Audio:

Presentation audio (MP3 format) [37.4 MiB]

Presentation audio (Ogg Vorbis format) [36.4 MiB]

Slides:

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a_primer_on_open_source.pdf (1577 KB)

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a_primer_on_open_source.ppt (1812 KB)

Theme Music:

“Ikebana” by StrangeZero from the album Newborn Butterflies

For more information:

• Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral and the Bazaar
• Stallman, Richard M. Free Software, Free Society
• Wayner, Peter Free For All
• Williams, Sam Free as in Freedom

Posted via web from todd lyons | posterous

After about 3 years of running Kubuntu on the family desktop, I’ve switched to openSUSE.  Not a huge change I guess, switching from one flavour of Linux to another.  Certainly the difference isn’t apparent to my wife, beyond some minor cosmetic issues.  Specifically, the big K that used to signify the launch button in the lower left corner of the screen is now a green gecko logo.  But to me, it feels more significant.

I last used openSUSE before it was called such.  I chose SUSE Linux 10.1 as my OS when I returned to graduate school in the fall of 2006.  While I’d been a hardcore Debian user up until that point, I hadn’t had any experience with Debian on laptops.  In order to get up and productive as quickly as possible, I started the first semester with a more polished, corporate OS.  I liked it fine.  It certainly looked more striking than raw Debian, but architecturally it turned out to be much rawer.  The package manager was especially cumbersome.  I coped with this in the short term by switching to the Smart package manager, but this didn’t prevent the dependency problems inherent with an RPM-based system.

I’ve always admired Debian’s APT system.  It’s fast, efficient, solid, and provides sensible options to resolve issues with conflicting software packages.  I’ve never had a system I couldn’t salvage, no matter how difficult I’d made a situation through experimentation or idle tinkering. 

Ultimately, what drove me away from Kubuntu wasn’t its overall function or diminished feature set (in comparison to Ubuntu), but… lingering OpenOffice problems.

For some time, I’ve been bothered with the slowness of the suite on Kubuntu.  I did quite a bit of research and tinkering, but was never able to resolve the insanely slow dialogue boxes, particularly when saving files.  The problem was though to be the KDE 4 integration package.  It made the icons and operability with Kubuntu wonderful, at the expense of making it absolutely painful to use.

I’d heard glowing reports about the new SUSE release, so I back up all the family data on an external firewire drive, and reinstalled from scratch.  It wasn’t perfectly painless.  Finding repositories for those evil but essential proprietary software packages and drivers took some time, as did getting my accelerated video and wireless networking up and going.  In these areas I still have to give a serious advantage to Kubuntu / Ubuntu.  It was more than just lack of familiarity that held me back; Canonical’s products really do a much better job of harnessing hardware that requires proprietary drivers.

Overall though, I’m quite satisfied.  There have been some other changes needed.  In particular, I had to replace the rather lame duck version of KTorrent that openSUSE provides with the fully functioning version from the Packman repositories.  But the most important thing, my office suite, now works perfectly and looks great.

It’s funny what it can take to make a person change.  OpenOffice was my deal breaker.  It makes it easier for me to understand how the desire for Microsoft Office is the deal breaker that prevents many people from switching to Linux.

Free Culture is a difficult concept for some to understand, primarily because we have been born and raised in a capitalist society where few things in life are truly free, both in terms of their monetary cost and our ability to influence or control them. When you’re born and raised into this kind of environment — one of disempowerment — powerlessness becomes normal, to the point where we are not even cognisant of the limitations that are placed on our freedom.

Capitalism is merely a familiar frame of reference, but through indoctrination our consumerist personality becomes forged — along with an accompanying perception of reality that people are often unable to let go of in order to see things differently.

Education, both formal and informal, perpetuates this. Far from being an advancement of knowledge, it is more accurately conceptualized as a mechanism for advancing the status quo, and with advanced education can come advanced indoctrination. Through education, commercialization and cost become synonymous with quality and value.

While the trite phrase “the best things in life are free” can be applied to things equally trite — a sunny day or the smile on a child’s face — it almost certainly does not apply to “real” goods and services in our society, does it? Value is attributed to commodities by their price, and by the fact that they are privately owned to begin with. This association between cost, control and actual value, perpetuated by capitalism, becomes internalized and reflected in our own personal values and perceptions.

For example, there is a stigma attached to the notion of reducing or eliminating the scope of property (“Communism”). There is suspicion about the value of anything that one person would freely give away to another (“defective,” “worthless,” or “outdated”), and the character of any person that would depend on others to provide them with goods or services free of charge (“lazy”, “welfare”). With the amount of terms and conditions associated with so-called free gifts, and the serious limitations that our legal system imposes on what we know as freedom, the definition of the word free and its scope in terms of our real-life behaviours has really devolved into something almost completely meaningless.

