My Ubuntu Blog

On Saturday 8th May 2010, Ubuntu Pakistanis from three major cities of Pakistan gathered to celebrate the release of Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. This was for the first time that we arranged a release party and we were very excited about that. However, our Loco Team administrator did not share our enthusiasm but that didn’t stop us.

In Karachi, Me and Haroon Idrees organized the event at arranged it McDonald’s Stadium Road, Karachi. The community’s response was great, the event was attended by students, IT professionals, bloggers, journalists and local IT companies that provided open source solutions to government and private organizations. Discussions revolved around creating awareness about free and open source software in general and promoting Ubuntu in particular.

We were really excited to meet Dr. Athar Mahboob. He is the president of IbnKhaldun Systems, and he is a legend in Pakistan for the work he has been doing since last three decades. Specially the work he has done on Linux, for example his company recently developed a network for EOBI – Pakistan, which has branches all over the country and all of them are connected using workstations and servers running a slightly modified version of Ubuntu Linux.

In Lahore, Mustufa took the responsibility of organizing the event. Mustufa is a young IT student and he is very energetic and talented. He single handedly organized the event, gave a small presentation and entertained the guests. Again there were students from universities and IT professionals and the event was also covered by a TV news channel.

In Islamabad Waqas and Babar Zahoor of Pakistan Open Source Foundation hosted the event. In Islamabad they discussed Ubuntu’s WUBI installer and open source alternatives to Microsoft applications.

Pictures:

For more images and details please visit and join our facebook group Ubuntu Pakistan User’s Group.

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx has arrived and it is getting rave reviews. It is quick and easy to install, boots faster and has a clutter free desktop. But, instead of writing a review for 10.04, which I am using for last whole week now, I decided to write a review of Google Chrome and how great it works with Ubuntu 10.04.

There are many issues with Firefox, it takes a lot of memory, it is slower and does not fit well into over-all desktop environment. On the other hand, Google Chrome fits well into Gnome since it has an option to use either default theme or the GTK Theme. Chrome’s GTK theme fits perfectly well and attempts to blend in beautifully. It is much faster and uses less memory than Firefox.

As you all know Google is working on releasing an Open Source operating system of its own which is currently called ChromeOS. A sneak preview of this operating system can be seen here. Those who want to try its very early alpha builds should follow these instructions.

ChromeOS is basically a browser based operating system that uses the web as its hard disk. It is focused around working on the web. Google already has many tools available that will be part of this operating system. Such as Gmail which will be used as the email client, Google Docs will be used as an office suite, Picassa as photo manager, gtalk as instant messaging client, and so on.

This operating system will have linux at its core and the web browser, Chromium or Google Chrome. So may be this is the reason that Google Chrome performs better on Ubuntu Linux.

I have started feeling that may be I am using two operating systems at once. Google OS and Ubuntu Linux. I am using Google Chrome to access Gmail, Google Docs, Gamil Chat, Google Search, and keeping in touch with my social networks. I use Google’s Picassa photo manager. I ocassionally use Movie Player to watch movies, I use Empathy for voice chat with my gmail contacts. So basically I use Google OS components more than I use default desktop applications. So can I say that I am actually using Google Operating System on Ubuntu Linux platform?

Ubuntu released it’s new version Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala nearly the same time when Microsoft’s highly anticipated Windows 7 came into the market. This post is not a comparison of the two operating systems (If you want here is an unbiased comparison). This post is a simple attempt to describe some important qualities of Ubuntu. Qualities that make it a better option, specially for home desktop users.

1. Fast

Ubuntu uses a new technology called Upstart which has significantly improved the bootup performance. Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala is fast. On start up it quickly boots up and takes you to your working space, the desktop. It comes with Firefox 3.5.4 web browser which is much faster than the previous versions of Firefox. Tuxradar posted an interesting video showing Microsoft’s Windows Vista, Windows 7, Ubuntu 9.04 and Ubuntu 9.10 booting up. Ubuntu 9.10 wins the race.

2. Good looking

Ubuntu 9.10 comes with many visual improvements. Animated boot splash, compiz visual effects, better font rendering, default theme improvements and improvements in Gnome’s user interface. All these changes give Ubuntu 9.10 a much sleeker and visually pleasing look of a modern Operating System.
Screenshot 1 (OpenOffice Writer):

Screenshot 2 (Compiz visual effects):

3. Secure and Reliable

Ubuntu is a Linux based Operating System. It is generally considered to be much less vulnerable to security threats such as malware, adware, viruses and trojans. It comes with Firefox to make your browsing even more secure and better. Also Ubuntu offers free updates. These updates are not offered for the operating system alone. Ubuntu offers updates for each and every software installed on your machine. In Ubuntu’s default installation, update manager is configured to notify you when ever there are updates available for you to install. Using Ubuntu you can spend more time working without worrying about security problems.

Screenshot 3 (Update manager):

4. Amazing software

Ubuntu is an Open Source operating system and it comes with the greatest Open Source applications. Unlike other Operating Systems which come only with a limited default set of a few very basic applications. Ubuntu comes with Open Office suite, instant messaging, photo manager, media player and Gimp image editing program. It also comes with Ubuntu Software Center which is a great way to browse through the thousands of free software offered by Open Source community.

Screenshot 4 (Software Center):

5. All of this is free
All of this is free for you to download and install.

Migrate to Ubuntu

You must have heard from people that installing Linux is difficult. Yes they are right, But they forget to tell you that Linux based Operating Systems come in many flavors from many distributions. Ubuntu is a distribution that gives importance to ease of use. Hence, Downloading and Installing Ubuntu is a piece of cake. In fact Ubuntu’s installer is easier than MS Windows. In six easy, well designed, well described and well documented steps you can install Ubuntu with in 15 to 20 minutes. You can download and burn a CD image, then you can try Ubuntu with out making any changes to your current Operating System. Or you can try Ubuntu from with in your MS windows installation.

