Martin Notes

I’ve installed GnoMenu 1.6. It is a Vista style menu for the Gnome desktop. You can just download the deb files (gnomenu_1.6-2_all.deb) and install it. After installing I had to run:

/usr/lib/gnomenu/DesktopIntegration.py

To get it to show up in the Gnome panel “Add to Panel…” dialog.

I must say that from reading about the GnoMenu, and seeing the themes on Gnome-Look, I was quite looking forward to the little panel applet. But after installing it I was disappointed.

First of all the GnoMenu catches your Windows key to open up.  I always hated that feature in Windows and I don’t want it in my Ubuntu. Especially since I’m using the Windows key as my main shortcut key: Windows 1-4 are my desktops, Windows-T is a terminal, Windows-E is Nautilus (yes, that’s a Windows shortcut).

Second, the thing just feel clunky. It’s kind of hard to explain, but it doesn’t feel smooth or elegant. I want my main menu to give me the feeling that I will find the application I’m looking for. GnoMenu gave me the feeling that it might take a while. Not only from the feel, but also because it’s just slow. When you start typing in the search field it takes ages before it shows you the application that you’re looking for.

I must admit that’s where I stopped testing. The GnoMenu is just not ready yet. It’s a nice idea, and the Gnome main menu is ready for an update for sure, but this is not the one.

I’ll just stick to Gnome-Do.

GUI, Linux, Ubuntu Gnome, GnoMenu, Ubuntu

I must start by admitting that I only tested UE in VirtualBox and I have seen that booting from a CD makes Ubuntu less stable then fully installed.

That said: UE is not really special. It’s what it promises: Ubuntu with a lot of stuff already installed. The installed stuff ranges from a load of themes to five different development IDEs.

After booting, which was about as fast as Ubuntu booting from CD, UE shows a very techy desktop with a dark theme applied. And, OMG, a spinning mouse cursor. I thought we’d have passed that point by now. Aside from the visual part everything seems to be working just like Ubuntu does. The VirtualBox hardware is nicely recognized and supported.

Since I’m a theme fan I started by switching between themes, well, I switches a theme. At that point the Appearance Manager crashed and I was stuck with a half applied theme. Appearance Manager kept crashing so I had to restart X to make it work again. A really bad start for a review.

After the themes I started browsing through the applications. What I like is that it has some of the post install tasks already done: Gnome DO is already installed, AWN is already there, the CHM viewer, gDesklets and Screenlets (why?) all of them ready to use. And that’s only the Accessories section! There is so much software installed here, it tends to go after the Sony preinstalled Vista: who needs all this?

And that’s the central question in this distro: who needs this? There appears to be no direction in the installed software. Who will use gDesklets and Screenlets together? Why is aMSN and Empathy and Konversation and Kopete and Pidgin installed? Maybe the nedriest of nerds would need all of this to use the ‘best’ for every task, but I think 99% of users will be more scared then happy by UE.

The only useful application I can come up with is to use UE as a test environment for applications. Since nearly every application known to mankind is installed and ready to use, it’s really easy to start VirtualBox and play with the installed app before deciding whether you’d want it on your own machine. But that’s a very limited application for a distro. Especially since Ubuntu offers the .deb based software installation and removal tools which makes experimenting with application really easy.

I’m rather disappointed in Ultimate Edition 2.0. I was expecting Ubuntu, but then done right: something special and daring. UE is not that, it’s a collection of preinstalled software that has no use in the real world.

Linux review, Ubuntu, Ultimate edition

Ultimate-edition 2.0 has been released. It’s a release build on top of Ubuntu 8.10, but it has been hand tuned. There are three releases: 32, 64 bits and the game release.

Linux, Ubuntu release, Ubuntu, Ultimate edition

There is a new code release of Google Gadgets. I’ve been looking for a .deb file all over, but apparently the interest is gone since the first release. So the only thing left to do is: compile it myself. Luckily Google has already posted most of the dependencies on their how-to-build page, that saves a lot of make time. I’ve described the build for Gnome GTK here:

Download the Google Gadgets source

wget http://google-gadgets-for-linux.googlecode.com/files/google-gadgets-for-linux-0.10.3.tar.bz2

Install the dependencies

sudo apt-get install libdbus-1-dev libmozjs-dev libxml2-dev libgstreamer0.10-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev libltdl3-dev libxt-dev libxul-dev libgtk2.0-dev librsvg2-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev

I’ve added the “libxt-dev” which was missed in the Google instructions.

