Going to be very busy over the next few days, so just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays as you funny Americans like to say!)
Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, peace and best wishes to all.
Mark Shuttleworth has announced he is stepping down as CEO of Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. When I first read this headline, I panicked a little and thought he was withdrawing his support from the Ubuntu project, but upon reading further, the opposite seems to be true. He plans to devote his energy to “product design, partnerships and customers“. The current Chief Operations Officer, Jane Silber, will take over as CEO in March next year.
I’ve become very passionate about design and quality, and want to spend more time figuring out how we harness the collaborative process to build better, more insightful products. I can’t think of a more interesting challenge, and luckily I couldn’t think of a better person to take over my formal management and leadership responsibilities at Canonical than Jane.
I’m interested that he wants to devote more time to “partnerships” as I believe we can see the fruits of his labour here already. After five years, Ubuntu is becoming a real contender in the market. For example, Dell offers PCs and Laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed, as they have down for some time, however these models are no longer buried so deeply within their site that it is almost impossible to find them. Dell is giving Ubuntu a far higher profile than it has in the past. Also, when Windows 7 was released (a huge event in the computer world), many mainstream publications did a comparison between Ubuntu Karmic and Windows 7, as they were both released around the same time. Here in the UK, there was a review on the front page for the BBC News site for a few days, plus more coverage within the Technology News section. To be even mentioned in the same breath as Windows 7 shows just how mainstream Ubuntu is becoming. And late next year, there will be the release of Chrome Operating System – a collaboration between Canonical and Google – which will no doubt guarantee more publicity for Ubuntu. It will be interesting to see what other partnerships and developments come to fruition in the future.
I wish Mark every success in his new role at Canonical.
On Ubuntu, the release is already available in the software repositories. If you’ve already installed an early developer version, Google suggests you remove this before installing the beta (though Ubuntu users may find they are upgraded automatically). If you haven’t tried Chrome yet, just open Synaptic and search for google-chrome-beta and install from there. Or download it directly here.
I’ve used Chrome Browser now and again over the past few months and I am constantly struck by how much faster it is compared to Firefox. I do wonder if it may start to slow once it’s laden down with extensions and I’ll be monitoring that. Chrome’s major deal-breaker for me has always been the lack of an Adblock-type extension. I loathe web pages with big, Flash-based ads, as I find them incredibly distracting when reading text. I’ve always returned to Firefox in the end, as any time saved in page loads was more than offset by my slower reading because of intrusive adverts. I note however that Flashblock is in the extension gallery and there is an AdThwart (good name!) extension available. I’ll give these a try and see how they compare to the Firefox browsing experience. Another available extension is Xmarks – a godsend for anyone who uses more than one computer.
As for appearance, the Google developers are promising tight integration with both Gnome and KDE desktops, though Chrome also has a variety of themes to choose from (similar to Firefox’s Personas, though nowhere near as extensive).
All in all, I’d say Chrome is worth downloading if you haven’t had a look already. Though I must admit, I do feel rather disloyal to Firefox for trying out their competition (yes I know it’s pathetic to feel loyalty to a web browser!) But, long-term, competition and innovation is good for everyone (except perhaps Microsoft!)
I’ve finally managed to bag a Google Wave account! To be honest, I’ve haven’t had much chance to get into Wave yet, as I’ve had a lot going on in the last week or so, but I’m looking forward to playing about with it.
I acquired some Wave invitations with my account, and I have a few left over after sending a couple out to friends. If you want a Wave invite, click on the Contact Me link on this web page and send me a message with your email address. I’ll wait a few days and see what replies I get and sent out invites to the nicest ones! (To be honest, I will probably give preference to people I’ve interacted with on this blog, so if you’ve commented before, you’re in with a better chance).
Once the invites are gone, I’ll delete this post to save any hassles.
The Ubuntu Wiki has published mockups of proposed themes for the next release of Ubuntu due in April 2010. The three themes are collectively known as “Ubuntu Sun”.
The reasoning behind the themes is given below:
As some people like dark themes and some people like bright themes, why not combine them into one set of matching themes with different shades? This is an idea for a Metacity theme that is based on the idea of having the sun shine into your windows. Could there be a better leitmotiv for the window design of a lucid release? The theme could be combined with any GTK theme if they are modified to have flat menu and tool bars.
I’ve embedded sample artwork below:
Ubuntu Sun: Dawn theme
Ubuntu Sun: Day theme
Ubuntu Sun: Dusk theme
I think all three themes are very attractive and would make a welcome addition to Ubuntu. Time will tell, however, if they make the final release.
Some more details about the Chromium OS/Chrome OS (following on from this post).
I’ve given some screenshots below. The first shows the Applications panel within the browser. This is a kind of “quick launch” for various web applications, like Gmail, Facebook, YouTube etc. The second pic shows a Windows Live spreadsheet running on Chrome. The third pic shows what the developers are calling “panels”. This allows a web application to run in a small panel on top of another browser tab. For example, you could have a music video or an Instant Messaging session running in a panel in the foreground, whilst browsing normally in the background.
Chrome OS web applications
Spreadsheet running in the browser
Chrome OS web browser panels
I’ve also embedded below a sample of Google’s presentation, showing Chrome OS at work (including that super fast boot time!)
When Chrome OS is officially released (around this time next year), it’s my understanding that you won’t be able to download it and install it on any machine. It will come already installed on specially-tailored hardware. You will, of course, be able to download the Chromium OS version (that is, the open-source version). It is possible the super fast boot times may only be available on the officially sanctioned hardware, however I’d hope that even the Chromium OS version will be faster than many other systems.
