Showing posts with label Ubuntu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ubuntu. Show all posts
I had the great honor to interview Mr. Jonas Smedegaard while we participated in the Mini Deb Conference 2011 India at NITTE college, Nitte near Mangalore this October. Simple outfit, humorous talk, and the friendly behavior of his captured everybody's attention. After the second tiring session at supper, Jonas and Isat down in his room to explore his views on Debian, Freedombox, the community and other cool topics. Along with us, there were a few developers present from FSMK (free software movement karnataka) and Pune.
Here is the synopsis of what we heard from him for about an hour.
It took an anonymous mail from an Australian developer to turn a Danish technologist, Jonas Smedegaard, to switch to Debian packaging. We know extracting a Debian package is a default option with ArchiveExplorer, and its quite simple as par with other packaging methods ,.tar.bz , tar.gz to name a few.
“It was around 2000-2001 when I moved to Debian, before that I tried my luck with Red Hat and Suse with lesser degrees of success, even Debian was a bit strange for the “First time”.
Debian is for ?
Students or developers who enjoy change and wish to explore the flexibility of their system should be encouraged to use Debian
Students or developers who enjoy tweaking their system and wish to explore the flexibility of their system should be encouraged to use Debian. It’s amazing for those who enjoy and love hacking …I strongly recommend to those who love to hack.
Only Hackers? I asked ; he says , see we are very free and strong freedom means strong ties which gives podium to a strong community in the making. I like the values that Debian holds and love my freedom with it. I would say these things to people who are not into debian. For those who says” I already use this “, then I would respond a bit differently, either technically or philosophically to tailor the message to that individual. I would see first where they are slanted to then I would go with my explanation. Even on during my journey I met some enthusiast , tried to figure out what they use their system for and recommended them UBUNTU.
Debain developers from India...
“Now it is clear to see where the benefit is in the free software movement. Such as finding the possible ways to gain with investing our money; both in personal level taking time to learn about free software instead of learning about how to get a job at Microsoft”.
“Now it is clear to see where the benefit is in the free software movement. Such as finding the possible ways to gain with investing our money; both in personal level taking time to learn about free software instead of learning about how to get a job at Microsoft”. He thinks that it’s easy now, for the most part, to make a living by working with free software. It’s also the same for both larger, commercially oriented, organizations and government organizations.There are also other benefits because its now stabilized and more concrete how free software is working. Now it is stable running on desktops and it is being massively used on servers so there are other benefits for third world places. We are using a lot of things from other countries and we are outsourcing a lot of industries. But in some developing countries you can have the benefit of not having to lean on or depend on other countries. So, when you exchange money with other countries,you lose every time. Keep in mind I’m just talking broadly,however. I don’t know India enough to compare directly. But when I'd to India, it’s crazy the differences in values of money compared to places like Denmark: what I buy here may cost something very different in Denmark. Coca-Cola for instance costs many times more than what you would pay for here in India. This illustrates that anything you can pay for and produce locally would be a big gain. The rest of the world doesn’t care about this, but this is an area you can really gain! I hope that in next coming year this problem is stable and actually you move faster gain and growth of users in of free software in the developing countries.
Work at Debian..
We have a cell based development:what I am doing, I might inspire others, but its not the whole crowd who is moving along. It’s not populism, we have small fractions and each of the fraction is encouraged to work as fraction
When asked about how they take their work at Debian he replies,” there is no specific goal for Debian and they don’t work like that in Debian. There are passionate people in debian, all working towards it. We don’t have strong leadership. You can say that we have very weak leadership but that’s the wrong perception, that’s the wrong way to explain the whole situation. We have a cell based development:what I am doing, I might inspire others, but its not the whole crowd who is moving along. It’s not populism, we have small fractions and each of the fraction is encouraged to work as fraction, so that each of the fractions put their passion to optimize the area then we try to mingle and place everything together and that’s one of the reasons. Also, it takes a lot of time. We focus primarily on whatever we want to focus on and, secondarily, we try to make everything fit together. So it is a big, big patch work. So, if you say what is the main field of the patch work then well nobody is knitting the patchwork together as a hierarchy. It’s all the pieces that are knitting themselves and attaching to each other. So you cannot ask “what is the main theme of the Debian team?” We are a big organism and each part of the organism is growing at its own pace and its ownstyle.