Configure the build

./configure --prefix=/usr

Google advises to add the prefix to avoid library linking problems.

Make the application

make

Install the application

sudo make install

And start it

ggl-gtk

I haven’t seen any major updates to the last release yet. All I can say is that it feels a bit faster.

GUI, Linux, Ubuntu build, Google Gadgets, intrepid ibex

It seems there is a little progress in the support of MS Exchange 2007 in Evolution. The development halted due to license problems of the code in Evolution and libmapi. But now it seems that a brave developer has opened the discussion to update the license of Evolution so that development can continue. I certainly hope so, not only because Componence uses Exchange 2007, but also for the spreading of Linux to the business user.

Update:

Apparently Mr. Srinivasa Ragavan is really doing something to get the Exchange connection working. Keep up the good work!

Linux evolution, exchange 2007

I usually don’t run any updates on a beta release. For the Flash update in Intrepid Ibex I’ve made an exception: each page I opened that contained Flash (and in these days, which doesn’t?) pulled my CPU to 100%. That’s annoying.

If you have the same problem, just search for the flash update in your Update Manager and install it. Richt click in the list, select “Uncheck all” and select only the flash update. After a restart of firefox you should be OK.

In my install the Update Manager started complaining that  it wanted to do a Partial update. Don’t worry, just click “Close”.

Overall 8.10 is running extremely well. There are a few bugs that are annoying:

• NetworkManager forgets the password if you use multiple wireless networks.
• The dimming of the screen still doesn’t work right. If I plug in then it will dim to a fixed value, even if I selected it to be at a lower value. And plugging it in will select a higher value.
• Suspend and Wakeup works very good on my Sony. But it seems that changing anything during sleep kills the stability. I mean stuff like: unplug, or plug, the AC or attached (yes, or detach) an external monitor. I understand that’s complicated stuff: you wake up and the world has changed. I have that every day.
• I still had to do some tweaking to make the external monitor work. What’s good: at least it tried to adjust the Virtual setting in xorg.xonf.
• Compiz still can’t handle more then 2048×2048. Is it just me, or is that a bit outdated?

What I miss in the release is the USP, the killer app, … Of course it’s faster, uses less memory, works better with the hardware, but what makes this release special? It should have been the theme, but that is too weak for me.

It’s going to be a good release. Probably it will bring Ubuntu up to the level where XP was after about 7 or 8 years: stable and just working. Let’s hope the next release will take that step extra that pulls it above M$ and Apple.

Linux, Ubuntu Adobe Flash, intrepid ibex

The beta is realy remarkebly good. Suspend works like it should now, and the while system feels more snappy and stable then Hardy ever did for me.

I don’t get the rave about the NewHuman theme. For me it shows all the same problems as the other dark themes: some applications (try CompizConfig) just don’t work with it.

But overall the release looks promising. I’m really looking forward to the final!

Linux, Ubuntu intrepid ibex, Ubuntu

Of course I couldn’t resists the temptation and I installed the beta 8.10 release. It’s really good. The suspend has improved a 100 times and the overall feel has become more performant and stable. So far I’m very much impressed.

Linux, Ubuntu intrepid ibex, Ubuntu

How could I have missed this? I must have been too busy at work or something. Intrepid Ibex is in beta, download here: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/intrepid/beta

Linux, Ubuntu beta, intrepid ibex, release

I’m not the photo managing kind of guy. I mostly keep my pictures in directories named after the event the photos are from. Just suppose that I would like to manage my photos then I’d use Google Picasa. Google managed to update their Linux version to the same level as the Windows version.

To install, just add the Google repository to you software sources: http://www.google.com/linuxrepositories/index.html

And open synaptic to install picasa.

Linux, Ubuntu Google Picassa, review