I am a “consumer” of free culture (to borrow the capitalist term), and have a professional affinity for the ideas it promotes. These two realms are actually closely tied together. Social work (my previous career) has high social value, but is not well financially compensated by society.  This low value that capitalist society places on the value of my  work (and consequently reflected by the amount of income it earned) is what initially prompted me to become both a purveyor and a recipient of free culture, as a means of supplementing what was already a modest lifestyle, purely as a means of personal survival.

When I say “a consumer of free culture” I’m speaking in the comprehensive sense: many of the clothes that I wear, the items and appliances in my home, the materials I used to build my home, the music I listen to, the books I read and videos I watch on the Internet, the blogs I enjoy, the home computer I work on and the operating system and software that run the computer — all of these were freely given to me by people who made a conscious choice to cut out the capitalist middleman or simply put people before profit, and share with others.

Why? Why would complete strangers choose to share their personal and intellectual property with other strangers?

The fact that free culture seems like a new and revolutionary concept speaks volumes about the degree that we’ve been co-opted by capitalism. Once upon a time, freedom was the catalyst of all human progress. Once upon a time there existed an environment of collaboration where people worked for the common good. It wasn’t a fairy tale, 

“it was culture, which you didn’t need the permission of someone else to take and build upon. That was the character of creativity at the birth of the last century” (Lawrence Lessig).

One person had an idea, which another built upon, and yet another adapted to meet their own needs, while another still revised it in a way that improved it yet again. Who was it that said, “if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”? Isaac Newton.

The creativity and innovation responsible for human progress has traditionally built upon existing work, but copyright, patents, trademarks, and other intellectual property laws are working to prevent that process (Lessig). Sharing our excess time, effort and resources with each other mutually benefits us all, and leads to collective prosperity, but this flies in the face of modern drives to accumulate, hoard and protect. Over time, society is becoming more restrictive and guarded, and the potential for progress is being diminished accordingly.

Free culture promotes the creation and distribution of resources in ways that equalize opportunities for people. It encourages people to benefit from the contributions of others, contribute something back, then invite others to do the same. The concept applies to both tangible and intangible commodities: speech, ideas, books, software, music, computer networks, education, and anything else that people can create, share, and develop (freeculture.org).

I do what I can.  I use free software like the Linux operating system, I freecycle goods to others, I produce content under the Creative Commons license, to name a few things.  How about you?

The use and promotion of free culture is an exercise in radical social transformation because many of us are so deeply ingrained with the perception that usage restrictions are normal, even necessary, and that nothing of any value is given away for free. What is the meaning of charity in modern society, when even donations come with the expectation of a charitable tax receipt?

Change it. Circulate property, knowledge, time, expertise, without expectation.  Realize the value of what you possess by transferring it to others who can use it.  In North America, where middle class material wealth is high and informational wealth is nearly infinite, our real value is not in what we accumulate and hoard, but what we give away.

For further reading:

• Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture (various formats and translations)
• Williams, Sam. Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman’s Crusade for Free Software (HTML)
• McLeod, Kimbrew. Freedom of Expression (PDF)
• Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral and the Bazaar (HTML)
• Gay, Joshua. Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman (PDF)

“Earth” image by Camille Harang.

Before you dismiss the idea of a major institution losing access to its stored data as ludicrous, consider this quote from Natalie Ceeney, chief executive of the UK National Archives:

“If you put paper on shelves, it’s pretty certain it is going to be there in a hundred years. If you stored something on a floppy disc just three or four years ago [2003-04], you’d have a hard time finding a modern computer capable of opening it. Digital information is in fact inherently far more ephemeral than paper. The pace of software and hardware developments means we are living in the world of a ticking time bomb when it comes to digital preservation.”

The UK National Archives includes a collection of 900 years of written material. As of 2007 they estimated that 580 terabytes of their data (the equivalent of 580,000 encyclopedias) was stored in file formats which have since become extinct.

While Ceeney’s estimate of “three or four years ago” strikes me as somewhat hyperbolous, changes in technology have certainly changed our selection of media storage and electronic file formats.  5.25″ floppy disks are nearly absent from current use, and 3.5″ disk drives are disappearing as standard equipment on modern computers. Information on high-density floppies isn’t necessarily difficult to access, though doing so may require the purchase of an external USB floppy drive and compatible application software.  I’ve already experienced some electronic data loss due to incompatible, extinct file formats.  Much of the material I produced in the 90′s, both academic and personal, was saved in AppleWorks or pfs: Professional Write format.

