Open Source "Free" Software

[Joe MacCarthy]

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Support on Linux
Jun Auza 4/08/2011

Installing Linux has become effortless to the extent that anyone with a little knowledge of computers can get a Linux machine up and running instantly. However, many of them throw in the towel when faced with even the slightest of glitches. The main reason for this is the belief that Linux doesn’t offer any kind of support.

Other problems users face is that the regular technician who repairs their computer refuses even to touch a machine that’s running Linux. So, if you are one of those users disgruntled after encountering a multitude of problems with a fresh Linux install -- don’t panic and read on to know some ways in which you could get support for your Linux installation.

1. Press F1 and RTFM

Yes, press F1 now! Distributions like Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE provide excellent documentation for almost all of their default programs. Simply press F1 and a nice little window pops-up to explain different parts of the User interface and common terminologies. Reading the documentation works mainly because many users think they face a glitch when in fact, they’re just unfamiliar with the user interface. Ubuntu users can get their hands on a very well written manual explaining Ubuntu step-by-step for free HERE. Fedora users on the other hand can benefit from a huge collection of common problems and their solutions listed HERE.

2. Forums

If your problem is slightly more severe, then leaving your query in the forums is a nice place to start. Every distribution has its own support forum, a link to which can easily be found on the distribution's main website. If your query is very general, then you might as well post it on linuxquestions.org, which is one of the most active forums for Linux.

For getting your point through, it is essential to pose your question clearly so that the other person can help you in the best way possible. Also, there is etiquette to be followed when posting questions on forums. This manual will teach you to ask questions the smart way so that you'll get an effective answer really quick. If you don't know where to start, here's a list of some of the most popular Linux forums out there:

3. IRC

What is IRC?
In case you're in need of quick help, then IRC is your best bet. IRC, which stands for Internet Relay Chat, is a form of real time Internet chat that allows instant group communication. These group communications happen in discussion forums called channels. Many developers and users hang out in their favorite channels either helping out other users or discussing software.

Getting Started
In order to get started with IRC, you'll need an IRC client. If you're using one of the popular distributions like Ubuntu, Fedora or openSUSE you'll find an IRC client preinstalled. For example, Ubuntu comes with Empathy instant messenger, which acts as an IM client as well as an IRC client. Other than Empathy, there are a lot of good IRC clients, which you can compare using this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IRC_clients

Because covering all the clients is beyond the scope of this tutorial, we've decided to keep this tutorial limited to Empathy. To start using IRC on Empathy, you first need to decide on a nickname. Once you've done that, go to Applications > Internet and open Empathy Internet Messaging. Now, if you see your ‘contacts’ list, go to Edit > Accounts (or press F4). Here you'll see a window where you can manage all your messaging accounts.

Then, on the left side, click on Add and choose the protocol as IRC. After that, just type in your nickname and your real name. Once you're done, click on Log In and close the window. Now that you are back to your contact list, click on the menu that says ‘Room’.

Then, type in the channel you want to join. If you are using Ubuntu it is #ubuntu, for Fedora it is #fedora. If you're unsure you can always find out more information on the distribution's website. Also, if you're looking for a complete list of IRC channels for Linux, here's a link:

Once you click join, you'll see people chatting around randomly about various computer issues. Here, you can pose your question by typing it in the text entry box at the bottom and pressing enter. You can expect your answer in a minute or two.

Being Nice
Even though IRC is the fastest way of getting help, sometimes you may not get your query answered quickly enough. One thing the user must understand here is the person on the other side is not working for you and that he is volunteering in his free time just to help you. So, be patient, be polite and help other users if you can. On IRC, as with every support medium on Linux, there is a code of etiquette. This code is to be followed strictly in many major channels and not doing so will get you banned. You can find the code of conduct for #ubuntu HERE.

Pastebin
Once in a while, another user helping you might ask you to type some command and post its output in the forum. Doing this helps the person properly diagnose the problem with your software. Since it is very inconvenient to post such long lines of code in a channel, it is advisable to use services like pastebin. First, copy the needed lines of code; then, go to pastebin.com and paste the code you just copied. Clicking on Submit will generate a unique URL, which you can give to the person solving your problem. He will visit the URL, see the code and hopefully solve your problem.

