op-ed

The Linux Desktop: We've Arrived.

Kevin Bush — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Linux Desktop articles are all over the place. I can hardly open up a browser without tripping over one. Most of them are negative whine-fests, complaining that Linux is too hard for new users, or has become too dumbed-down for technical users, or the fonts are ugly, or the next generation desktop environments are too different, or... well I could go on, but I think you get the point. So today, I feel like whining about the whiners. Give em' some of their own medicine, and bring something a bit different to the table: A positive viewpoint on the state of the Linux Desktop. Don't look so shocked, just keep reading.

We have what we need folks! The Linux Desktop has arrived. The solid foundation of GNU's tools and the Linux kernel; topped with many desktop environment choices and all the wonderful Linux desktop applications has got us there. Due to the hard work of the entire Linux developer community there is now a viable, open, free, full desktop computing alternative for those who seek it out. There are user friendly distributions out there for non-techies, and highly technical ones for those who prefer to build a custom desktop experience. Available in your favorite distribution's repositories are three modern and beautiful desktop environments to choose from. Ubuntu's Unity is becoming more polished and user friendly. KDE is mature and highly configurable. And Gnome 3 takes the minimal, "get out of my way so I can get stuff done" desktop philosophy to new heights. For those that prefer more classic desktop experiences there is the fast, stable, fully featured xfce4; and the super-fast lxde desktop. For the nerdiest of the nerds there are multitudes of fully configurable window managers out there; from tiling powerhouses like Xmonad, to flexible floating window managers like Openbox. Linux users have never had more choice and quality available for their desktops.

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Talking Point: Overlapping Windows

Michael Reed — Wed, 11 May 2011 13:00:00 +0000

by Michael Reed

Back in the 80s, a GUI paradigm called WIMP (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointer) began to establish itself as the new way in which most people interacted with computers. When it comes to one of the most significant elements of that system, overlapping windows, I'm beginning to wonder, has it had its day?

One of few things that Microsoft can claim to have developed from scratch is an efficient method of application switching called the taskbar, although it's now in the process of being superseded on most GUIs by the application dock. One side-effect of that form of program management is that it doesn't penalize the user for running applications fullscreen, and it therefore encourages it. You can glean some ideas about modern user behavior by observing that, in the most popular WM themes and skins, the areas of the window that are used for resizing have almost disappeared. The truth is, if you use Gnome or KDE, you probably run most of your apps fullscreen, most of the time.

In the future, I think that overlapping windows will be seen as a power user's feature, rather like the command line. The non-expert computer user has little use for windows that don't encompass the entire screen, and novice users find resizable, overlapping windows confusing. There are some operations, such as dragging and dropping of file icons, that benefit from overlapping windows, but again, this is a feature that is mostly used by experts.

PDAs and other small computers have long pioneered the techniques needed to make multiple running programs individually accessible. Running everything fullscreen on a full-sized device does, however, present a few drawbacks. For one thing, text can be difficult to read when spread out over large areas on modern widescreen monitors. Personally, I wouldn't fancy word processing on a 24” widescreen monitor with the main window maximized. I think that multi-column websites give us some clues as to what a desktop of the future might look like.

There are probably two solutions that we are going to see dominate over the next few years.

Firstly, tiled window management, of a sort that has existed for many years on Linux, may finally break through to the mainstream. Tiling has the advantage that it does away with the complexities and inefficiencies of overlapping windows while still allowing the user to view more than one window at once. It's worth noting that KDE SC 4.5 introduced tiling support.

The wmii window manager. Could this be a glimpse into the future?

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Russian Linux: The Push Continues

Michael Reed — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:00:00 +0000

by Michael Reed

We've talked about the concept of national Linux distributions before, and the Russians are a nation that has engaged in previous attempts to standardize on Linux. Recently, Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, made an announcement of a renewed effort towards open source adoption on a massive, despite the previous failures.

Armchair pundits have had to make do with translated versions of the report and of the announcement, but what seems clear is that under the new plan Russian institutions will undergo a transition to open source software between 2011 and 2015. For example, the translated document specifies that in the fourth quarter of 2011, federal institutions will engage in:

Formation of the base package of free software solutions for typical problems of the federal executive bodies with the needs of the federal bodies of executive power in the types of software.

Followed by, in the second quarter of 2012:

Creating and maintaining a single repository of free software used in the federal bodies of executive power.

The whole 25 point plan runs along these lines, and it's detailed and well thought out. In fact, this focused plan of action reveals two truths about the Russian governmental attitude towards open source software:

Firstly, despite failures in the past, the powers in charge are determined to go through with adopting Linux and open source. This shows just how much value they attach to FOSS adoption.

Secondly, the documentation shows that Russian policy makers have learned, the hard way, that an uncoordinated and vague initiative is unlikely to succeed. As I mentioned in my earlier article, any initiative to move over to Linux is typically doomed if it is not part of a coordinated strategy. For example, I would argue that a plan to move all schools over to Open Office as the de facto office suite would have more chance of success than a plan to move one part of the school system entirely over to Linux and open source.

The dissemination of the announcement on the forums has been mixed. The competence of governments to efficiently organize large projects of this nature is a theme that always rears its head in these discussions.

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Ubuntu update policy change is probably a good thing

Michael Reed — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 14:00:00 +0000

by Michael Reed

Despite some premature reports on the net, Canonical isn’t moving to a rolling release schedule for Ubuntu. However, the organisation is open to making some changes to the way that some software packages are updated. It’s seems likely that a mechanism that supports the adding of up to date application packages outside of the normal software repository updates is probably on the cards, and I’d say that it’s about time.

