As the Intrepid Ibex (8.10) development gets going, many people will probably be wondering what new end-user features they can expect.

1. The new theme - Though it was planned for 8.04, the plan for a new theme was pushed back to 8.10, the upcoming release. While almost every new version has some visual changes and a new background, this release is supposed to have more radical changes to the theme. The basic color scheme will probably stay, but other than that, who knows? You can see some of the proposed art here.
2. Encrypted “Private” Directory - While many OSs now offer whole hard-drive encryption, most people probably only have a small set of their files that they want to encrypt. Instead of offering an encrypt everything or nothing option, there will be a folder in each user’s home folder called “Private” that will be encrypted. This would be useful to store confidential documents and that sort of thing without slowing down access to less-confidential stuff, like your music. (Full Blueprint)
3. Improved Flash Experience - I thought that being prompted to click next a few times the first time you wanted to see Flash content was a good enough Flash experience, but apparently the Ubuntu developers want it to be even better. I think it is safe to expect absolutely seamless Flash viewing in Intrepid. (Full Blueprint)
4. LiveCD Installer Updates - While the current installer is functional, there are a number of improvements that could be made. The ones I am looking forward to most are the visual representation of partitions and the slideshow introducing new users to Ubuntu while they are waiting for it to install, as I proposed in a Brainstorm idea :-). (Full Blueprint)
5. LiveUSB Creator - Like Fedora has already done, it will become possible to use a GUI utility to create a “LiveUSB” disc. Basically, it will be very easy to install Ubuntu to a flash drive and carry it around. The main advantage of a flash drive over a CD is that you can save changes back to the drive. (Full Blueprint)

If you are interested, you can find all the plans for Intrepid Ibex on Launchpad.

We have all heard the stories about how badly Windows Vista has been received by users and how slow they are to adopt it, but I was surprised, and I suspect many people will be, when I read that only 8% of developers are “coding with Vista in mind,” according to Electronista.

The truth is, I am not just surprised, I am wondering if the number could even be real. 92% of developers are just ignoring the latest version of the largest OS more than a year after its release? It just does not sound plausible, and it makes me wonder if there is some sort of misunderstanding.

Assuming, however, that the numbers are correct and there is no misunderstanding, Microsoft seems to have a huge problem. If the vast majority of developers are ignoring Vista, as more and more people start to use it, there are going to be tons of application compatibility issues. This means that, rather than everything calming down and people moving to Vista, as Microsoft would like, the issues with Vista are going to continue for an unknown amount of time. If Microsoft can’t even get the developers to move to Vista, they are going to have an incredibly hard time trying to get users to calmly accept Vista.

Recently, Jason Matusow, a Microsoft employee, made the comment that “Deep dev of the core OS is not likely to happen in South Africa today on any large scale. Students at the university still grappling with coding skills are not going to dive into the inner-working of Linux.” Of course, as has already been pointed out, the statement holds no credibility due to South Africa being the birth place of someone named Mark Shuttleworth who happens to be the founder of Ubuntu.

If that is not, however, reason enough for you to discount Jason’s statements, consider this: a person from a company who is located primarily in the US and has basically all of their top management in the US is saying that South Africans will never be able to get involved with Linux, an open-source effort which has developers, leaders, art people, marketers, etc, etc everywhere in the world.

Microsoft, making fun of you is getting too easy.

Recently the issue of synchronizing open-source software releases has come up quite frequently. Stories are being written about it. Shuttleworth (founder of Ubuntu) has stated his opinion on the topic. Seigo (from KDE) has also given his input. Basically, the topic is becoming a point of a lot of discussion and controversy.

Before I launch into my ideas on the topic, what is the whole synchronization idea? (Feel free to skip this part if you already know.) The idea of synchronizing open-source software is that all the Linux distributions will release their new versions on the same day and upstream projects (projects whose code goes into Linux distributions) will time their releases according to the distribution schedule.

Now onto my ideas: The debate seems to come down to a single major issue. There may be side topics, but the core issue seems to be time-based releases versus feature-based releases. Time-based releases, as you may know, are releases based on a set time schedule. For example, Ubuntu does time-based releases, because they release a new version every 6 months. Feature-based releases, as you may also know, are where the software is not released until all the features have been implemented.

The advantage of time-based releases is that they offer predictability for businesses and software developers, goals to force the developers working on the software to keep moving, and easier scheduling of how long support for each version will last. On the other hand, though, time-based releases may discourage major new features and allow bugs to slip through the cracks and make it into the final release. As you can see, there is no clear best option.

So how is this related to synchronization? Synchronization would force projects into a time-based release schedule. This seems, at least to me, to be the biggest issue surrounding synchronizing releases.

Personally, although I don’t have a strong opinion, I think time-based releases are the best way to go because they make it easy to see that development is progressing steadily and encourage steady development. Also, with good management and the help of version control software, it should be possible to still introduce new features and keep bugs out.