Further Reading:
Tao of IRC: http://www.irc.org/history_docs/tao.html
EPIX IRC guide: http://home.epix.net/~ircadmin/index.html

4. Mailing Lists

A mailing list is a list of email addresses identified by a single name such as mailinglist@kde.org. When an email address is sent to the mailing list name, it is automatically forwarded to all addresses in the list. To start using mailing lists, all you have to do is subscribe to a mailing list by providing your email id and setting a password. Once you've registered, you can start posting your queries to the mailing list's email address.

Other users will see your query, post their replies to the mailing list address then the reply will get mailed to you by the list. Similarly, you'll be able to see discussions of other users subscribed to the mailing list. The basic functioning of a mailing list is similar to that of a forum, except here, the reply gets delivered directly in to the user's inbox. To avoid cluttering your inbox, it is advisable to set up proper filters to high volume mailing lists. As far as etiquette is concerned, the same principles of politeness and patience apply. However, if you're looking for a thorough etiquette guide, here are some links:

a. http://www.gweep.ca/~edmonds/usenet/ml-etiquette.html
b. http://www.livinginternet.com/l/lu_etiq.htm

5. Buy professional support

The support methods mentioned above help solving most of the problems; however if you need something much more reliable, then you can always buy professional support. Remember that Linux is and will always be free, but running an expert support service requires a lot of money. Fortunately, buying support won't burn a big hole in your pocket; well, not as big as a $199 Windows 7 Home Premium does! Ubuntu offers professional support for just $105 a year, which includes features like installation and system administration support, access to knowledge base and much more. This is also suitable for small businesses who are looking for a fast and secure Windows alternative. If you are running a small business, Red Hat also offers affordable consulting services.

Conclusion

Even though Linux is not as popular as Windows, it is still a better operating system in many ways. Though initially you might find it a bit hard to use, but after using it for a while you'll get a hang of it. If you get stuck somewhere, feel free to ask your query to the Linux community because here, people are willing to help. Moreover, Linux is the only operating system that has such a strong community of users. Interacting with other Linuxers in forums and mailing lists not only solves your problems but also provides a great learning experience.

[Grizzly]

Of course I only have anecdotal evidence, but I am less than happy with my OpenSuse installation. My work issued laptop comes dualboot windows/OpenSuse. For some reason the sound doesn't work consistently (not at all in a web browser) - some issue with Pulseaudio.

Attempts to solve it:
-Talk to the IT guys ... Don't need web sound for work (they're also notoriously unhelpful).
-Google it ... A lot of similar problems but none that are exactly the same. Some solutions involving a kernel rebuild.

After an hour of the latter I gave up. But seriously, these are the issues that will stop people from migrating. Watching a youtube video should be something that simply works out of the box. If you want expert distros fine, but then OpenSuse should sell itself such. Now I'm a pretty capable Linux user - I use it at work - imagine telling grandma to go to the forums and find a solution.

In my experience Ubuntu was rather straightforward to install and get working (although I do recall having to have quite the software kludge to get wireless working some years ago).

In the end I think one of the biggest measures of a distro is the ability to be functional on all hardware configurations that normal users typically invoke (also supporting new ones as they manifest themselves).

Epilogue: In the end I didn't bother to change it to something else since not having sound helps me focus on work when I'm working. Still, I think it's a black mark to not have something like that working from install on a pretty common laptop (toshiba r500).

I have been very busy and haven't had time to answer this until now. Yes this is a completely anecdotal example. Any operating system can have problems with a certain bit of hardware, common or not, including Windows even though most hardware is designed to operate with Windows. If you don't think that similar problems can occur in Ubuntu, google "pulseaudio problem ubuntu". This type of stuff can occur on any OS. It would occur less often on Linux systems if companies would put even a small bit of effort into making their products Linux compatible but that is unfortunately not the case. That your company's IT guys would install an operating system on a computer and not get even basic functions working doesn't speak very well to their competency.