Ubuntu, a challenge for debian?
It feels that the whole birth of Ubuntu has had a major impact on the Debian. The whole relationship between Debian and Ubuntu has been a struggle, but he also feels today that there have been a tolerance and acceptance of Ubuntu. There are also things that Debian forgets to give back to their upstreams, so this is wholly dynamic. The ecosystem of free software is wholly dynamic and is maturing as its gets more and more complex. Further to add to this he says ,”You cannot say anymore that there’s an author, than there is the distributor, than there’s the user because in the old days it was never called Fedora, it was called Redhat and Debian and some others and we were the distributors with the authors shouting at us because we were messing up with their code because they thought we were getting in between the users and them.
Message to Cannonical...
Ubuntu is helping us a lot, but its sometimes frustrating how they do it, but it is helpful and the funny thing is Ubuntu is our user. They are using our distribution, and fundamentally all of our Debian developers have made an oath to the community that we work for free software and our users.”Now as distributors, we feel that the re distributors are getting in the way between us and our users, so it’s like history repeating itself. We have to get over that and realize that there is clearly a need for Ubuntu obviously because they wouldn't have been successful if there was no need for them. So, we have to swallow the bitter pill and we have to accept that we are not directly in dialogue with all of our users,only a small fraction of them. Probably because we are in dialogue with users which are more hard core and are able to become developers at some point. Not actually the Debian developers with capital D, but those who want to give back. They don’t need to be mentored like Ubuntu to give back to us. Ubuntu is helping us a lot, but its sometimes frustrating how they do it, but it is helpful and the funny thing is Ubuntu is our user. They are using our distribution, and fundamentally all of our Debian developers have made an oath to the community that we work for free software and our users.”
Message to Cannonical...
“Stop doing this! Stop doing that”, was the first reaction of JasonSmedeggerd to Canonical but, later he just wishes good luck to the Canonical team for whatever they are doing.
Ubuntu is Debian’s child who has left home and that’s painful, frustrating, but its good.He asserts that Debian team doesn’t have any kids, but he supposes that the only thing to say is to be his kid to be home. You can try to educate them, you can help guide the child while at home, but when they leave home well good luck with whatever they are doing. Ubuntu is Debian’s child who has left home and that’s painful, frustrating, but its good.
Handful number of linux distributions, good or bad?
When asked about confusion to a user on which one to choose, he puts his thoughts this way; Life is tricky and challenging and that is good. I would be worried if life is too simple. You grow fat if you have chosen a simple life. That’s not healthy. He finds no concrete example to support his idea and he straightforwardly clears that don’t choose Linux if you can’t handle complexity.
But, there are simple ones like Ubuntu, and that worries him. He encourages people to explore personally believes Debian is a place to explore and again- if you don’t want to explore then don’t use Debian because it would go against what you want to use with your tool. Further, he urges people to use Windows to carry out businesses and if they want to be creative, but without being creative with computers then use a Macintosh.
If you want to peruse the business world then I would recommend you to use windows.
If you want to be creative, but without being creative with computers then you should use a Macintosh.
But, there are simple ones like Ubuntu, and that worries him. He encourages people to explore personally believes Debian is a place to explore and again- if you don’t want to explore then don’t use Debian because it would go against what you want to use with your tool. Further, he urges people to use Windows to carry out businesses and if they want to be creative, but without being creative with computers then use a Macintosh.
Freedombox..
As a geek, you would pick your tool OS that you are sure he is the right person you are talking to. And you will be sure that he is talking to you and not the rest of world because you want him to open the curtain of talk.