For me, the most uncomfortable aspect of the source article I’ve quoted above is that it announces the “solution” to the National Archives’ problem in the form of a partnership with Microsoft, who were contracted to ensure future compatibility to read old formats, and ostensibly, to convert and write them into a modern, proprietary format. So, while access to data may be restored, the issue of reliance on a monopoly corporation remains (or, in the case of the National Archives, begins).

The Government of Canada’s relationship with Microsoft initially came by way of a competitive process, but in my opinion it has become a relationship of dependence, because Government data is saved in an electronic format wholly owned and controlled by a private, foreign corporation.

Storing files in a proprietary format like Word .DOC, Excel .XLS or PowerPoint .PPT places the Government in a position of perpetual dependence on private enterprise. We require a certain office suite (Micosoft Office) that is available from only one company to access our own data —  the peoples’ data.  Why?

While the lack of a suitable alternative may have once made this a necessary concession, other formats presently exist which will allow all the various types of information we use to be preserved in a format that can be opened by a variety of software packages, indefinitely, without concern for legal, financial or technical constraints.

In a recent exchange I had with a colleague, two important questions were raised: (1) is the mandatory use of Microsoft Office by employees anti-competitive? and (2) in the competitive process that led to the Government’s use of Microsoft Office, were free/open source options in the running?  Given Microsoft’s monopoly of the office software industry, and their trials for engagement in anti-competitive business practices in court systems worldwide, these are legitimate concerns.

One of the Microsoft practices that has been criticized is the control and regular alteration of file formats, including those used for documents, presentations, spreadsheets, databases and websites.  This creates software and version incompatibilities, regular upgrade cycles, and difficulties for open source and other private competitors who wish to support the proprietary standard.  This business practice is known as “embrace, extend and extinguish“, and it was a subject of the United States v. Microsoft antitrust trial.

OpenDocument, an ISO and IEC International Standard registered as ISO/IEC 26300:2006, is the leading open standard used by governments in the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Japan, the United States, and over a dozen other nations.  In response to this increasing popularity, Microsoft (via an interview with Tom Robertson, GM of Interoperability & Standards) stated that if OpenDocument becomes a requirement then Microsoft would implement it, but extend it. Later, Microsoft presented the ISO/IEC with a competing ‘open format’ called Office Open XML.

While Microsoft should clearly remain eligible to compete in future competitive processes, in my opinion the Government should adopt open data file formats that are independent of Microsoft, or any other proprietary vendor/product.  When external contractors are required for future business, full compatibility with a list of Government-approved open standard formats would be a condition that bidders must guarantee as part of the competitive process.

Eliminating proprietary formats increases opportunities for other corporations offering service solutions to the Government. No company’s ability to compete with or replace a prior service / software provider will be impaired by their lack of the previous company’s internal knowledge or control of a closed format.  Correspondingly, it increases choice for government, increasing the pool of companies that can knowledgeably manage information (now stored in an open format).

In North America, the Commonwealth (state) of Massachusetts was an early adopter of open formats.  In 2005,  Eric Kriss, Secretary of Administration and Finance said:

“It is an overriding imperative of the American democratic system that we cannot have our public documents locked up in some kind of proprietary format, perhaps unreadable in the future, or subject to a proprietary system license that restricts access.”

Their data is now accessible by a variety of free and open source office suites including OpenOffice, KOffice, and StarOffice and free stand-alone word processors like AbiWord.  This not only ensures the State’s continued access to the data into the future, but also offers it in a format that can is usable by their citizens regardless of their ability to pay for proprietary software like Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Office.

Consider the Canadian people I serve.  At best, the inability for people to afford software creates a technology gap between classes, where the have-nots do not possess the tools they need to be productive in an information society.  At worst, this gap fosters software piracy as people feel compelled to illegally share and crack copies of MS Office.

While it is feasible for a struggling family to obtain an older computer that runs some version of Windows, it is of limited use without an office suite. OpenOffice is compatible with Windows, Linux and OSX, is publicly downloadable from the Internet, and free of charge or other licensing fee. For those without broadband access, copying and distribution on CD or USB drive through friends at school or at work is not only allowed, but encouraged.

Now consider the government I serve.  2009 was a year characterized by the state of the economy: shrinking expenditures by cutbacks, and shrinking staff levels by attrition.  Could a government initiative to reduce dependence on proprietary software and formats contribute significantly to a future economic action plan, reducing financial burden on both the Government and its citizens?  I believe so.