Even though I prefer time-based releases, I recognize that it may not be the right choice for some projects. Initially, I made the argument that if the features were not ready in a piece of software or there were still bugs, that piece of software would just skip that release date and release at the next date. The problem is that a piece of software might finish with months left before the next release date. That is why I think optional OSS (open-source software) synchronization is the right way to go.

What I mean by optional OSS synchronization is that the projects that already use time-based releases would all synchronize, while feature-based release projects would continue with their way of doing things and their code would be incorporated as needed when it it possible. This would allow a major synchronization effort, without stopping the projects for whom feature-based releases work better.

Additionally, I suspect (correct me if you think I am wrong) that most of the projects that are serious about getting mainstream adoption will go with time-based releases, because of its appeal to businesses.

For all these reasons, I think optional OSS synchronization–having the projects that already use time-based releases synchronize while the others remain as they are now–is the best solution to the synchronization question.

A lot of focus is put on the Linux desktop. “Is Linux ready for the desktop?” “Will this be the year of the Linux desktop?” “Is the Linux desktop usable by regular people?”  All of this is, generally, asking the same thing. When is Linux finally going to be commonplace on the desktop? The average user’s experience is not all that matters, though. Developers must also be attracted to Linux before it will become commonplace on the desktop.

As shown by a recent Fortune article, Linux already is appealing to the developers, but it is important that Linux becomes not just appealing but irresistible for developers. Why is this so important? Because with developers come applications that have previously been Windows only. As developers switch to Linux, applications that used to be a reason why some could not use Linux as their only OS will become cross-platform or even Linux only.

Look at the Mac. Do you think it would have come as far as it has if Microsoft had not brought Office to the Mac? I don’t. Even though OpenOffice/NeoOffice would probably have worked for many of the people that bought Office for Mac, people are just more comfortable using the exact same application they are used to.

So how can Linux appeal to developers? There are a number of ways that come to mind. Of course, the best thing to do would be to ask a developer, but seeing as I am not a developer here are some ideas:

The most obvious, of course, is to make it easy to develop for Linux. There are other things too, though. Easy application distribution of free and commercial applications through systems like CNR is a definite plus. Also, providing a good introduction to programming on Linux would be helpful for those just switching to Linux.

Because of these sorts of advantages, hopefully more and developers will switch to Linux and bring users along with them.

Quick Note: I am not trying to confuse Ubuntu and Linux here. I realize this could be done on almost any distro, but the recent news part is related specifically to Canonical, so I am focusing on Ubuntu.

For most geeks, the key advantages of Linux are stability, security, and Compiz Fusion, but these advantages (excluding Compiz Fusion) are not visible to the average user. How can you tell LInux is more secure or more stable just by using it for a few days. Sure it didn’t BSOD on you, but does that really tell you anything? The point is that you can talk about security and stability all you want, but, in the end, it is very unlikely to be those advantages that pull people to Linux. This is why I am such a big fan of Compiz Fusion and making everything happen smoothly. This, possibly more than anything else, not only looks cool, but also gives you a sense of the system being stable. It may not make sense technically, but if everything is smooth with no flashes of black or anything, it looks like the system is more stable. Because of this and a recent news story I am very excited about the next Ubuntu release.

Ars Technica recently reported on some development being done by Canonical’s (Canonical the company behind Ubuntu) Mirco Müller. He has created a proposal and basic example of a new login screen for Ubuntu featuring slick animations thanks to Clutter (Which is, according to the Clutter website “an open source software library for creating fast, visually rich and animated graphical user interfaces”.)

Now with this, I believe all the tools are in place for a completely smooth, animated Ubuntu experience from start to shutdown.

The Fedora project has already worked on creating a startup experience that is smooth and completely graphical. Some of this should be able to be used by Ubuntu (which is what is so great about FLOSS) to deal with startup and shutdown. Then at login, the recent login screen proposal will take over. Finally, a well configured Compiz Fusion can make the desktop slick, too.

In this way, the next version of Ubuntu should be able to be 100% smooth, slick, and polished, giving Ubuntu a much more cool and professional feel to it that should help convince even more people that Linux is the right way to go.

I was interested to read a recent post on The Open Source Advocate suggesting that all distributions sync their release dates. The idea is that every distribution would release on certain dates, allowing schedules not only for distributions, but also for upstream projects (projects that create software that is incorporated into distributions, for example Firefox) to be in sync.

I think this idea is great, because not only would this make sure that all projects are released at convenient times for other projects, but it would also be great in terms of publicity and unification. Let me explain.

If there were two days per year when hundreds of distributions were released, news sites would look stupid ignoring those two days. It is easy to ignore the release of any one distribution, but how can you ignore the release of 100s of distributions?

Additionally, rather than take away from smaller distributions’ publicity, I think it would help them. Let’s use this site as an example. When there is a major distribution release, I always mention it, but I usually ignore smaller distributions and even medium sized ones if I don’t see much interesting about the release. If all the distributions were synced, I would write a small amount about all the interesting new distributions coming out and I suspect I am not alone.