When asked about Freedombox, he clearly defines it as a project to isolate/steal the good way to us geek conserving key control of our privacy, and making him do the privacy for our non-technical privacy. To illustrate this he exemplifies this as getting in touch with someone and chatting with them and not getting interrupted. To add more, if you wanted to get in touch with him and you wanted to chat with him to discuss something but not about home, about some real good chatting. As a geek, you would pick your tool OS that you are sure he is the right person you are talking to. And you will make sure that you are talking to you and not the rest of world because you want him to open the curtain of talk. So that you are in control of who you are talking to and verification of whom you are talking to.It’s just like mechanism of personal privacy. What freedom box gives is when two people are talking about their problem they make sure that they are talking only to each other without someone interrupting in between.
Debian and Freedombox’s passion is to making how to make geeky things geekier and they are working on things which are close to themselves
There is a thought that geeks are driven by an attitude to crack. Those things which geeks do are driven by passion. Apparently, very few geeks have a passion in doing something that strives also for perfection. It took us many users to come to the year of Linux desktop because we don't use user friendly desktops. You must have seen that geek’s desktops are very ugly; they use it not because it’s ugly, but because it’s very efficient so they don’t care about policy that much. If you hire someone then they are likely to focus more on what they want. Like Ubuntu, they hire people to do things that we geeks don't do naturally as geeks such as polishing the desktop. Freedombox project is only a project driven by passion.Nobody is taking the task to making it user friendly and none of us are taking responsibility to talking to someone with good design sensibilities because it’s not our passion to make it user friendly. Debian and Freedombox’s passion is to making how to make geeky things geekier and they are working on things which are close to themselves. Maybe half a year after we too could be able to use Freedombox, he hopes.
Debian after 10 years..
Ubuntu can be seen as taking away users, but they are not. They are part of DebianHe sees Debian Blossoming even 10 years after as it’s doing now. He doesn’t foresee much change but he wants things to be improved.Debian has been in very good shape and he, of course, wants it to be in good shape. He expects that Debian will be releasing as frequently in a year or maybe in half a year. His team would start trying to out roll releases. It would not be the same thing that Redhat, Fedora,Ubuntu, etc. Debian team would focus more on free date more than release date. Our style entirely will be the same. His only sure change is on quality rather than looking at the numbers as such.Ubuntu can be seen as taking away users, but they are not. They are a part of Debian. Debian is huge! Debian is passion driven more than any other distribution. He feels Debian is very big today and it’s very clear what their principal is. So he cannot even imagine that it will dry out.
India visit..
Hyderabadfor a week then Mangalore and Bangalore for about a week is his schedule to India.
He finds Hyderabad surprisingly hectic. The expectation was that he had to attend a couple of events but he ended up staying for a week. He chooses to take all possible events and finds these events very fruitful and also very challenging as well as enjoying too. He confronts his invoice to these presentation things. But, after doing few presentations in the past, he has gained a lot of confidence in his ability to communicate and present effectively so not to bore the crowd. Meanwhile, he doesn’t lose track what he was talking about.He loved the crowd and found the audiences to be really nice. But he feels sad that he has not been able to see much of Indian culture and blames his own choice for that. He wanted to meet more people and conduct events rather than sight-seeing or exploring cultures. He was in no mood for tourism, not about exploring India but offering his knowledge and his passion to India. However, he would love to return to India to explore its culture. He doesn’t think he would be able to separate between Indian and European developers like that. He tells he had a great experience with the culture and people of Brazil because he took the time to hangout more than focus on knowledge and
passion of free software. But, here he was focusing on sharing knowledge and passion and doesn’t want to judge it as a culture. We are all equal out there, he exclaims.
passion of free software. But, here he was focusing on sharing knowledge and passion and doesn’t want to judge it as a culture. We are all equal out there, he exclaims.
Message to linux lovers..