OpenOffice’s lack of cost does not reflect in any way on it’s value or utility. As I’ve already mentioned, OpenOffice and the OpenDocument group of file formats are presently being used by the governments of Massachusetts, Belgium, Finland, the National Archives of Australia, and the Allahabad High Court of India, among many others.

The adoption of open data formats is a logical first step towards the use of free and open source software (FOSS) applications (like OpenOffice suite), which will reduce or completely eliminate per-user licensing fees on the thousands of computers where the Government of Canada currently uses proprietary software.  In an ideal world, my government would also roll out an open source operating system, but… one step at a time.

If we do hope to update all the desktops in the Government of Canada — many of which were recently “upgraded” to Windows XP after having run Windows 2000 for many years — an open source operating system like Linux or BSD would offer the same savings, stability, and control over our information infrastructure that an open format offers to the information itself.

Linux is free, and its ability as a server is demonstrated whenever you are on the Internet (60% of the web is power by Linux; 30% by Microsoft). As a graphical desktop operating system, Linux has replaced Microsoft Windows at Google, Novell, Panasonic, Tommy Hilfiger, Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Federal Court System, and the U.S. Postal Service.

Just some food for thought. To conclude:

Freeing data: Open file formats ensure the government’s perpetual access to its own data well into the future, regardless of the software used in the coming decades. While applications change over time, the standard evolves and endures independently.  More importantly, the data remains in an open format (beyond plain text) usable by citizens, regardless of their ability to pay for software.
 
Cost savings: OpenOffice (and other open source office software) is free of charge.

Conversion ability: At present, OpenOffice, StarOffice, and other suites can load and save documents created by Microsoft Office. No special software or expertise is needed to change them to OpenDocument (or, to re-save them back into Microsoft format if necessary).  NOTE: Due to the nature of the Microsoft proprietary format, complex formatting may not convert exactly, which is why the use of an open format like OpenDocument is preferable.

Choice: OpenOffice and the OpenDocument format is something that the government can adopt and support internally. Additionally, we can choose a proprietary office suite that uses open file formats (like StarOffice) if a commercial product is preferred.

• A translation of this article in Vietnamese by Lê Trung Nghĩa.

I’m not complaining; it’s two blessings in one. More tangible enrichment; less etheral mind candy. Still, it’s nice to be able to pig out every now and again, and a DVR (or PVR) fits the bill nicely.

There are a lot of reasons not to rent a box from your cable company: the monthly cost, limited storage space, no user-upgradability, automatic deletion of programs (whether you’ve watched them or not), and the inability to back up your shows on external media (funny that VCRs should have a technical advantage in that respect).   Plus, if you want to have DVR access in additional rooms, you need to rent additional boxes.

TiVo is now also an option for Canadians, but the unit price is high, storage volume is low, expandability is nil, and the electronic programming guide costs are significant (details here).  EPG costs are a fact of life with any DVR, but with MythTV the charges are not for profit.  Currently I pay $20 US per year  for excellent service from Schedules Direct.  In comparison, TiVo charges $13 per month.

So what’s so great about MythTV? What is MythTV? The website says:

MythTV is a Free Open Source software digital video recorder (DVR) project distributed under the terms of the GNU [General Public License]. It has been under heavy development since 2002, and now contains most features one would expect from a good DVR (and many new ones that you soon won’t be able to live without).

They aren’t lying.  Ever wish that your DVR would automatically skip all the commercials so you could easily watch your one hour program in 40 minutes?  MythTV does that, and once you get used to it, you’ll find it a chore to watch someone else’s DVR. And if you suddenly decide you want an additional unit in your bedroom, there’s no extra expense.  Put the software on a moderately-powered computer that works as a “front end” — sending commands and retrieving recorded content from your main recording box (“back end”).

MythTV is actually much more than a DVR though.  In addition to its recording abilities, it can play audio, photo and video multimedia of any kind; display news and weather; download and play movie trailers; browse the Internet; emulate old-school video game platforms — nearly any function that people can write a plugin for.  But for now, let’s consider its use as a really great DVR.

Basic Hardware Requirements

I built my MythBox out of a slightly older PC.  If you know someone (or are someone) who buys a new system every two years, you may have access to the perfect hardware to start building with.  Alternately, you could buy a used PC, or a new one that just isn’t state of the art anymore.  If you go with a new one, I’d recommend getting one from a dedicated computer store that sells their own line of no-frills, store-built boxes with no operating system installed.  There’s no reason to pay for a copy of Windows that you’ll just delete to install MythTV.