It only took me a couple of minutes to find some pretty easy solutions to problems with Pulseaudio on Suse. The opensuse site itself has the following: http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Pulseaudi...A_fall-back.29 Pulseaudio also has info on how to set it up properly and solve any problems: http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup The easiest solution, however, is probably just to upgrade the version of Suse you are running and the problem will probably fix itself. Opensuse 11.4 has been recently released. It is easy to install Suse and you just have to remember when installing it to select the upgrade setting not the complete new install. If you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself it is probably more convincing to say to the IT guys, "I want the newest version of SUSE" than "Get my sound working". However, given they did not do a good job of installing it before I would do it myself.

I think Suse is closer to an expert distro than Ubuntu but that does not mean it is any harder to use and the install is also very easy, if it is harder than Ubuntu to install it is only marginally so. My father uses Suse and finds it a lot easier to use than Windows so I don't think one can question its ease of use.

The main differences between SUSE and Ubuntu that would interest an average user are the desktop environment and what they contain. SUSE's native desktop environment is KDE while Ubuntu's is Gnome. A very rough comparison is that KDE is more similar to Windows while Gnome is more similar to a Mac. Both work fine, the one that one prefers is really a matter of taste/what you get used to. Both SUSE and Ubuntu offer versions of their distro in the other desktop but in general most distros tend to work better in their native environment. I have never used SUSE in Gnome so I can not comment on it but I did try the KDE version of Ubuntu, Kubuntu and did not like it all, ie. if you want to use Ubuntu, use Ubuntu not Kubuntu.

The other difference is what the distros contain. Ubuntu is a barebones version of Linux and purposefully so. Now calling it barebones in the Linux world does not mean it is barebones compared to Windows, indeed it contains a lot more than Windows and all free and not in trial versions that you need to buy later. Ubuntu is designed to be a very light and fast install that contains most of the things that a fairly basic user would need. SUSE is a much larger download and takes about 10 or 15 minutes longer to install though the person doing the installation does not have to do much more during the install than for Ubuntu, you just have to wait longer for SUSE to do its thing. The reason SUSE takes longer is it has a lot more programs that are pre-installed. Some users might never use these programs but I do and I would prefer to spend an extra 10 or 15 minutes during the install than having to spend time installing programs later.

Most of the programs in Linux that anyone outside of a real computer nerd is going to need can be installed on any common Linux distro. This is the problem I have with the Microsoft/Apple like marketing spiel of the article that was posted. There is some propriety software that is only available for certain distros but most of the opensource stuff we use on Linux runs on any distro. In other words, you can install all the extras that SUSE has on Ubuntu as well, you just have to take the time to install them individually. On the plus side you would save some disk space but unless you have a really small hard drive that is not much of an issue.

Also to mention the issue of popularity the Joe raises, Ubuntu tends to be very popular in English countries while Suse is very popular in continental Europe particularly in German countries. Ubuntu was developed by a South African and is now based in the UK while Suse was developed in Germany even though it is now owned by an American company. As much as Linux is often considered a computer geek realm, in my experience most people tend to not be that picky in selecting a distro and use what is popular in their area or what their friends use. Ubuntu also gained a lot of popularity by mailing their distro to people for free which was because its developer/owner was really rich and they had a business plan to make money on support so the more people who used it the better for them. Nothing wrong with that but it was a big reason for the success of Ubuntu as opposed to everyone uses it because it is so much better than other distros.

I think both are very good operating systems and it is a matter of preference which one one uses. I prefer KDE and to have a fuller version on install because while I am not a power user do use some things more than a basic user would so that is why I prefer SUSE.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Just a few notes. The Ubuntu pulseaudio issue is largely solved. It was a major pain in the arse when first implemented but the Ubuntu 10.x versions are pretty good. In fact I can't think of any issue I've had with 10.10, it is extremely good and I highly recommend it.