The problem

Ubuntu's six month release schedule allows Canonical to ensure stability and means that organisations know that they are getting a reliable and predictable system. The snag is that updates to software applications tend to be mere bug fixes and security updates. This means that users who only use the official method to update their system have been left stuck with outdated software. Sometimes this is a big deal, as having to make do with a six month old version of Firefox, for example, makes the Linux desktop seem unwieldy compared to Windows.

It’s not just Ubuntu that suffers from this problem either. The current Debian stable release, Lenny, only offers KDE 4.1 in its repository. As KDE SC 4 users will recall, 4.1 was almost unusable. The solution, in this case, is to switch from Debian stable to unstable, but obviously, not everyone is comfortable making such a fundamental move, but you don’t have much choice if you want to use KDE 4 on Debian.

People with a bit more expertise can add the software that they need by compiling from source, installing a binary or by adding a PPA. However, the point is that Ubuntu is supposed to offer a good Linux experience for non experts, and these other methods (and backing out of them) are fiddly.

Visiting the Firefox website illustrates the problem. The front page correctly identifies the system that the user is running and offers a “Download Firefox!” icon. However, this icon links to a .tar.bz containing the binary files, with no explanation of how to install it, or for that matter, how to keep the new version constantly updated. Things get even worse when the hypothetical “average computer user” wants to try out Firefox 4 beta for a quick look.

In contrast, a competent Windows user could probably handle the upgrade. To that user, Windows will seem like the better system, and in all fairness, and from their perspective, they may have a point. Windows does allow you to easily add anything you want to your system, and it's hardly unreasonable to want to try out the latest version of Firefox, Chrome or Open Office, for example.

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Observation: Cloud computing is nothing new

Michael Reed — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 14:12:19 +0000

by Michael Reed

Cloud computing is not only the latest buzz term, it might well be the model of computing that powers the 21st century. However, it’s easy to forget that personal computing, in which each user has a standalone system that can operate without a network, is itself a relatively new approach.

The first practical computers were enormous behemoths composed of clicking relays and vacuum tubes. Much of the early development of these multi-ton monsters had been spurred by the allied code-breaking effort during World War II. For the first thirty years of the history of general purpose computers, computer time was the exclusive privilege of large institutions and governments.

One of the first breakthroughs in bringing down the cost of computer access was the concept of a time-sharing system. In such a system, multiple operators can access the resources of the computer through the use of remote terminals. Here, in the form of early Teletype terminals, and later, video terminals, we see the emergence of a network topology in which computing horsepower is located in a central computer, away from the user.

It was the era of the mainframe and the dumb-terminal. Typically, these dumb terminals would lack storage or computation capability, as they were simply a display with a keyboard. By the 1970s, an operator (usually wearing flared trousers, if the textbooks I’ve seen are accurate), would sit in front of an amber or green screened terminal, thankful that he no longer needed to wait in line in to hand in a box of carefully arranged punch-cards.

Fast forward to the late 70s and a new paradigm was beginning to gain favour. If you’ve seen the film The Pirates of Silicon Valley, a dramatisation of the early years of Apple Computers, you may remember a scene in which the young Steve Wozniak is compelled to show his prototype personal computer to his employer, Hewlett Packard. In the scene that I’m talking about, Steve fears that his bosses will take his idea from him. The exchange goes something like this:

HP exec
Steve, it is Steve isn’t it?

Steve Wozniak
(nods)

HP exec
Steve, you say that this... gadget... of yours is for ordinary people. What on earth would ordinary people want with computers?

(long pause)

The idea that was being mooted was that of a personal computer, that is, a self-contained computer that only requires an electrical power supply in order to operate. Singular computers that did not need to be connected to a larger computer in order to run went on to become the popular face of computing for the remainder of the 20th century.

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Talking Point: Could Linux Abandon Directories In Favour Of Tagging?

Michael Reed — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 14:00:00 +0000

by Michael Reed

For a fairly scruffy looking guy, I have a surprisingly healthy approach to organising my files. However, I'm constantly pushing up against the limitations of a system that is based around directories. I'm convinced that Linux needs to make greater use of tagging, but I'm also beginning to wonder if desktop Linux could abandon the hierarchical directory structure entirely.

Why is it that web based technology such online bookmarking makes far greater use of tagging than the Linux desktop does? Directories for files are based on the way that humans have always organised items in the real world, using categories and sub categories. Thanks to powerful computers and cheap, plentiful storage, tagging now offers a method of storage that isn't based on placing files in one place or another.

The word processor file that makes up this article is stored /documents/articles/linux_journal/ but it could be even more efficiently organised if I could easily tag it as “documents”, “articles”, “linux journal” as well as “op ed”, “daft ideas”, “tagging”, “linux” and “web posts”. That way I could find it by browsing through alll of the web posts I've made this year or all of the op-ed peices I've ever written.

Some organisational situations illustrate the weakness of the hierarchical approach. For example, if I download some independent electronic dance music, where do I place it within a hierarchical system file system? Does it go in /mp3/dance/electronica/independent or /mp3/independent/electronica/dance? Which system works best depends on whether the significant factor is that it is electronica or independently produced. This is where tagging comes into its own as it allows objects to be placed in more than one category at once.

When dealing with files, there's a distinction to be made between the files that I normally care about and those that I only care about when I'm fiddling around inside Linux's innards. The default setup of most Linux distributions acknowledges this distinction as the files are stored either:

outside of the /home directory (files that I don't care about most of the time)
inside the /home directory but hidden (more files that I don't care about most of the time)
inside the /home directory and visible (these are the files that I care about)

It's this last category of files that is ripe for being moved over to a tagged system. Abandoning the directory system outside of the /home folder would mean not only designing a new operating system but also designing a new set of applications.

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