Another advantage of syncing distribution release schedules is giving Linux more of the appearance of being one unified thing. One common criticism of Linux is that there are too many distros. Syncing all the distribution releases would make it easy for new users to see that Linux distros are not chaos, but rather different people working on different goals while working together at the same time.

I really only see two potential issues with syncing release dates. First, some distributions release every 6 months while others release every couple years while still others have no set length of time between releases. For this reason, distributions should not necessarily release on every release day. Some might skip one or two between releases and others might skip an unspecified number between releases. As long as there are enough distributions that do release every release day, it will still be fine.

The second potential problem is making Linux seem too dictator-like. I don’t want it to look like there is some ruler of all Linux distributions, so instead of having one group that specifies when all distros must release, I say it should just be all the Linux distros that want to getting together and specifying a date. Again, as long as most of the major distros do follow the schedule, if a few little distros want to go by their own schedule, that’s fine.

I am certainly interested in seeing what you think, but right now I am thinking that syncing the distros would be great!

EWeek is reporting on some unusual good news from Redmond, which is a rather nice change from the usual flow of negative Microsoft stories. Microsoft has released some ASP.net development tools for Linux. Although I can’t claim to understand all the technical details of exactly what they released, it appears that it is a development tool for Linux developers.

Although I suspect that not a whole lot of people will care about this particular piece of software, the precedent this potentially sets is great.

In the past, when Microsoft has said “cross-platform” what they meant was always “it runs on Windows and it at least sort of runs on the Mac.” Now that Microsoft has started releasing software for Linux, if only a small development tool, perhaps that definition will change to “it runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.”

It is also possible that this is just an isolated incident of releasing something for Linux and it will not become regular, but I am glad to see some good news from Microsoft and I hope we see more in the future.

Brilliant Brainstorms is a weekly-ish summary of some of the best brainstorms from the Ubuntu Brainstorm site. In the beginning it may not always come exactly once a week or on the same day, but, if it becomes popular, it should become more regular.

Last week I mentioned that there was a new Brainstorm blog to enable better transparency between developers and users. Now we have seen the first real post on that blog. The post covers some recent ideas and suggestions and what the Brainstorm team intends to do about them as well as discussing how to enable other projects to create a Brainstorm-like site. I think the more open-source projects use a Brainstorm-like site the better. It enables the developers to communicate directly with users and there is clearly a need for it, since it is very common to see suggestions on Brainstorm that are really for other open-source projects, not Ubuntu.

As you can tell, I am very happy with how the blog is going so far and I like what Brainstorm is doing. I would still like to see more discussion on the blog about how Ubuntu, not Ubuntu Brainstorm, developers are reacting to the ideas.

Now on to this weeks ideas:

Anyone who frequently reads Brilliant Brainstorms or who watches the Brainstorm site will know that this is not the first of this type of idea, still it is worth bringing up, since it is a great idea. Basically, the idea is that there are lots of people who would be happy to help Ubuntu out, but are not sure how to get started developing. With a site to explain how to get started and what you need to know, more people would, hopefully, join the development team.

Again, this is an idea we have seen before, but it keeps  coming back. Backups are very important, since most people now keep their precious memories as well as their work on their hard drive, and so Ubuntu should have a good built in backup utility.

As new users transition to Ubuntu, they may want to be able to boot into Windows when they need to. To make this even easier, it is a great idea to have a GUI utility to let users configure what OSs are in their GRUB menu and which one is the default. This may not be something new users will use a lot, at least not without help, but it should be there in case it is needed.

If you especially like any of these ideas, click on the image at the left and vote for it!

Brilliant Brainstorms will be a weekly-ish summary of some of the best brainstorms from the Ubuntu Brainstorm site. In the beginning it may not always come exactly once a week or on the same day, but, if it becomes popular, it should become more regular.

With the increasing popularity of free web mail, more and more people are bound to be looking for a way to get their web mail on their computer. If you look at my tutorial on using GMail with Evolution, you can tell just how difficult it would be for a new user to figure out how to get their web mail on their PC. If GMail, Yahoo Mail, Live Mail, etc. were an option in Evolution (the GNOME default email program,) it would make it so much easier for new users.

The idea behind Ubuntu Brainstorm is to get ideas and suggestions from Ubuntu users, but in order to expect feedback from users, developers must show how they are using that feedback. Both of these ideas provide methods for users to see what is going on behind the scenes, without having to look at the source code :-).

Although the example files could be much worse, they could also be much better. Showing off impressive formatting in office files and high-quality videos promoting Ubuntu (there are plenty user made Ubuntu ads) could make a good impression on a new user.

Although the reliability of SMART seems to be in question, as far as I am concerned, any chance of warning a user before a crash should not be ignored.

This is almost more of a bug-fix than an idea, but currently when you put in a disk that was not removed properly you get a big scary error message that directs you to execute a command in the terminal. Come on. Windows users often don’t bother to unmount their drives at all, they just pull.