The Linux Experiment

Well it’s been an interesting week. I’ve gotten to try out three new distributions and share my thoughts with everyone here. My original goal was to see which one of these distributions offered the best first impression and declare that one as the ‘winner’. However in actually working my way through these great releases I have changed my mind somewhat.

What makes a great distribution great?

This is a very interesting question that I’m sure would generate a wide array of unique and passionate responses. Some prefer ease of use, while others demand nothing less than complete control over what they can tweak. There are people who swear by using nothing but open source solutions, while others are happy to add proprietary code into the mix as well. This is the great thing about Linux, we get so many choices which means we get to decided what we want.

Unfortunately this has also resulted in a bit of distribution zealotry; like choosing Ubuntu over Fedora, or Arch over OpenSUSE is somehow taking a side in some giant war. Instead of all of the infighting we should be celebrating the fact that when Ubuntu comes out with a new piece of user-friendly software, or Fedora introduces a new awesome technology, we can share and integrate it right into all distributions.

So what makes a great distribution great? A distribution is great because it works for you, it suites your needs, fits your personality and lets you do what you want to do. At the end of the day isn’t that what open source is about?

Final thoughts

OK enough of the preachy writing. I think that all of the distributions I have tested this week were very good. They each embody the spirit of open source in their own little ways.

Kubuntu 10.10

Awards: The most improved release. Most likely to recover lost KDE fans.

I was extremely impressed with this release. The folks over at the Kubuntu project deserve a huge round of applause for their continued work on this often forgotten Ubuntu sibling. This release is unlike any other that I’ve tried from Kubuntu, and I hope it marks a turning point in the distribution’s history. If the next release sees anywhere close to the improvement that this release did it may even unseat Ubuntu as the go to Linux release. If you haven’t tried out this release I urge you to give it a shot.

Ubuntu 10.0

Awards: The most refined. Most likely to be installed on a new Linux user’s computer.

Ubuntu makes a return from its last long-term support (LTS) release with this stellar offering. For a release that is meant to experiment with changes, which might eventually be incorporated into a future LTS release, this version feels as polished as ever. The new theme, font, store and integration features make this an absolutely solid release. If you’re an Ubuntu user I’m sure you have already upgraded. If you develop for a different distribution, this might still be worth looking into if only to steal the good parts for your release of choice. Either way I think this release of Ubuntu marks a whole new level of application integration on the Linux desktop and I am excited to see where they go next with it.

Linux Mint Debian Edition

Awards: The most advanced. Most likely to see the fastest improvement.

For people who have been using Debian for a while now this release will feel right at home. It combines the best parts of Debian testing, modern software, stability and thousands of packages, with the Linux Mint team’s renown ability to iron out the kinks in any Linux distribution. I think that this release will see so much improvement in the next couple of months that it has the potential to steal users away from other rolling release distributions with its easy to use desktop. While this current iteration does have some issues I hardly think that they are anything to run away from. For technical users looking for the newest stuff, while hoping avoiding the vast majority of headaches other distributions can cause, this one is for you.

My Choice

For me personally I have been very happy with Linux Mint 9 and look forward to version 10 when it ships later this year. Until then however I think I will be sticking with the one that most closely resembles my current set up. No not Linux Mint Debian Edition, but Ubuntu 10.10. That being said I do look forward to giving Fedora 14 and Linux Mint 10 a ride soon.

Continuing where we left off I am now ready to report my first impressions of Ubuntu 10.10. I should start by apologizing a little bit, this post is going up one day late (even though I had already finished writing most of it). With that out of the way let’s begin.

Install

The install, as one would expect, is exactly the same as the one featured in Kubuntu. As noted before I have nothing but praise for this installer and still think it is one of the best, if not the best, installer on any Linux distribution.

‘New’ Theme

The new theme found in this release of Ubuntu is beautiful. It’s hard to place exactly what makes this theme so nice but Canonical has done a wonderful job iterating the old theme from 10.04 and making some subtle changes that have an incredible overall effect.