If you want to talk about something in Ubuntu (and some other distros) that is epic fail, it's dialup. A friend of mine bought a bunch of Thinkpad T40s. It's a great thin laptop solidly constructed of metal unlike the cheap plastic crap of today (but that's another story). He sells them to some friends in the sticks but they are only able to use dialup internet access.

Granted much of the problem here is that many modems are winmodems and there are hardware driver and compatibility issues with Linux. But as much as I love Ubuntu and their quest for world adoption they are totally ignoring a significant segment.

As for Ubuntu 11.04 (available in two weeks, beta 2 released today) the default desktop manager is Unity. Users can switch to Gnome but this is the last version of Ubuntu that will have Gnome installed. The idea is that Ubuntu will have one (the same) interface for every device from handhelds to netbooks to notebooks to desktops.

The one thing I love about Ubuntu is how much improves or changes over a release (six months). The installation in 10.10 is very user friendly even more so than it was in 10.04, I would hazard a guess that it couldn't get much easier.

Many years ago when I was looking at Linux distros I had narrowed my choice down to Suse and Ubuntu. What made my decision was that Suse was a five disc download and Ubuntu was one LiveCD and I prefer Gnome to KDE. They are both great distros.

I'm going to post an article on Ubuntu 11.04. This is a wholesale change for Ubuntu. It has a new interface (Unity) based on usability and artistic studies and "expert" developers on said subjects.

This is going to be a usability learning curve for many. I have seen a few articles though where people have basically said they don't like it and come back a few days later and recant, singing its praises.

Personally there are a few things about it I don't like. I like my menu on the bottom but this one is on the top and not changeable (I don't think). There are other options that are not configurable but that may change. Unity interface is largely ready but still has some bugs to work out but I hope many of you give it a shot when it is released at the end of the month.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Unity environment in good shape, on track for Ubuntu 11.04
Ryan Paul

In an ongoing mailing list thread, the Ubuntu Technical Board is discussing whether the new Unity environment is a suitable default for the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 release, codenamed Natty Narwhal. The prevailing view seems to be that Unity is still on track, but there are a number of technical issues that are still being addressed.

Unity is a new user interface shell and window management system that is designed to improve Ubuntu's ease of use and visual sophistication. A previous version of Unity served as the netbook user experience in Ubuntu 10.10. The plan for 11.04, codenamed Natty Narwhal, is to ship the much-improved new version of Unity as the standard user experience across desktop and netbook form factors.

Unity introduces a universal menu bar, a vertical task management dock that is anchored to the left-hand screen edge, and a set of overlays called "lenses" for accessing files and applications. Implemented as a plug-in for the Compiz window manager, Unity makes extensive use of compositing and hardware accelerated rendering to deliver elegant visual effects.

Many of the concepts behind Unity were drafted by a team of professional designers and software usability specialists with the aim of significantly improving the Ubuntu user experience. Their close attention to detail shines through in many aspects of Unity. The menubar is clean and highly functional. The sidebar dock is visually appealing and has excellent default behaviors for automatic hiding.



Although there is a lot to like in Unity, there are some aspects of the Unity environment that still feel unpolished and poorly thought out. The interface for browsing available applications sticks out as a particularly weak part of the user experience. The mechanism for switching between application categories is irksome and visually tacky. The lists of random packages from the repositories, which are presented as applications that are available for installation in the launcher, are distracting and largely superfluous.

Developing a complete user interface shell is a significant undertaking. The plan to deliver a new Compiz-based version of Unity in 11.04 seemed tremendously ambitious when it was presented at the last Ubuntu Developer Summit. It wasn't clear at the start of the cycle whether it would be ready on time. The most recent assessment of the desktop team and the Ubuntu Technical Board indicates that it is still on track.

In a mailing list post written this week, Ubuntu engineering chief Rick Spencer briefly outlined some of the remaining technical issues in order to open up further discussion about potential roadblocks. Bugs like crashers and memory leaks are said to be well under control.

