Ubuntu Musings

It seems that Xandros has bought Linspire; read the official press releases here and here. Interesting, because here are two Linux distros with Windows-like interfaces, two companies that have made deals of some sort with Microsoft, and two companies that are often reviled by the Linux community.

I tried Linspire in the past. It was OK, but nothing special — relatively easy to use but dog slow to boot up compared to Ubuntu. And its wireless support … well, to say it could have been better is an understatement. Of course, I use Xandros on my Eee PC.

To be honest, I can’t see what this deal does for either company. Xandros is, in my opinion, a superior distro to Linspire. Xandros might want to integrate Linspire’s Click ‘n Run service with its own offerings, but it might have been cheaper create a home-grown version.

A few weeks back, I wrote about Wine, an Open Source app that enables you to run a bunch of Windows software on Linux. Wine also has a commercial counterpart, CrossOver.

If you’re interested in learning more about CrossOver, then read this article that I recently wrote. It gives you an overview of how to use CrossOver, and what it can (and can’t) do.

Unfortunately, Codeweavers — the folks behind CrossOver — released version 7 of the app just before the article was published. So, the list of bottles in the article is incomplete. It should also include a Windows Vista bottle. If only they could have waited a couple of weeks …

One of the persistent myths of surrounding Linux is that you need constantly use the command line. That hasn’t been the case since … well, I don’t know when. There are so many good window managers for Linux that you never have to open a terminal window unless you really want to.

Well, one Linux user is embarking on an interesting experiment. He’s going completely command line for 30 days. Yep, GUI free. All terminal all the time.

He’s blogging about this experiment daily. It should make for an interesting read.

I don’t know how many Linux utilities there are out on the Web for viewing graphics. I’ve tried a lot of them, and a good number have been useful. But I’ve found feh to be one of the best of the lot. feh is a small application, and is simple to use. While you can run feh from a window manager, it’s best used at the command line. Just:

1. Open a terminal window
2. Navigate to the folder containing the images you want to view
3. Type the command feh followed by the name of an image file

A new window opens, displaying the image.

That doesn’t sound too exciting. And, to be honest, it isn’t. But feh is great for viewing multiple images. Include a wildcard (like *.png) with the command, and feh will display all the files with the extension that you specify. Just click the image window or press the Page Up or Page Down keys to move between the images.

While feh can’t edit or save files in different formats, it’s a great tool for quickly viewing graphics or photos and for creating impromptu slide shows.

Although you probably can’t tell, I actually write for a living. I do about half my work on the Web using Google Docs, and the other half on my desktop using … well, a number of applications.

For some of the things that I write, and some of the publications that I write for, I use a few simple templates. Instead of going through the whole process of starting an application and creating a new document from a template, I stumbled across an interesting way to do it on the Xubuntu desktop. Continue reading »

Last week, I pointed out a blog post that examined several reason people don’t make the switch to free and Open Source software (and, by extension, Linux), and counters to those reasons. The post was a tad harsh and blunt.

On the flip side of the coin, here’s a post that offers advice that’s quite a bit more gentle and potentially more successful. The three steps that the writer advises are:

• Make sure you’re comfortable with Linux
• Refuse to do any Windows support
• Don’t take the first step

I was going to write a post about excuses people use for not adopting Open Source applications and/or Linux. But someone beat me to it. The author of the post makes some good points, albeit in a very harsh, blunt tone.

Like the author of that post, I keep hearing people tell me that my favourite application doesn’t run under Linux or software x doesn’t look like software y.

As for the first point, why not see if it runs under Linux using something like Wine or CrossOver Office. If not, then explore one of the Open Source alternatives.

As for the second point, I’ll let the author of the post speak for me:

Buttons may be in different places than you expected, learn things, find them and do it. Trivial prior knowledge of button locations is not an asset, but a mental deficiency, when every menu has labels.

Thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment.

If you haven’t checked it out, I suggest that you give Full Circle Magazine a look. It’s a free publication for the Ubuntu community (though not created by Ubuntu) that always has something interesting in it.

The magazine is distributed as a PDF, although an HTML version is also now being produced. While not every issue of Full Circle Magazine interests me, most do — usually the articles on software that I haven’t used or heard of, or the how-tos.

You’ve probably heard of the Windows tax (the extra amount that you pay for having Windows installed on a PC). But some people have pointed out a Linux tax — a premium that’s added to the cost of a computer that you buy pre-loaded with Linux.

This blog post at the O’Reilly Network discusses what this so-called Linux tax is, and what it’s worth. At least, what it’s worth to the author.

I have to agree with him. In a few months, I plan to buy a new notebook pre-loaded with Linux. It’ll be customized — big hard drive, lots of RAM, and a faster processor — and (as it turns out) will cost about the same as a comparable system from Dell. But even if it was more expensive, I’d still go with the company that I’ve chosen.

According to this article, version 1.0 of Wine is set for release on June 20. That’s great news, especially for a project that’s had its fits and starts. But the folks behind Wine and the volunteers who made it possible have done a fantastic job.

Wine, in case you’ve never heard of it, enables you to run many Windows applications under Linux. It works some magic and fools an application into believing that it’s interacting with Windows and not Linux. And that’s some tough magic to pull off.

Continue reading »