This level of polish even extends to the new sound menu. Canonical has implemented new sound APIs which allow media players to integrated natively with the sound menu in a way that is just awesome.

Image Shamelessly Stolen Last Minute from Another Website

Heck even the calculator looks better with the new theme!

Software

As with my previous post, I decided to take a look through the default installed software and see how it presents Ubuntu as an all-in-one desktop experience.

Empathy (2.32.0)

The instant messaging client of champions… or at least those who thought Pidgin was too complicated. My understanding for why this client replaced Pidgin was that it was set to offer features (like audio and video calling) that Pidgin was simply too slow at incorporating. Up until this release that reasoning has been nothing more than a pipe dream in my experience. Yes some people have had better luck than others but I have never had it really work all that well. This time however I did get it to work and, after installing the Ubuntu Restricted Extras package, also got it to successfully negotiate a full video call with the proper Windows Live Messenger client.

Evolution (2.30.3)

First off I have to just say “wow”. The first time I used Evolution was back on Ubuntu 8.04 and I absolutely hated it. Now however I’m starting to sing a different tune. Evolution not only looks better but also performs better as well. It includes many features, like calendar and PGP integration, that my favourite e-mail client Thunderbird requires add ons to accomplish.

Furthermore it integrates completely into the Ubuntu message centre which is a nice touch. I can’t even get Thunderbird to minimize to the system tray on Linux. All told I must say that I’m very impressed with with this version of Evolution.

Gwibber (2.32.0.1)

Gwibber is Ubuntu’s answer to all of your social media sources. It has the ability to combine all of your feeds, from Twitter to Facebook, in one convenient location. From there you can easily catch up on what your friends are doing and interact with them, all from one easy to use centralized location.

Unfortunately this universal nature is exactly where the Gwibber experience starts to fail. Because it works with everything it often fails to excel at anything in particular. Because of that I just don’t see myself using this application all that often. It is nice that it integrates into the Ubuntu message centre though.

Firefox (3.6.10)

Ubuntu’s default web browser is Firefox which, let’s be honest, I’m sure you know all about. I will say one thing about this browser though; I hope Firefox 4 improves the speed significantly or I think it will continue to lose users to Chrome.

Transmission (2.04)

For downloading torrents Ubuntu 10.10 continues to ship with the Transmission BitTorrent client. It is a more or less unremarkable client that places a large emphasis on simplicity. It is also the only BitTorrent client I know that warns you not to pirate things.

It also might just be me but for some reason this version of Transmission seems to have more features than I remember.

Rhythmbox (0.13.1)

This version of Rhythmbox contains the Ubuntu One music store which I decided to poke around in for a bit. It seems to be a full capable store with many popular artists.

Unfortunately I did manage to make it crash in a rather hilarious way…

Yes that’s right, the Ubuntu One music store is being run off of a Microsoft IIS web server.

Rythmbox the program also suffers from some annoying issues which were well covered by Jon on one of his previous post. One that particularly annoys me is the encoding options. As long as you stick to the defaults the application is very easy to use, but the second you want to adjust the settings you get stuck trying to decipher GStreamer command line options.

Totem Movie Player (2.32.0)

For video playback we get stuck with Totem. Its not that I think it’s the worst video player in the world, it’s just that it doesn’t do anything particularly well. Back when I was using Kubuntu’s Dragon Player I felt the same way but at least Dragon Player was able to provide video playback devoid of various vsync issues. To be fair though this might be an issue with Compiz vs KWin and not directly related to the video software.

PiTiVi (0.14.5)

PiTiVi, besides having a horrible name, is actually a very good piece of software. It is essentially a Windows Movie Maker clone and makes no excuses for it, which in this case is probably a good thing. Within just a couple of minutes of never using the program before I was able to import the two free clips that come with Ubuntu, one movie and one song, strip the audio from the movie clip and replace it with the song’s audio. One button click later my movie was rendered in glorious 1080p. That’s a lot of p’s!