How do I modify notification applet so that it only notifies me about things that I want to be notified about. For example I don’t want it to display notifications about network connection but I want it to display notification when there are updates available to install.

I am using twitter a lot since last few days (Follow me) and naturally I looked around for applications that I can install on my Ubuntu Linux to make tweeting easier. I fired up Synaptic and found these two applications:

Twitux

A GTK+ Twitter client, using Twitux I can send messages to twitter without opening a new tab in browser. It can display notifications when a new message arrives. The interface is very simple, easy to understand and use.

gTwitter

Gtwitter is also a simple intutive Twitter client. What I loved about gTwitter is that it has a text box right there in the main window to send messages. In Twitux you need to open the new message text area from menu.

Both these applications are very similar in their interface but both of them has this problem that the links in messages are not clickable. You can read the messages but you can not click and open a URL. I also felt that there should be a button or something to reply individual messages quickly. Just like the tiny reply button that appears on messages in Twitter homepage.

Closing the synaptic I looked around the web for more Twitter applications on Linux and found Phil Wilson’s hack that allows you to post to twitter from deskbar widget. I also found Saad Hamid’s list of Twitter clients for Linux which lists some more applications that use Adobe AIR framework.

For now I think I will be using Twitux as it displays notifications when there is a new message in the timeline. I may not be using it for sending messages though and I think without clickable links it is not very useful for reading messages either.

Update Apr 1, 2009. 03:19 PM: In the comments below and on Twitter every one mentioned Gwibber and how cool it is. Thank you all for your suggestions. So I installed Gwibber and its wonderful. Gwibber makes it easier to reply, send and read messages not only from Twitter but also from facebook and identi.ca and it could also be used as a feed reader. The interface is simple and intuitive. Links are clickable and there is a reply button with each message in my timeline. It can also search messages and display results in a new tab. So Gwibber is now my Twitter Client on Ubuntu Linux. There is just this one little thing, since I am using Gnome Global Menu the menu bar for Gwibber does not show anything under the Accounts. But then again Both of these applications are not officially supported on Ubuntu 8.10. Gnome Global Menu does not even work with Firefox and other non-GTK+ applications.

I recently started using Totem movie player. Before that, VLC was my prefered media player on Ubuntu and Debian. It is still default media player on my Windows partition. But on Linux I think Totem is wonderful. I love the simplicity of Totem’s interface. Which is weird because in past I disliked Totem for the same interface but after using it a while I have become a fan. The interface is not only simple, it is also very intuitive. Totem is also feature rich in its own Gnomish way.

I specially liked Totem’s Youtube video search and play plugin. It looks fantastic, you can search and play youtube videos right inside Totem and it works great with Ubuntu 8.10. I loved it but I don’t think I will be using it that much. Totem also has BBC video plugin but unfortunately I failed to connect to the BBC servers.

While watching videos on YouTube you can read description provided by the uploader, you can read comments, add yours, add the video to favorites and do lots of other cool things. It is currently not possible to do all these things in Totem. You can add a video to a playlist in Totem and save that playlist on your computer, but what about the playlists I have on my youtube account?

I think some added features will make this plugin more interesting for users. Like for example the description and comments could be displayed just like it displays related videos in an extra tab on the sidebar when a video is played.

I am also thinking how one can add other video sites to totem?

Google Chrome arrived and I had to log on MS Windows to see how it works. I am so impressed that I don’t really feel like going back to Ubuntu and use Firefox. I have installed Windows Vista, which has Aero theme. I use Chrome and the world is beautiful again.

Honestly, I don’t like Microsoft Windows much. Previously I had trouble getting it configured for my internet, graphics and audio settings. It is just too much work with windows, I thought. But may be I was a little bit too biased towards freedom. I had this feeling that I am a software freedom fighter, I can not use Windows. But I am starting to think differently now.

If I use Windows I have Aero which looks 10 times better than Gnome with compiz and it has Google Chrome which is faster than Firefox and works like a charm.

These new things make me feel good. The graphics aren’t ugly, I have the same visual effects on Ubuntu too but they don’t look that good. Gnome’s interface that I have loved so much, now looks childish and boring. The simplicity has gone to a point where it feels like an insult to the human intelligence.

The windows are too big they take a lot of screen space. The fonts are ugly. Definitely Ubuntu has better support for Urdu Language but Vista is not that bad either. Using Vista I can use the new VLC media player that uses QT and has good looking interface.

I tried searching the Gnome website to see if they have any plans to give me something thats more beautiful than Mac OS X, Vista and KDE4. But I don’t think they have any plans to bring something modern and new for at least a few more decades. I can go for KDE4, and I did. I tried it with opensuse. But it crashed so often and after a week of trial I gave up. I tried KDE4 on ubuntu and the result was the same.

Developers at Gnome should think about improving their simplicity. Give me an intelligent user interface that is smarter than me. Give me better fonts. Don’t fill my screen with thick windows, fat buttons, and king size Icons. The KDE folks if they read it, please make it available for Ubuntu and make rock solid. Every body hates to see the crash handler poping up now and then. and I want VLC with QT ASAP.

Please bring me back to the free world. Please bring something exciting and modern.
BTW, after finishing this post I am going to try KDE for windows and see how it works. It might be unstable like hell but I want to do try it anyways.

Note: I haven’t completely switched to Windows yet. I am just jealous.