At last, he urges Debian non-user to wake up and explore the world to a larger degree, challenge them, challenge their tools through Debian.He wishes Debian to flourish.
L.A.M.P. is an acronym for solution stack of free and open source software. In order to create a viable general purpose web server, this term has been coined from the first letters of Linux (Operating System), Apache HTTP server, MySQL (database software) and Perl/Python/PHP. Generally "P" is taken to be as PHP but it may also refer to Perl or Python. PHP, Perl and Python are web scripting software.
Each package can be configured and installed separately. Here we will see how to install them at one shot. In earlier version of Ubuntu we used to have "tasksel" and "sudo tasksel" to bring various options including "lamp-server". Simply selecting lamp-server use to do the work. But we don't have tasksel in latest Ubuntu. No worries, we still can install the lamp stack in one shot.
Open your terminal. Either press "ctrl+alt+T" or from dash type "terminal" and press enter.
You will be prompted in terminal as shown in figure. Give a password for your MySQL "root" user (you can create more users too).
Now to check if its working or not just open your favorite browser and type "localhost" in the address bar. You should see something like this-
(note: this comes from the file index.html located in /var/www/ folder of your system.)
Now to check if php is working or if not, let us create a small php file
open your browser and type in address bar the following.
yay! you are done now! :-) cheers!
Oh wait. Let us also install phpmyadmin . phpmyadmin helps to take control over our database. It can be done graphically from the browser or from the command line.
to install
press space to select apache2 server and enter.
configure phpmyadmin with dbconfig-common. Press yes to configure. give your passwords.
When you are done type "localhost/phpmyadmin" in your address bar of browser, you should see something like this-
give user as "root" and password which you had given before.
you will be taken to phpmyadmin page.
on this page you can create databases, users and many more.
:)
Each package can be configured and installed separately. Here we will see how to install them at one shot. In earlier version of Ubuntu we used to have "tasksel" and "sudo tasksel" to bring various options including "lamp-server". Simply selecting lamp-server use to do the work. But we don't have tasksel in latest Ubuntu. No worries, we still can install the lamp stack in one shot.
Open your terminal. Either press "ctrl+alt+T" or from dash type "terminal" and press enter.
sudo apt-get install php5 mysql-server apache2The above command will install latest version of PHP which is version 5 and mysql-server with apache http server 2.
You will be prompted in terminal as shown in figure. Give a password for your MySQL "root" user (you can create more users too).
Now to check if its working or not just open your favorite browser and type "localhost" in the address bar. You should see something like this-
(note: this comes from the file index.html located in /var/www/ folder of your system.)
Now to check if php is working or if not, let us create a small php file
Open your terminal and type- sudo vi /var/www/info.phpor you can open the same from gedit or any other editor as
sudo gedit /var/www/info.php
and write:save the file and exit. Restart the apache2 service by typing the command in terminal
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
sudo service apache2 restart
open your browser and type in address bar the following.
localhost/info.phpand you should see something like this:
yay! you are done now! :-) cheers!
Oh wait. Let us also install phpmyadmin . phpmyadmin helps to take control over our database. It can be done graphically from the browser or from the command line.
to install
You will be prompted to screen like this-
sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin
press space to select apache2 server and enter.
configure phpmyadmin with dbconfig-common. Press yes to configure. give your passwords.
When you are done type "localhost/phpmyadmin" in your address bar of browser, you should see something like this-
give user as "root" and password which you had given before.
you will be taken to phpmyadmin page.
on this page you can create databases, users and many more.
:)

Today is a big day for Ubuntu users as Ubuntu 11.10 is finally released. I've done full detailed beta 1 and beta 2 reviews over the last month and for those who have been following this will
be more of the same.
Changes made since beta 2:
- Gnome 3.2 is the base of Unity
- Firefox 7 is now stable
- Many (many!) bug fixes and refinements
Overall, what's new with Oneiric from Natty:
- Refined dash
- Lenses and filters help refine dash searches
- Launcher, dash, and panel now have a spiffy camouflage feature that automatically approximates best match color scheme with desktop background
- Thunderbird 7.0.1 is now default mail client (yay!)