For those wanting a bit more power, the software also seems capable of rendering to any (logical) combination of containers and codecs you might have installed on your system.

Ubuntu Software Centre (3.0.4)

And finally the big one. This release brings with it the first paid application to the new app store. This has already  been written about quite a lot, and while I think its a good thing, I do have some issues with it. The biggest issue that I have is that with only one application in the store people will probably never check it out again, even if new applications are added later. In my opinion what they should have done was created a beta program that people could opt into and test the store out. That would have given Canonical the feedback they need while still not spoiling the store for potential future users.

Conclusion

This release of Ubuntu is a solid one and deserves much praise. While I could give or take on some of the default included software, but then again who couldn’t, I do think that this release has an overall polish that simply hasn’t been as strong in previous releases. This is what Ubuntu 10.04 should have been from the start and makes me look forward to what is still yet to come.

Pros:

• An unparalleled polish and sheen that no other distribution has
• An updated software roster that is showcases some of the best Linux application-desktop integration I have ever seen

Cons:

• While the polish is nice there really isn’t that much difference from 10.04
• The Ubuntu Software Centre store release may have been a bit premature

With the recent releases of Linux Mint Debian Edition, Ubuntu and Kubuntu 10.10 I am once again starting to feel that need to hop around and try something new out. That’s not to say that my current distribution of choice (Linux Mint 9) is a bad one, quite the opposite in fact. I am however curious to see what these new releases do, well, new. That being said I’ve set myself up a little experiment of sorts: try each distribution for two days each and on the 7th day choose the best from among the three. Now obviously this isn’t a very fair test, 48 hours is hardly enough to definitely test which of these distributions is truly the best. What it will, hopefully, show though is which distribution gives off the best first impression.

So buckle up and stay tuned, this week should hopefully be an interesting one.

Windows?? *GASP!*

Sometimes you just have to compile Windows programs from the comfort of your Linux install. This is a relatively simple process that basically requires you to only install the following (Ubuntu) packages:

To compile 32-bit programs

• mingw32 (swap out for gcc-mingw32 if you need 64-bit support)
• mingw32-binutils
• mingw32-runtime

Additionally for 64-bit programs (*PLEASE SEE NOTE)

• mingw-w64
• gcc-mingw32

Once you have those packages you just need to swap out “gcc” in your normal compile commands with either “i586-mingw32msvc-gcc” (for 32-bit) or “amd64-mingw32msvc-gcc” (for 64-bit). So for example if we take the following hello world program in C

#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
printf(“Hello world!\n”);
return 0;
}

we can compile it to a 32-bit Windows program by using something similar to the following command (assuming the code is contained within a file called main.c)

i586-mingw32msvc-gcc -Wall “main.c” -o “Program.exe”

You can even compile Win32 GUI programs as well. Take the following code as an example

#include <windows.h>
int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
char *msg = “The message box’s message!”;
MessageBox(NULL, msg, “MsgBox Title”, MB_OK | MB_ICONINFORMATION);

return 0;
}

this time I’ll compile it into a 64-bit Windows application using

amd64-mingw32msvc-gcc -Wall -mwindows “main.c” -o “Program.exe”

You can even test to make sure it worked properly by running the program through wine like

wine Program.exe

You might need to install some extra packages to get Wine to run 64-bit applications but in general this will work.

That’s pretty much it. You might have a couple of other issues (like linking against Windows libraries instead of the Linux ones) but overall this is a very simple drop-in replacement for your regular gcc command.

*NOTE: There is currently a problem with the Lucid packages for the 64-bit compilers. As a work around you can get the packages from this PPA instead.

Originally posted on my personal website here.

Last evening while reading the SA forums, I encountered a thread about Linux and what was required to bring it to the general public. One of the goons mentioned a post that indicated ten reasons why Ubuntu wasn’t ready for the desktop in India. I kid you not – the most ridiculous reason was because users couldn’t perform the important ritual of right click/Refreshing on the desktop five or more times before getting down to work.

