Crap and Rap about my life
Posts tagged Ubuntu
Do you ubuntu?
May 2nd
You know that thing that happens on your computer, when you are using Windows? You ask it to do something, It replies you with, “are you sure ?” , and then thinks about it, and then it keeps thinking, and then you go off and make a cup of tea, and it’s still thinking, and you want to headbutt the wall, again and again, until gets all smeared and red and bloody and bits of your brain are raining down on to your shoes? Yes? Well, there’s a way to stop that happening. Stop using Windows. Use Ubuntu instead.
Ubuntu is an operating system. If you are the one who don’t know what that is, better stop reading and continue looking at the hourglass. The latest version of Ubuntu was just released. You can head over to ubuntu.com and get your copy now. burn it into a CD and install it. If you are lucky enough (actually if can read english and follow the install instructions carefully), you will end up with whats called a boot menu, where you can ‘dualboot’ your windows and your shiny new ubuntu.This new version of ubuntu comes with some nice new features. You can read all about it on the ubuntu homepage.
My ubuntu setup is much faster than my vista, which seems to do nothing but install updates and show me blinking screens asking for stupid confirmations. Yes I have heard of windows 7, and I have not tried it out yet. Is it available for free? Does it promise me a virus free experience? Does it promise it wont go slow after 6 months of use ?
“Ok I will try out ubuntu” you say, “but does it run word ? ” . Umm well no. It does not run word or any windows program for that matter (remember you are using ubuntu to get rid of windows) . It does have alternatives and pretty decent ones they are. Heard of OpenOffice ? Firefox ?
Oh and to the gamers out there, Ubuntu does not run <insert your favorite game here> . There i said it! These games are built for windows only. Unless you plan to get a shuttle J1 or G2, get a console. PS3 preferably.
Hmm. I’m going on a bit, aren’t I? Look, I’m not an anti-Microsoft freak, I swear. I run XP quite happily on all my dad’s machine, because it works just fine and I don’t want to hear my dad complaning that his favorite media player wont work with ubuntu. But on the big Dell tank that sits on my lap, it’s Ubuntu all the way. Now the new version is out, you should try it, too. Download it, put it on a disk, stick it in the drive and see what happens. You can run it from there, if you want, or you can tell it to install alongside whichever OS you’ve got on there already. Personally, I dual boot with Vista, although I’ve barely used Vista three times in six months. The sole reason I do this is because Ubuntu won’t run some ‘xyz only for windows app’ .
Ubuntu LTS Hardy Heron
Feb 3rd
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS(Long term support) alpha – 4 has been released. Its code named Hardy Heron. I decided to take it for a run and here are my first impressions
First a note: Alpha means the software is waiting to crash. It in development stage , so unless you are a developer or you have a spare space to waste, dont install this.
Every time a new ubuntu release comes up, It surpasses my expectations. With their release cycle so short, its amazing how much innovation the developers manage to put it. There are some hot new features and lots of fixes (a lot of them from the kernel).
PulseAudio is what everybody has been talking about. Its refreshing to see, linux moving away from Alsa and OSS. Although both have served Linux well over the years, todays applications demand much more. Pulse Audio will for the first time bring among other features, independent controlling of volume for individual applications and support for streaming audio to multiple devices at the same time and trasferring a audio stream from one device to another realtime. Although right now its just a frontend to alsa and ESD, apps using pulse audio directly for its sound server should popup soon. Read more about PulseAudio here
Another very significant architectural change in Ubuntu 8.04 is the inclusion of GIO and GVFS. These are again under high development, GVFS replaces the antiquated GnomeVFS library and uses the D-Bus interprocess communication protocol to coordinate between various daemons that handle mounting and file operations. There are still a few bugs that need to be resolved to call it stable, but inclusion in the next version of Ubuntu, will surely help. It already provides a few new features that are visible to the user. In particular, Nautilus will now queue up long file transfer operations and display them in a single window rather than spawning a separate window for each file transfer operation. The screenshot below demonstrates the result. It definitely looks very useful. Another user feature that should show up soon will be the ability to pause file transfers. Its surprises me, why no operating system has this built in.
Ubuntu 8.04 also adds PolicyKit, a new framework for secure privilege escalation. In the future this will completely replace gksudo. Unlike gksudo, which grants elevated root privileges to an entire program, PolicyKit makes it possible to isolate privileged actions and make them accessible to programs through a D-Bus interface. . This approach provides a much higher level of security and also gives administrators more flexible control over what operations are accessible to individual users. PolicyKit still uses password prompts like gksudo, so the difference to end users will be minimal. In some system configuration utilities, like the network settings tool, there are now Unlock buttons which, when clicked, will present the user with a password prompt before making privileged elements of the user interface accessible. This will open a whole new world of possibilities for applications. Imagine
There are a handful of other subtle improvements in Ubuntu 8.04 that are already present in this alpha release. The panel clock applet, for instance, has been improved to include support for displaying weather information and times for multiple locations in its expanded view, which is something i really love. For my work, I ocassionally need to look up other timezones, this will make life so much simpler. Ubuntu 8.04 also replaces the unmaintained GNOME BitTorrent client with Trasmission, a cross-platform BitTorrent client that offers a nice GTK interface for Linux. Also new is the Brasero CD burning program and a much-improved System Monitor utility with a rich Cairo-based visual display. Although I would like Cairo integrated into X itself, but right now it seems thats quiet far away,since X development is slow and very painful.
Although many of the significant architectural features like PulseAudio and GIO are still in transitional stages and aren’t fully functional yet, Ubuntu 8.04 alpha 4 is still very impressive. I’m a big fan of D-Bus, and I’m very pleased to see it being adopted throughout the entire desktop stack in core components. It will be very helpful to small time developers like me, to reach parts of gnome, which would otherwise take a lot of effort to reach. A complete visual refresh, including new artwork, icons etc. is also planned for the Ubuntu 8.04 which should be very exiting. (maybe down with brown!!! 
) . There are a lot of kernel improvement, which I have not talked about here. Overall Ubuntu Hardy is something I will be keenly waiting for in the coming months.