"The Desktop Team still feels strongly that Unity will provide the better experience for most users, is stable enough to ship, and will be more stable by the time final media is spun," wrote Spencer. "In terms of the instability of the system, the Desktop and Dx teams report that most remaining instabilities in Beta 2 are crashers related to making changes in ccsm. These crashers, and the other known widespread crashers are either fixed in Beta 2, or are scheduled to be fixed in the current Dx milestone that ends this week."

Canonical's uncompromising commitment to conforming with the schedule of Ubuntu's time-based release cycle sometimes encourages a no-such-thing-as-a-blocker mentality that is not entirely conducive to robust releases. At the start of the Natty cycle, there was room for concern about a premature Unity release detracting from the quality of 11.04. It seems to be in good shape, however.

In such a far-reaching user interface overhaul, good first impressions are extremely important for achieving user acceptance. Spencer has set the right tone during this development cycle by defining high quality standards for Unity and subjecting it to disciplined scrutiny at regular intervals.

There is still a lot of room for improvement, but Unity is arguably a strong improvement over the conventional GNOME 2.x environment for day-to-day use. The breadth of the changes may be disorienting for some users, but most will like what they see when Unity lands on their desktop at the end of the month.

[Joe MacCarthy]

GIMP 2.8 May Not Come Until Late November
Michael Larabel April 18, 2011

GIMP 2.7.2 was released last week as a development stop in the road to GIMP 2.8, which itself was supposed to be released last December. But with the single-window user-interface lagging behind along with other work, GIMP 2.8 development dragged along with its limited number of core developers. It looked like it would just be a few more months until 2.8 was released, but with v2.7.2 just arriving, that's not likely to happen. Based upon a new tool developed by one of the GIMP developers, the 2.8 release isn't estimated to occur until the end of November.

Martin Nordholts, a software engineer at Sony Ericsson by day and GIMP / GEGL engineer by night, has been working to predict the GIMP 2.8 release. Martin's one of the most active GIMP contributors and wanted a way to estimate a GIMP 2.8 release date based upon outstanding work. The GIMP 2.8 release date matters for end-users, book publishers, translators, developers, distribution vendors, etc.

He wanted a tool that would provide a public web-page that would provide a graphic visualization of outstanding work and would be easy to maintain. Martin didn't find such a tool in existence so he created one for the GIMP project and others, it's called TaskTaste.com. He's written about it on his blog.

TaskTaste is tagged as a "simple and transparent planning and tracking of projects." It's licensed under the Apache 2.0 license and provides a means of estimating a target release date based upon outstanding bugs/work and estimating the time to correct each item.

In the case of the GIMP 2.8 Task Taste tracker, the release date is set for 25 November 2011. This date is based upon the size of all outstanding tasks (bugs) for GIMP 2.8 by using their bug tracker. That's nearly one year past the original slated release date for this major update to GIMP. Of course, the release date is subject to change and will hopefully end up being sooner.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Ubuntu Transforms Your PC Experience
BusinessWire April 21, 2011

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Canonical today announced the upcoming release of the Ubuntu operating system on April 28, 2011 for public download. Ubuntu 11.04 introduces Unity, Ubuntu’s new interface, which is simpler, easier to use and more beautiful than previous editions of Ubuntu. This is the culmination of two years’ design and engineering effort by Canonical and the Ubuntu community. Ubuntu 11.04 stands out from its competitors as a genuine free alternative to Windows, allowing users to personalize their PC with free and paid apps in a way that’s proven hugely popular in the smartphone and tablet market.

“This release breaks new ground for Ubuntu by offering users a PC experience that is stylish and efficient,” said Jane Silber, CEO of Canonical. “With this release Ubuntu will recruit an entirely new wave of users to free software. Ubuntu 11.04 is a high watermark for what has been achieved with open-source technologies for the everyday computer user.”

Ubuntu 11.04 takes advantage of modern graphics to provide a visually rich interface for the PC that is inspired by smartphone and tablet design thinking. For older PCs, Ubuntu will automatically determine if their graphics card supports Unity and provide a “classic” experience when Unity would not work. Users can also choose the classic desktop experience for familiarity or consistency or where there are large desktop deployments and not all can move to Unity immediately.