Here are Bharat’s reasons why Ubuntu fails, followed by why I think Mint might succeed instead in its place (while still employing his dubious logic.) When I refer to Indian users, of course, I’m taking his word for it – he’s obviously the authority here.

GRUB Boot Loader does not have an Aesthetic Appeal.

Bharat complains about the visual appearance of Grub – how it does not create a good first impression. This is, of course, in spite of Windows’ horrible boot menu when there’s more than one operating system or boot option to select. Apparently Indian users all have full-color splash screens with aesthetic appeal for BIOS, video card and PCI add-in initialization as well; this is just the icing on the cake that makes them go “eurrrgh” and completely discount Ubuntu.

To improve relations with India and eliminate this eyesore, Mint has added a background image during this phase of boot. My good friend Tyler also informs me that there’s a simple option in the Mint Control Center called “Start-Up Manager” that alllows easy configuration of grub to match a system’s native resolution and color depth.

Login Screen-Users are required to type in their username.

Again, another seemingly impenetrable barrier. Has nobody in India worked in an environment where typing in usernames AND passwords is required – like, for example, posting a blog entry on WordPress or signing into Gmail? In any event, Mint’s GNOME installation definitely gives a clickable list for this awfully onerous task.

Desktop-The Refresh option is missing!

I’m just going to directly lift this description as to the burning need for right click / Refresh:

What does an average Indian user do when the desktop loads in Windows?He rights clicks on the desktop and refreshes the desktop about 5-6 times or until he is satisfied.This is a ritual performed by most Indian Users after switching on the computer and just before shutting down the computer.
When this average user tries to perform his ‘Refresh’ ritual in Ubuntu,he is in for a rude shock.The Ubuntu Desktop does not have a Refresh Option or any other simliar option like Reload in the Right Click Menu.
So I advice Ubuntu Developers to include to a Refresh or a Reload option in the right click menu on the Desktop and in the Nautilus File Manager.The option should be equivalent of pressing Ctrl+R.As of now ,pressing Ctrl+R refreshes the Desktop in Ubuntu.

Mint’s developers have unfortunately not come around to this clearly superior way of thinking by default yet.

Read more…

This blog post is about my experiences. If you hit this page from a search engine looking to fix this issue click here to skip to the solution.

Recently, I’ve been reorganizing my computers based on their usage. My old HTPC, has resumed its duties as my primary desktop/server, my Mac Mini has been attached to the my desktop through Synergy, my server was given to my brother for personal use, and his old computer – a nettop – is now being used as our new HTPC.

After a painful decision making process – a topic for another time, and another post – I decided that this nettop, named Apollo after the Greek god of many things including “music, poetry, and the arts” [as close as I could get to entertainment],  should run Ubuntu 10.4 with XBMC as the media center app. After testing it’s media playback capabilities from a local file, I was rather impressed. I set out to add a SMB share from within XBMC, and was prompted to add a username and password.

I wasn’t really expecting this, because Leviathan – my desktop/sever running Windows 7 – has public sharing turned on, as well as a guest account. I entered in my credentials, and was asked yet again for a username and password. After trying multiple times, I decided to quit XBMC and see if I could get Ubuntu to connect to the share. Here too, I was prompted for a username and password, again and again.

Next I headed to the terminal to run smbclient. This didn’t work either, as I was shown a message saying smbclient failed with “SUCCESS – 0″. I guess success shouldn’t be zero, so my next move was to attempt mounting the network share using CIFS. Again, I was met with repeated defeat.

Begrudgingly I took to the internet with my problem, only to find that there were many people unable to connect to their Windows 7 from Ubuntu. The suggestions ranged from registry hacks to group policy administration, none of which worked. One repeated suggestion however, was to un-install the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant. However, as a user of the Windows Live Essentials (Wave 4) Beta that was recently released – I had no such program. I did however have a similar application called the Windows Live Messenger Companion, which I chose to uninstall – again, to no avail.

