’s sooo last week.
• Writing a new song, it’s been a long while but I think this one was worth the wait. I’ll record and release it when I can. I am prepared to reveal the lyrics contain the word “inextricably” which I’m ridiculously proud of.

Read the rest of this entry »