Use the best hardware you can acquire (or that you’re willing to pay for).  For standard definition TV, a 3.0 MHz CPU (single core) would be adequate; if you’d like the capacity for high definition signals, go dual core.  AMD or Intel are equally fine, but steer clear of their cheap lines (like Sempron and Celeron, respectively).

Memory and hard disk space is very inexpensive these days, so there’s no reason your box should have less than 2 GB memory and 1 TB of storage.  Again, don’t buy these from big box consumer electronics stores; go to the same specialized, small box computer places that sell their own homemade boxes.  And to keep costs low, get OEM versions rather than retail boxed versions of hardware.

A MythBox needs a minimum of two video cards/devices: one display card and one video capture card/device/tuner.  If you intend to use your MythBox as a DVR, this may be all the hardware it ever needs.  If you want to use your Box to watch live TV while you record, additional capture devices will be needed (note: some external devices include more than one tuner, allowing them to record more than one program at a time).

Video Hardware

Your video display card should use the NVIDIA chipset.  ATI might work but I don’t recommend it.  NVIDIA has provided very consistent support for accelerated video, and you want your box to work hassle free.

The MythTV wiki lists many video capture devices, with links to individual specifications. For a start, consider those on the following list.

HDTV*:

• Hauppauge HD-PVR [a.k.a. HD-PVR 1212] (external device)
• Silicondust HDHomeRun (external device with dual tuners)

SDTV:

• Hauppauge HVR-1600 (internal card)
• AVerMedia M179 (internal card)
• Hauppauge PVR-150 (internal card)

*HDTV is tricky.  Cable companies don’t really want you capturing their HD signal onto a box that you have full control over.  They use encryption to make their signals unusable, unless you use their equipment.  Fortunately, manufacturers are already finding ways around this.

Because it encodes analog HD output (via the component video outputs on cable or satellite TV boxes) the Hauppauge HD-PVR is currently the only way to record HD content from providers that encrypt their digital data streams. Don’t be alarmed by sound of  ”analog HD”: everything I’ve heard indicates the difference in quality is negligible.  So unless you’re one of those people who bought a Super Audio CD player, the HD-PVR 1212 looks like the first wave of the HD DVR future.

I elected go to the simple route: one tuner card and SDTV recording. I bought the Hauppauge (pronounced “hop-hog”) PVR-150. It’s no longer being manufactured, but I found one through a Canadian on-line retailer. Used ones are plentiful on eBay, and for much less.

Software

MythTV is a software package that runs on (gasp!) Linux.  Do not panic.  You don’t need to install Linux, or even really understand Linux, to use MythTV.  The simplest way to get going is to install a MythTV distribution that combines MythTV and the operating system in one disc.  It saves installation time, configuration, and disk space.  It gives you a highly specialized and streamlined system that does just MythTV, and does it well.  Best of all, it turns your old computer into an appliance; something you turn on and just use, without having to launch this and minimize that.  The DVR runs in full screen (although there’s a graphical desktop you can get to, if need be).

Among the most popular ready-to-install distros are Mythbuntu (MythTV on Ubuntu Linux) and Mythdora (MythTV on Fedora Linux).  I’ve tried both and prefer Mythbuntu for it’s leanness, plus a number of geeky technical preferences which you can safely ignore (unless you’re suffering a bout of prolonged insomnia, in which case we should discuss these at length).

Further Investigation

Do I have your attention?  A step-by-step installation is beyond the scope of this article, but there are a number of resources I recommend for more information:

• The MythTVCast podcast – great for learning during your commute to and from work.  Start from Episode 0, and listen to them in order.  The hosts (Pat & Dan) are immensely likable and the content is pure gold.
• Video tutorials, including a Mythbuntu installation, also from the guys at MythTVCast.
• The official MythTV wiki.
• The official Mythbuntu support forum.

This is a short list by design.  Start here, then venture out onto Google and YouTube to learn more.

Can't check DMA mode. Permission denied or no such device: "/dev/dvd"

Odd, considering that Amarok, K9copy and K3B were having absolutely no problems finding and using discs. And there was the clue: in K3B’s configuration screen the drive was identified asscd0. So, I checked from the command line:

me@kubuntu-desktop:~$ ls -l /dev/dvd*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2008-04-14 19:58 /dev/dvd1 -> scd0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2008-04-14 19:58 /dev/dvdrw1 -> scd0

And sure enough, there was no symbolic link between scd0 and /dev/dvd. Simple enough to fix though:

me@kubuntu-desktop:~$ sudo ln -s scd0 /dev/dvd
me@kubuntu-desktop:~$ ls -l /dev/dvd*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2008-04-15 00:03 /dev/dvd -> scd0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2008-04-14 19:58 /dev/dvd1 -> scd0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2008-04-14 19:58 /dev/dvdrw1 -> scd0