Users who install Ubuntu 11.04 will find a clean workspace with a launcher on the left-hand side of the screen. The same interface is used whether on a netbook, notebook or desktop PC. The launcher is configurable, allowing the user to choose which applications they want in a single click, while adding and removing applications is a snap.

Ubuntu 11.04 moves away from traditional interfaces, embracing fast and powerful search as the best way to find applications and files. This is a trend that comes to Ubuntu from the Web, where users have come to prefer search as the starting point for most journeys. Searching is hosted in the dash. The dash brings files, applications, music and video together in a single location. It’s all searchable through the same bar.

When seeking applications users will see the most recently used or installed apps and suggestions for apps to download through the Ubuntu Software Centre. Applications can be dragged to the launcher for easy access. An open application will be highlighted in the launcher while active, can be locked to the launcher if preferred, or will remove itself from the launcher when closed. Applications can be searched by name or by category, so whether a user knows the name of the app or not, it is instantly discoverable.

Searching for files is done in the same way. The system allows search by file name or by type. It will present most recent files, downloads and favorites. Clicking on a file opens it immediately. This marks a shift from the traditional “files and folders” approach to organizing files and introduces the search method that users prefer and will find much faster and more efficient. Files and folders can still be accessed in the traditional way, but testing suggests that users quickly embrace the new search-driven approach for everyday use.

There are numerous other enhancements that users will enjoy. A “global menu” for most pre-installed apps means the menus for all applications will be in the same place at the top of the screen. Menus are shown only when needed, which means a less cluttered, cleaner experience. Users can switch between multiple screens easily, further reducing clutter on any workspace. There are dozens of handy keyboard shortcuts to navigate quickly through screens and applications. The volume indicator allows a user to adjust the volume and queue, play, switch and stop the music - without ever having to go to the music playing app.

Touch screens are fully supported in Ubuntu 11.04. Gestures trigger actions like scrolling, workspace-switching and expanding and contracting screens. Canonical and the Ubuntu community continue to add touch and gesture support to common applications.

The Ubuntu Software Centre has been integrated with the dash and allows users to add applications to their system in a few clicks. Reviews and ratings of the applications have been added so that users can participate on a whole new level, sharing their experiences of applications and helping others find the best apps. Games from publishers like Introversion have been added and will continue to appear to extend the range of software available to users.

Ubuntu One is a cloud service for individual users. It offers free online syncing and sharing solutions for contacts and files, combined with a music streaming service currently available on both iPhone and Android platforms anywhere in the world. The official version of the Windows client is coming soon, with a major upgrade to the public Beta available now for testing.

As well as delivering increased speed and performance for file syncing, users adopting Ubuntu One can now access their files on Android, import contacts from Facebook and experience full contact syncing with Gmail. Feature updates for music streaming include additional supported file formats and playlist management. Ubuntu One extends the value of Ubuntu beyond the computer on which it runs. New services are frequently added to Ubuntu One, so there is always something new for users to discover and enjoy.

For the first time ever, it will be possible to test-drive Ubuntu online using only your browser. Visitors to Ubuntu.com will be able to access a complete version of the latest product without having to download anything. All that is required is an Internet connection and an open mind.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Ubuntu Linux 11.04's Target Audience: Casual Windows Users
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols April 21, 2011

Do you use Windows not because you like it or there’s some specific Windows-only application that you must use but because it’s what came on your PC? If that’s you, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, wants you to try their soon to be out Ubuntu 11.04 Linux desktop.

When I talked with Canonical marketing manager Gerry Carr, I hadn’t expected him to say that. Over the last few years, Linux desktop vendors haven’t really tried to take on Windows head-on. Oh, to be certain, I think the Linux desktop is great. I’m writing this story on Mint 10, an Ubuntu variant, and I use openSUSE 11.4, Fedora 14, and MEPIS 8.0 on other PCs and laptops. But, I know most people are content to use Windows because that’s what comes on their PCs. Carr thinks though that with Ubuntu 11.04’s new desktop interface and a few other tricks up Canonical’s sleeve, Ubuntu can win over “casual Windows users.”