It may not be for everyone, given that all data is stored on the internet, but the developers emphasize that Chrome OS is aimed solely at netbooks. It is not meant to replace your main computer.
Google hosted an event for the press today about their Chrome Operating System. Further details on the system are now available.
The Linux-based system will initially be released as the “Chromium Operating System”. This release will be open-source, which will allow non-Google developers to participate in the project. (This is similar to the Chromium vs Chrome web browser, where the Chromium version is the open source development branch, and the Chrome version is the officially-branded Google release.) The code for the Chromium release is available now, however the official “Chrome OS” will be available in about a year.
As expected, Chrome OS will initially be targeted at netbooks. Google say that may change down the line, but for now the OS will run on netbooks only. A surprise for me is that Chrome OS will only run on flash-based storage devices, like solid state drives or memory cards. This will ensure fast boot speeds, but I guess those netbooks with hard drives will need to run Chrome from a memory card. The system has been optimised for speed and they are claiming boot times of around 7 seconds (from when you hit the power button). Now that is fast!
When the system starts, you log in directly to your browser and ALL applications run from there. There will be no Open Office or GIMP on this system (at least not at the start). Obviously the push is towards Google web-based applications like Gmail and Google Docs. Although storage will primarily be cloud-based (i.e. on Google’s servers), there will be a local backup on the netbook. This is already in place for many of Google’s web applications, with the offline versions of Gmail, Calendar, Docs etc.
There is some emphasis on security. Every application is sandboxed, which means it runs separately from everything else (Chrome browser already does this). In addition, the whole user partition will be encrypted. The system will also check its own code every time it boots for discrepancies.
There are a few videos explaining the project in greater detail, which I’ve embedded below.
A (slightly dumbed down) introduction to the idea behind the Chrome OS (good to watch if you’ve never head of this project before).
Some more detailed videos from the Chromium people below:
More information on the project is available at chromium.org.
Update: See this post for screenshots and some additional info.
After posting a few days ago about the rumours that Google’s Chrome OS would be available within the week, sadly - as with all rumours – this one may be slightly exaggerated.
TechCrunch (who broke the story in the first place) have posted an update saying that Google plan to hold a Chrome OS event on Thursday this week. It would seem that the Chrome operating system will not be available in the immediate future, however Google plan to show off some demos at the event and give a “complete overview” of the new system. The release date is still believed to be next year, but perhaps there may be alphas or betas to try out before then. This is, of course, still just speculation.
I’m very interested to see what Google has so far, even if Chrome OS can’t be downloaded for a while yet. Some people have speculated that it will be little more than Ubuntu with the Chrome browser. Others believe that Google are scrapping the X window system in favour of a display manager of their own making. I’m hopeful that their “complete overview” will at least answer these questions.
There are plans to create a music store within the next release of Ubuntu, due in April 2010. The music store would run from within a media player, e.g. Rhythmbox or Banshee, much like Jamendo and Magnatune already do. The difference, however, is the plan to incorporate a web browser element within the media player, which will allow much greater scope.
The speculation began with the creation of this Launchpad page, however further details on the specification are now available on the Ubuntu wiki. To quote from the Wiki page:
The Lucid music store project aims to deliver the ability to purchase music from within a desktop music player. The overriding requirement of the project is to minimise engineering effort. This will be achieved through the usage of off the shelf solutions with minimal modifications. Only changes classified as blockers will fall within scope of this project. No effort will be expended towards improving the user experience of the default off the shelf components.
I would take that to mean that they will provide the framework for the store to operate, however the actual functionality of the store itself depends on the retailer.
The wiki page details the project concepts:
Integrate a web browser engine into Rhythmbox or Banshee.
Add a link to the Ubuntu One music store into the music player (Rhythmbox or Banshee) library panel. When selected this link opens the Web Browser in the body area.
The Web Browser loads the music store into the body area of music player.
The music store is used almost as-is, including usage of the payments functionality. The only modifications to be made are listed in the sections below.
Any music purchased is downloaded to ~/Music. This directory is set as the default directory for the music player. Downloading new music from the store triggers a rescan.
There are a couple of diagrams showing layout below (though they aren’t all that different from the regular media player layout).
Ubuntu Music Store
I wonder if this is opening the door to a partnership with the Amazon MP3 store. I can’t see any kind of deal with iTunes, given their complete lack of support for Linux.
The project seems to be heavily tied into Ubuntu One (Ubuntu’s online storage area available to Karmic users). The store would be called the “Ubuntu One Music Store” and will use the Ubuntu One logo (rather than the store’s logo). There is also a comment in the Wiki that: “In the first iteration, use the music stores credit card processing for payments. Later, integrate with Ubuntu One payments.” I rather think that Ubuntu has big plans for Ubuntu One and we haven’t seen the half of it yet.
I think this is an interesting idea and I assume Ubuntu will make some money from it, which offers another nice way of supporting the distro. I will be following this project with interest.
Welcome! I'm Mesanna, based in the UK, with a lust for computers, web design and other assorted geekery. I mostly write about Linux and tech news, but now and then I enjoy getting on my soap box for a good, old-fashioned rant. I'm rather fond of reading, Mexican food and rock music (sometimes all at the same time). I couldn't live without caffeine and my internet connection.
Welcome! I'm Mesanna, based in the UK, with a lust for computers, web design and other assorted geekery. I mostly write about Linux and tech news, but now and then I enjoy getting on my soap box for a good, old-fashioned rant. I'm rather fond of reading, Mexican food and rock music (sometimes all at the same time). I couldn't live without caffeine and my internet connection.