All fixed. But for good measure, I checked the cdrom situation. Same issue:

me@kubuntu-desktop:~$ ls -l /dev/cd*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2008-04-14 19:58 /dev/cdrom1 -> scd0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2008-04-14 19:58 /dev/cdrw1 -> scd0

So, for good measure (even though I hadn’t come across any problems):

me@kubuntu-desktop:~$ sudo ln -s scd0 /dev/cdrom
me@kubuntu-desktop:~$ ls -l /dev/cd*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2008-04-15 00:04 /dev/cdrom -> scd0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2008-04-14 19:58 /dev/cdrom1 -> scd0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2008-04-14 19:58 /dev/cdrw1 -> scd0

Now, with all roads leading to Rome, I fired Kaffeine back up again and enjoyed my movie.

No, it’s just that I’m not usually among the first to jump on these bandwagons. Perhaps it’s Dell’s seemingly genuine intent to listen to their users that’s chipped away at my cynicism. But damn you anyway Michael Dell. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you removed that Precision M90 Ubuntu laptop from your user page. Do you still have it, or did it get whistled off to the Dell Outlet store?

In any event, one of my first tasks on Brainstorm was to query for “KDE” and “Kubuntu” ideas, but I found only one: Idea #478 – Support kubuntu and kde the way you support ubuntu and gnome. Fine. It’s about as well-expressed an idea as I could have hoped for, and a good candidate for merging the duplicate questions into. But what’s been interesting is watching the early resistance from GNOME users, not so much in the comments, but in the bouncing score. While I don’t have the time to check in often, it’s gone from zero to 18 to zero in just the short time I’ve been observing. Currently, it sits at 34. I wonder where it will be when I finish typing this?

Why the resistance? KDE is an excellent desktop. While it may not be the Ubuntu default, it’s still undeniably popular, having won LinuxQuestions.org’s Desktop Environment of the Year for the seventh consecutive year in a row. The same survey saw K3B, Amarok and Konqueror win resounding victories against their non-KDE counterparts.

Is there fear about a scarcity of resources? Will more attention to Kubuntu development necessarily manifest itself in neglect towards Ubuntu? I don’t know about you, but I’m observing an increasing plateau in the Ubuntu development curve. Certainly Canonical is continuing to add new features and polish with each development cycle, but it’s nothing like the vertical takeoff we observed with the early versions starting from Warty Warthog. Current developers are not expending themselves the way that they once needed to. Was the initial effort that exhausting, or is it merely the fact that it’s more fun to enjoy the ride once the balloon is launched, than look around for the next challenge?

Critics may say that given GNOME’s popularity within Ubuntu, working to provide more functionality, fit and finish for the minority of Kubuntu users isn’t a worthwhile investment. However, given KDE’s popularity overall, I would argue that Canonical’s neglect of Kubuntu is responsible for its relative lack of users. It’s always lagged behind in development — fewer added features, more bugs, questionable package inclusions, and the removal/hiding of good programs (Kcontrol, Konqueror) for poor ones (System Settings, Dolphin 3).

Not to slag Jonathan Riddell — he’s doing as well as one guy can — but Kubuntu has always been more suited to the type of user who doesn’t mind a lot of tweaking after the fact. People who want a desktop that ‘just works’ are forced to go the GNOME route, whether it’s their preference or not.

In Brainstorm, Kubuntu users finally have an invitation to vent their frustration at having a Cinderella distribution relegated to the role of ugly stepsister. Will Canonical respond?

At least initially, I’m more concerned by the potential backlash from the Ubuntu majority. Am I worrying for nothing? I don’t know.

The score, at least as of this posting, is now down to 29.

Today, in response to numerous requests on the Ubuntu listserv, Shuttleworth made a public appearance to provide free software fans and curious onlookers with a glimpse into the future of Ubuntu development. Leaflets distributed to all attendees contained a roadmap of future release code names, including names for those letters that were previously missed due to a lack of time, a lack of literate employees, and a general lack of enthusiasm about playing neat word games with South African zoology.