Carr told me that Canonical has been working on “transforming Ubuntu to bring it to mainstream market. Yes, it has better security; yes it’s open source; but Ubuntu, and other desktop Linux distributions, lacked real reasons to switch for Windows users who don’t think about operating systems. We needed to develop a better choice for default Windows users. We need to break them out the jail of habitual Windows use.” Canonical’s way to do that is with Unity.

Besides just having an interface that doesn’t look like either most versions of Windows or Linux, Unity is meant to work in a different manner. For example, Carr notes that while you can use folders and files to organize your files, you don’t have to. “Search has become essential to how we organize Ubuntu. You no longer have to remember where you put files. Unity will take care of finding them for you.”

Another change is in how you work with active applications. With Unity’s indicators, application icon controls that enable you to see what’s what with your active programs and enable you to work with them, you can use an application’s functionality without needing to minimize one program and maximize the other. So, for example, “if you’re playing music using Ubuntu’s media-player Banshee you can use the volume control indicator to select tracks to play rather than going to Banshee, The communications indicator gives you access to all your instant messages and e-mail in the same way.

Unity as First Person Shooter

The idea for this kind of non-invasive heads-up information display and control comes from, according to Carr, first person shooter games. “You want to know how much ammo you have, you want to know what your buddies are saying, but at the same time your attention can still be focused on the job you have at hand.”

Both Windows and Linux users, said Carr, in testing liked the Unity desktop a lot. “It was different, of course, but they didn’t find it difficult to use. The feedback was very positive and they found the small learning curve was worth it for the great benefits.”

The point of all this is to make a desktop that lets you to be “Less of you as administrator and more of a user.” Personally, I don’t care for that. But, then I wouldn’t be a Linux user if that had been the case. Generally, speaking Linux users love getting their hands dirty with system internals. If we were talking cars instead of operating systems, old-school Linux users would be the sort who do all their own engine work on their manual-transmission, sports cars. But, Unity isn’t meant for us, so much as it is for casual Windows users and people who just want their computer to work with as little fuss and muss as possible. For these, Unity might be exactly what they want… if they can see it.

I asked Carr how Canonical plans on getting Ubuntu 11.04 in front of more users, and he told me that the company has numerous active original equipment manufacturers (OEM) deals in the work. Thus, you can expect to see a lot more PCs and laptops with pre-installed Ubuntu on sell by early May.

Would-be Ubuntu users will also, “starting in early May, be able to go to Ubuntu.com and use an Ubuntu single sign-on system to play with the 2D version of Ubuntu 11.04 from an Ubuntu cloud-based instance.” In short, Carr concluded, “We’re trying to break down all the barriers to entry that we can, especially for Windows users and we think the online trial will be a major accelerator.”

I’ll give them credit for trying. It’s certainly a different way to bring a new desktop to Windows users. In my own work with Unity, I have to say I like it more than I thought I would and it’s amazingly fast especially considering it’s a beta. I think it just might be that Ubuntu may indeed bring a substantial number of Windows users over to Linux. I’m not willing to bet on it though.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Not to be confused with the Pencil 2D animating program posted here previously - JM

Pencil for easy UI mockups
Michael Hall April 30, 2011

When I recently started my new side project, Read Feeder, I wanted to do some quick UI mockups before I started coding. Normally I would do this with a physical pen and paper, but I wanted to move into the 21st century and find a way to efficiently make mockups on the computer (also, there wasn’t a pen and paper nearby, and I didn’t feel like getting up to find one).

I considered using Inkscape or Gimp, but those tools really aren’t meant for this, it would take an awful lot of work to force them into that role. Jorge Castro pointed me to an AskUbuntu post, where it was recommended to try Pencil (Windows/Linux), a very nice looking and (even better) GPL licensed program designed specifically for making UI mockups. Even more interestingly, it seems to be written entirely in XUL and Javascript, the same thing that powers Firefox and Thunderbird.