- Deja Dup is now included by default as backup management tool (another yay!)
- The login screen got a spiffy new look
- Indicator applets got a massive makeover
- New alt + tab application switcher
- Synaptic is gone, with the Ubuntu
- Software Center as primary package manager
- Many, many visual and functionality refinements to the OS
So, some general thoughts: 11.10 is both the most easiest to use Ubuntu, but also the most frustrating. Unity has a definite learning curve, but once you figure it out it's quite usable (though not outstanding). It's visual appeal will probably put Linux newbies at ease, but the incessant need to use desktop shortcuts may place the casual computer user in an awkward position. You can now use Unity completely through the GUI thanks to the new dash launcher, but this quickly becomes irritating and for the sake of efficiency the desktop shortcuts will have to be used. If you're already in the habit of using the keyboard to make quick navigational changes, you're in a good position.....If not, then you will learn. Oh yes, you will.

Fortunately, if you prefer to use Ubuntu with other desktop environments then you're in luck again. I've tested 11.10 on a variety of desktop environments and they all seem to work really well. Gnome 3 is now the base of 11.10's Unity incarnation and it's so much easier to install Gnome 3 than back in Natty days. I've given Gnome 3 a whirl over the last few days and it's snappier, more stable, looks pretty, refined, and just plain cool. I'm no longer a fan of Gnome, unfortunately, but that's just personal preference.
Gwibber, The Ubuntu Software Center (USC), and Thunderbird got some love too. For those who have been following, Gwibber and USC got a new makeover and they are much easier to use now. Gwibber has always been a bit of a pain to use, and still is, but it's now less of an irritant. Gwibber has now become my social media client of choice (surprising, eh?) because of it's clean interface and intuitive design. That's not to say it's perfect: one of the issues that bothers me is that Gwibber doesn't show which post came from where unless you hover the mouse over it (is this Facebook or Twitter?) and it takes longer to start - up than it should (at least 6 seconds), but other than that I love it. I'm quite impressed with it, especially since I hated Gwibber from the beginning. It's still integrated tightly into the OS as well, allowing you to update both FB and Twitter simultaneously through the message applet; however, to actually update through the applet is now more of a hassle. Before, all you had to do was click on the applet and then start typing. Now, you have to click the message applet, scroll down, click, than start typing. That's a whole extra step! I know this sounds minor, but this is part of a bigger problem with Unity: little things do not feel as efficient as they could be (or did in the past in this case).

As far as system performance goes: things are freakin' sweet! 11.10 at this point is quite the stable OS with only a few blips here and there. Since updating to 11.10 stable I've had no freezes, blips, hangs, or kernel panics. It simply feels rock solid. I've also noticed that at idle, the OS consumes less system resources than Natty. I suspect this has to do more with the Linux kernel changes than anything Canonical did, but it's still a nice development.
Essentially, this is a rock steady release and with a few tweaks it's quite usable. Even Unity is starting to shape up, but at this point Its probably not the most efficient desktop environment around. The little things seem to take more effort than it should. If you're using the mouse primarily, expect allot of extra (superfluous?) clicks. I think newbies can start using this DE as well, but they WILL get frustrated in the beginning, especially if they're not used to using the keyboard to get around. That's not to say this isn't a great starting distro for newbies because it is. I think Canonical made some great changes to be more appealing to the less geeky masses. For instance, it's nice to see synaptic gone (it's quite intimidating towards the casual computer users, just ask my sister) and replaced with the much less cumbersome USC. The only downside to this is USC is still premature as a package manager so if you have the know - how, keep Synaptic. I'm hoping that in upcoming releases the USC will be better suited towards managing packages (as opposed to "just" applications).