“And so I’d like to introduce you to the monikers for our future release cycles,” Mark announced, referring to the following list:

• 9.04 – Jovial Jackal
• 9.10 – Kissy Kipunji
• 10.04 – Loyal Lemur
• 10.10 – Modest Mouse * (litigation pending)
• 11.04 – Nifty Nematode
• 11.10 – Open-minded Ostrich
• 12.04 – Petulant Porcupine
• 12.10 – Queer Quailfinch
• 13.04 – Reputable Rhebok
• 13.10 – Self-actualized Shrew
• 14.04 – Tolerant Titmouse
• 14.10 – Unpretentious Umberhulk
• 15.04 – Virile Viper
• 15.10 – Xenophobic X-Ray Fish
• 16.04 – Yodeling Yellow-spotted Rock Hyrax
• 16.10 – Zealous Zebra
• 17.04 – Asinine Aardwolf
• 17.10 – Co-dependent Chimpanzee

He continued:

“As we navigate into heretofore uncharted regions, I believe it is essential that we relish in the delightful guffaws of the jackal, embrace the rebellious anti-sociality of the porcupine, and keep striving toward the apex of personal development epitomized by the shrew,” Shuttleworth evangelized.

Question and answer period began with a resurrection of the Hoary Hedgehog / Hardy Heron debacle:

“I want to formally apologize for this. I’m deeply, dreadfully, painfully sorry for reusing the letter ‘H’ before fully exhausting the supply of other available letters, and I want to pledge to you all — especially those of you who’ve lost sleep, jobs, and marriages — that I will never, ever, EVER permit this sort of procedural error again.”

When asked if he had personally reviewed all of the names of the upcoming releases, Shuttleworth affirmed confidently. When asked if he knew the meanings of “asinine” or “co-dependent”, of if he knew that an “Umber Hulk” was, in fact, a fictional monster created by Gary Gygax for the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, Shuttleworth paused and held his chin pensively. After a moment’s reflection, he assured the attending reporters that he would personally look into the matter, but encouraged interested persons to file a bug report at Launchpad.net.

This computer was a generic 1GHz Pentium-III: a local computer shop house brand. Apparently the previous owner tried to do a bit of fixing-up himself and got in over his head, because it arrived with the CD burner unsecured, internal cables unplugged, and devices incorrectly cabled and jumpered for Master/Slave designations. Perhaps he just raided all the good parts and shoved in some replacements. Who knows? I’m not complaining because he did give me a lovely gift that I hope to give to someone else very soon.

He must have also been a smoker, because the fans and heatsink were literally saturated with smoker’s dust. Smoker’s dust is an evil, particulate matter born of an unholy union between carcinogenic fog, common household fluff, and the heat inside your case. It looks quite like that fluorescent-coloured powdered cheese that you get with a box of Kraft Dinner, though a few shades darker. Scary to behold — though not as disturbing as those pictures the Canadian Lung Association like you shock you with.

After much disassembly, cleaning, and reassembly, I had a functioning computer. The included hard drive was dead, so I swapped in another that I’d pre-installed Ubuntu to. That worked fine, but I thought that so long as I had a “test computer” at my disposal I’d use the opportunity to try out a few untried distros I had sitting around: OpenSUSE 10.3, Mepis 7.0 and Mandriva 2008.

Mandriva installed wonderfully and was fun to play with, so I popped in OpenSUSE. It started fine, then reported read errors for half a dozen packages before freezing completely 3 minutes into the copying phase. I booted Ubuntu 7.10, which aborted to BusyBox shortly after the splash screen. PCLinuxOS 2007 would neither copy to RAM nor boot to a graphical desktop… just a login prompt. Odd. Just out of curiousity, I returned to Mandriva, which not only booted up correctly, but allowed me to re-install successfully. I haven’t used Mandriva since Mandrake Linux 10.1, but I found myself now doubly-impressed, not with just the professional-looking install procedure and the beautiful desktop, but with its error-handling.

This is not the first time I’ve had this experience. Always it is due to some kind of hardware problem — bad RAM, a dying hard drive, something failing or misconfigured. In this instance, using the clues I saw from OpenSUSE and the verbose mode of the other distros led me to conclude there was a problem with ‘hdc’ — the DVD-ROM drive. No doubt it is full of the same fluorescent cheese dust that plagued the rest of the system, but my disc cleaning kit is some 1300 km away at the moment.

I can see problems such as these for what they are, and am thankful that Linux’s sensitivity to hardware actually points out problems that a user should be aware of. However, I can also completely imagine how this ordeal would be an awful, FUD-confirming, curiousity-spanking experience for the Linux-curious…

…Especially seeing as it’s also been my experience that many of these failing or misconfigured computers will install Windows just fine.

So was Mandriva 2008 really an exceptional product with error handling capabilities (like Windows?) or was it just blind or insensitive to disc read/write errors, and soldiered on through the installation anyway (like Windows?).