It’s not often that I find an app that is really, really intuitive, but this one nails it. Within minutes I was feeling productive, everything did exactly what I expected it to do, all the features I looked for were right where I first looked for them, and it just plain made things easy for me to do. I’m not a usability expert, so I can’t say exactly what they did right, but they certainly did something right. Lots of somethings. I can’t remember the last time I felt at home with a new program so quickly.

The first thing I noticed was that Pencil is aware of all the other components you’ve placed on the screen, and helps you keep them lined up with each other. It does this by both overlaying guide lines that let you match the top, bottom, and middle of other components, and also by snapping new components to those positions as you drag them around the screen. Being someone who is very particular about these kinds of things, even on mockups, I found this to be a very welcoming feature.

Another nice feature Pencil provides is the ability to use an existing page as the “background” for a new page. This lets you lay out the new page to match the existing one, almost like using tracing paper. You can also select multiple items from the existing page, and copy/paste them into the new one.

Since copy/pasting so many elements, even groups of elements, would become a tedious task when you have something common to so many screens, like the Read Feeder header, Pencil allows you to convert the combinations of items you make into reusable widgets that act like any of the other Pencil widgets. Doing this you can quickly build up a library or reusable components for your project, without having to plan it out ahead of time.

Speaking of widgets, Pencil comes with an assortment of them for different platforms, including GTK, Windows, even Web! It also has a library of “Native Widgets”, which I assume will change depending on your current platform. It even comes with a library of “Sketchy” widgets, which have a hand-drawn look to them, which is something that is popular when doing mockups, even when more polished widgets are available.

All in all, I’ve been very impressed with Pencil, and I would highly recommend it to anybody who wants to do some UI mockups for any kind of project. Unfortunately it isn’t currently in the Ubuntu repos, nor do it’s developers provide a .deb package for it at all. Maybe if I have some time I’ll take the initiative to package it for Debian and Ubuntu. For now you can just extract the .tar.gz and run it directly.

[The Ref]

Question for Mr. MacCarthy. I acquired a laptop with Windows 7 and I have installed LibreOffice suite. All works fine. My question is whether it is possible to have two separate icons on the desktop, one to open Spreadsheet directly and another to open Text Doc. directly, instead of the single icon that opens a dialogue window to choose from it Spreadsheet, Document, etc.

[Joe MacCarthy]

^But of course you can. I'm not too familiar with Win 7 so I'll give you the instructions for Win XP as they are likely the same, if not let me know.

One way might be to drag the program from your Start and then All Programs LibreOffice menu to the desktop. You may (or may not) have to hold the ctrl key while you are doing this or it will move the shortcut from the menu instead of copying to the desktop. If it does move instead of copying you can always drag (move) it back to the Start-All Programs-LibreOffice menu

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Another way is to go Start and then All programs then LibreOffice and right click on LibreOffice Writer and then left click create shortcut. This will create a second Libreoffice(2) shortcut which you can drag to the desktop and then rename (get rid of the (2))

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And yet another way

Right click on the desktop and left click New-then Shortcut. Click browse and browse to My Computer C:\Program Files\LibreOffice 3\program

Inside the program folder you'll find swriter (Writer word processor) and scalc (Calc spreadsheet), simpress (Impress Presentations) sbase (Database), sdraw (Drawing app) and smath (Formula creator)

Click on swriter, then ok then Next and then rename it to what you want (it will say swriter as default)

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Sorry if the above sounds confusing, I didn't explain it very well. If you have problems report back and I'm sure someone here will explain it better than I did.

Two other things. You may have a folder of LibreOffice installation files on your desktop, that can be deleted. As can the desktop LibreOffice main menu icon (if you don't want it on your desktop)

I think you'll find LibreOffice better than OO.o and also find it more progressive. As predicted, Oracle has realized they've lost the fight and dropped OO.o so you've made the right choice.

And if you've got an extra PC lying around you can give Linux a shot, I am becoming a fan of the new Unity interface in Ubuntu 11.04