To summarize my beta articles and this one: 11.10 does some things really well, most things satisfactorily, and a few things terribly. I was thinking of jumping ship and moving to another distro, but 11.10 has convinced me that Ubuntu still has some surprises kicking around. My biggest pet peeve with the OS is Unity itself, not the OS, so with another DE I'm quite happy. If you're interested, I've gone into a bit more detail in my beta reviews so you might want to check that out too.
Give 11.10 a try, you might actually like it.
Skype is a free video calling service available for Mac OSX, Linux, and Windows. It’s a pretty simple piece of software with elaborate functionality and should be one of the first things you do after any new operating system install. Here’s how to install Skype 2.2 for Ubuntu 11.10: 1.
Download the skype file from here http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/on-your-computer/linux/
Choose 32 bit or 64 bit according to your machine architecture.
After download has been completed double click on it. It will open from software center. Click on "install" and then you are ready to use skype :) .
That’s it!Enjoy Skype.
Unity is a great piece of desktop shell that will become even greater with Oneiric soon.
But that's not my topic for toToday, my topic is a complaint about Unity, something that
I hope will get better in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin.
But let me start with the very roots of this problem:
Unity divides your programs into three different groups: Your favourite ones,
those of which you know the name but which you don't need that often though and last
(and also pretty much least)
those of which you don't even know the name because
you only need them in exceptional cases.
What about the accessibility of each of those groups?
Reaching the first group is some kind of a pretty easy task:
You have its programs in the launcher at the left hand side of your screen.
No problem at all.
Reaching the second group is no problem neither - if you are a keyboard lover:
Hit the Windows key, ahem, of course, I'm talking about the Super key and
then type in the first letters of your desired program until it appears in the results.
Those who don't want to use a keyboard for opening programs,
have to follow the same process as for group No. 3.
Reaching the third group means research: Open the dash,
choose the applications lense (scope, or however they are called in Oneiric now…),
choose the filtering option, decide which category is most likely to
contain your program and browse this category hoping to find what you searched for.
Not so easy, is it?
Unity is designed for - let's face it -
computer beginners (what does not mean it would not be great for others!).
Several problems appear when thinking about the text written above:
First: Have you ever watched one of those
"most stupid assumable users" (as we call them in our country)
using a keyboard and wondered afterwards not having strangled him?
Quite likely that you answer this question with a "yes".
It goes like "search for letter" → "hit" → "search for letter" → … and so on.
Quite a frustrating thing. As a result,
such a MSAU can't use the program search function really effortlessly.
So he has the choice between a keyboard or a category research.
The choice between hell and blood eagle -
if you want to hear an extremely exaggerated comparison.
Second: For an occasional computer user the third group is quite a big one,
so he'll often have to proceed as complicatedly as shown above.
And third: Try to explain this process to such a user. I promise:
You will give up explaining before he will even have the possibility of
giving up to try understanding what you are talking about.
What do I want to tell with all that? Answer:
We need a better accessibility of category research.
Definitely.
Now, let's see what salutes us after opening the dash.
Something like on the picture below/above/aside
(similar in Oneiric, this is a Natty screenshot).
After having been using Unity for half a year now I can look back saying that
I have actually never used any of these links. The preferred applications
in the second row should most likely already be in the launcher
(at least on my system they are, just look at the
launcher at the left margin of the screenshot).
The links to the applications and the documents lense
(the two links at the right hand side of the first row)
can be found elsewhere, too.
So, they're not necessary neither. The only links I possibly use sometimes
are the links to the multimedia and Internet application categories.
So, why don't we leave out those links nobody needs at all from the "dash start page"
and expand those we need sometimes? You could open the dash
and find links to all categories
of programs already on the start page? Doesn't this sound like a good solution?
As a result,
the dash start page will gain a reason of existence and the category
research will be much more easily accessible.
See, I'm no interface designer,
just some random guy that has been using Unity for a longer span of time now.
If you think, I'm telling complete nonsense, feel free to criticize
my opinion in the comments at all time.