Either way, it doesn’t matter. Failure to install as expected will always be interpreted by the end-user as the sign of an inferior product. Joe or Jane Public would much rather have a working computer with a persnickety DVD-ROM drive than be faced with an empty computer whose OS refuses to install until the drive is cleaned or replaced — especially when they weren’t especially keen on having to learn an entirely new operating system to begin with.

It’s funny, but until relatively recently one of the most-cited barriers to Linux adoption was the difficulty in installing it.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

The GNOME vs. KDE war is not new. Since their very beginnings where one claimed to be the first desktop environment offering a uniform experience, and the other claimed to be the first to do so with a free toolkit, there have been campers on both sides. Now, both are free but each endeavours to appeal to a different kind of user. But who is that user? I’ve heard it claimed that KDE is more Windows-like and GNOME is more Mac-like (OS 9?). KDE is too complex and GNOME is too simple. KDE has too much eye candy and GNOME is too plain. KDE has too many bells, whistles, knobs and switches to control every little thing, whereas GNOME hides too much customization behind the scenes. So what’s the real truth? Be damned if I know. I think all of the above comparisons are arguably true, on both sides.

As I’ve written before, I’ve repeatedly tried and failed to love GNOME for reasons that aren’t always entirely clear to me. This article is an attempt to force me to come to a better understanding of why that is. I have to say though, my initial attraction to KDE was positive, instantaneous… and mysterious.

A not-entirely-analogous comparison might be made to one’s sexuality. Using myself as an example — because as I’ve also written before, I love writing about myself — I’ve always loved women. Sure, I can look at another man and think: “Hmm. He’s attractive.”, but it’s the same way I look at a puppy and think: “Hmm. Cute.” But, in those cases, there’s none of the lust that I feel when I look at an attractive member of the opposite sex.

And so its been with KDE and GNOME. GNOME evokes the “Hmm. Attractive.” response whereas KDE evokes the far more lustful: “Mmmm BABY!” (minus the sex, of course).

But why? Admittedly, it used to be mostly to due to appearances. KDE has always looked beautiful to me, whereas GNOME appeared very spartan. But then, everything changed with Ubuntu. At long last there was a GNOME distribution that focused on making Linux not only more functional, but more attractive. Its Debian heritage made it all the more appealing to me. But somehow I found that I still preferred Debian with KDE (and, with the release of version 6.10, Kubuntu — minus some of its ‘ease-of-use’ unimprovements).

I like Ubuntu. I’ve booted up every version since Warty Warthog. Sure, true to its name, it had a lot of ugly warts, and made me run screaming through the trees like a greased dog on fire. However, after sleeping off the experience in the safety of the underbrush for a few months, I came out for another sniff. I’ve been pleased with its increasing simplicity and elegance with each successive release.

However, even with the release of Gutsy, after an hour or so of use (sometimes less), I’ve found myself clamouring to get back to KDE. I can’t stand that there are panels on the top and bottom, leaving two bars of pull-down menus as soon as I open an application. And no, I don’t want to fiddle and change it to try to combine it into something more workable — I miss the kicker. I miss the power of kcontrol. I miss K3B, Amarok and Kaffeine. I need konqueror — which is not my favourite web browser, but is the best file manager I’ve ever used. I still love that I can pop in an audio CD and see file folders for Ogg Vorbis and other popular free and non-free formats, which are ripped and converted automatically just by dragging the files to a folder on my hard drive.

I used to think I couldn’t live without The GIMP. Until I met krita. Krita. Kriiiiiiiiiiita. Where have you beeeeeeen all my (Linux) life?

Alrighty. So perhaps that’s a bit kreepy. Er.. creepy. But honestly, did you really come here to read another boring tech article by a member of the Taped Hornrims Club?

?

Nah. Didn’t think so.

You get my point. These applications are just excellent, and are always getting better. While OpenOffice gives me no serious complaints, I keep secretly wishing that KOffice will kick it in the cage, maybe shake it off its high perch. Perhaps with KOffice 2.0?

So, come to think of it, the K applications are some of the best selling features in K. Rarely have I had the experience where I thought: “What a lousy application. This isn’t up for the job.” Rather, I’m usually always pleased by the features and functionality of these apps, and elated when I try a new one that makes life easier. For example, k9copy is my current favourite of my recent finds.

I can see how GNOME fans might get a bit irritated with the use of K everywhere. Konqueror, konsole (which is the correct spelling in German), konversation… it is a bit much. But you interact with the software, not the name, and you get used to it. I did.

Maybe there is no one thing about KDE. Maybe it’s just everything. Yeah, it was love at first sight — that desktop and kicker knocked me off my feet. But it was everything else under the menu that really got a hold on me.

Alright. Enough of the sappy love talk. Back to work, K.