However, I soon reasoned that perhaps whatever was blocking people using the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant was now being used within the actual Windows Live Messenger client or the other Windows Live Essentials apps that I’d recently installed. I started by uninstalling everything but Windows Live Messenger – because I really, really like the beta version. Alas, this did not help. Next I uninstalled the actual Windows Live Messenger client and voila – I was able to connect with no prompting for passwords at all. Because that makes -any- sense.

As a matter of interest, I installed the regular WLM non-beta client and made sure that the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant was installed, and tried to connect again. Not surprisingly, I was no longer able to connect to my Windows 7 shares. After un-installing the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant my shares were back up and I was mostly happy. Except that I couldn’t use the new Windows Live Messenger beta.

I can’t be sure if the other tinkering I did also helped clear up my problems, but as a recap here are the steps I recommend to access your Windows 7 shares from Ubuntu:

1) If you have the Windows Live Essentials (Wave 4) beta installed, you’ll have to uninstall all of the applications that come with this. For now, you can install the current version of Windows Live Messenger and the other Windows Live Essentials.

2) If you have Windows Live Messenger installed, or ANY of the Windows Live Essentials programs installed check to see if you have the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant installed. If so, uninstall it.

3) Hopefully, now you can enjoy your Windows 7 shares in Ubuntu

Important Note:

Beta software has this nasty habit of leaving beta status sooner or later. If this issue is not resolved when the newest version of Windows Live Messenger is officially released, you may not be able to use the Window Live Messenger client if you need your Windows 7 shares from Ubuntu. I would suggest using an application like Pidgin as your instant messenger, as it can also connect to the Windows Live Messenger service. Other options include Digsby, Miranda, and Trillian.

Originally posted on my personal website here.

When Ubuntu 10.04 was released it represented the most modern incarnation of Canonical’s premier Linux desktop distribution. However not all things were better in this release. For myself I immediately noticed a problem while trying to install the gnustep-devel development libraries for GNUstep and Objective-C. I was greeted with this oh so lovely error message:

Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
gnustep-devel: Depends: gorm.app but it is not installable
E: Broken packages

So essentially I was left with the following choice: install the missing Gorm.app package from the repository (which wasn’t there) or don’t install gnustep-devel. Thankfully it was pointed out to me that I could perhaps see if the package still existed in the Debian repository instead. So off to http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages I went and after a quick search I found what I was looking for! I recalled reading somewhere that Ubuntu synchronizes with Debian testing (A.K.A. squeeze) at the start of every round of development, so I figured that would be the best package to grab. A short download and install later Gorm.app was finally on my system. With the dependencies now met it was a breeze to install the rest of the development files using a simple

sudo apt-get install gnustep-devel

And there you have it. By installing a single package from the Debian repository you too can get around the problem. For reference I have also filed a bug report with Ubuntu at Launchpad here.

Originally posted on my personal website here.

Tonight I decided that I’d like to be able to do some web development from home. The basic suite is called LAMP, which stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP; the standard web developers toolkit. After a little bit of googling, I found this great guide from Tux Tweaks that walked me through the entire process. Once installed, my system hosted any files in the /var/www/ directory, and had MySQL and phpMyAdmin installed for database access.

Enjoy!

If any of you are using a Ubuntu-based distribution (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Linux Mint) and do any sort of Eclipse development, the current 3.5.1 package available with the distribution (3.5.1+repack~1-0ubuntu3) is missing the standard Galileo and 3.5 update sites in the Available Software Sites list:

This bug has already been reported to Launchpad, but here are the relevant sites you can add to enable Galileo updates and install new plugins:

Name: The Eclipse Project Updates
Location: http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/updates/3.5

Name: Galileo
Location: http://download.eclipse.org/releases/galileo

(This has also been cross-posted to my personal site, “Bus error”.)