Warning: The following post contains comedy. Some people are allergic to it. Symptoms include posting angry comments.

It is interesting to look at the differences in the styles of different distributions. This is often best represented in looking at the art proposals for upcoming versions of various distributions. For example, a typical theme proposal for Fedora looks something like this:

“I was laying in my hammock one night gazing up at the infinite stars when suddenly an idea occurred to me. Gazing out at the vastness of the stars, it seemed to be that those stars perfectly represented Fedora, since Fedora 9 was called “Sulfur” and there has got to be some sulfur out there somewhere.”

A typical Ubuntu art submission, on the other hand, looks more like this:

“ubuntu rulz!!! see my awesum desktop: ubuntu should totally look like dis”

In contrast to both of these styles, OpenSuSe selects its artwork based an automatic algorithm that picks the wallpaper with the most green in it. Given a tie, which happens quite a lot, another script kicks in and posts the hex codes for the most used shade of green in each wallpaper. OpenSuSe contributors then vote on their favorite color (of green.)

I don’t even want to know what Gentoo’s process looks like.

Anyway, today I want to discuss some of the best Fedora art submissions judged, appropriately enough, not by the art but by the concept. I will even go so far as to rank them. First place goes to…

1. Dice - To quote directly from the excellent concept description, “dice like a symbol of the variability.” I could not possibly agree more. In fact, I believe that Fedora should change its slogan to “Fedora. It’s just a crap shoot.”
2. Eden - The Eden theme goes back to the fundamental parts of a flowering tree, each representing a part of Fedora. I believe that placing a big tree on the desktop of many young and incompetent Fedora users would help remind them that they must remember to water their keyboards at least once a week. Every time I see another Fedora user complain about system problems on some forum, I sigh and prepare to repost my standard response - “Dear Generic Fedora User. You forgot to water your keyboard, you idiot. Have a nice day.”
3. Solar - The author of this theme recognizes the simple truth that many miss: the only truly prefect system in the whole universe is the solar system. Based on this knowledge, it is easy to see how Fedora should strive to be as perfect as the solar system its self. The analogy fits perfectly! My only question is: if the sun is the kernel, what is space junk?

A while back, as you may remember, I did a quick look at NimbleX, as well as some of the features of the then upcoming NimbleX 2008. Just a few days ago, NimbleX 2008 final was released, so I decided to check it out. I am not going to do a long boring review and I will say up front that I have only been running it on and off for a few days from the live CD. In other words, I am really just doing a quick look at some of the features.

NimbleX, which is based on Slackware, is advertised as a customizable and slim Linux distro. The CD comes with many desktop environments including KDE, Fluxbox, Enlightenment, Openbox, and more. The default, not surprisingly, is KDE 3.5.

Upon booting from the live CD, you are presented with a login screen and nothing to tell you what the username or password is. You can find this information on the website (just entering root and no password works), but I wish that you didn’t have to look this information up. Oh well, just a minor issue. Once you have successfully logged in, you get a fairly standard KDE 3.5 interface. One feature I really like is an icon on the desktop that, when clicked, starts up Compiz Fusion, with a nice full set of effects (wobbly windows, desktop cube, menu effects, etc.), not just the minimal set many distributions use. I really like the idea of having a button on the desktop to start Compiz Fusion and I have not seen this idea anywhere else yet. It could be even better if things like wireless networking settings were put on the desktop, too, but I really cannot complain, since no one else, that I know of, puts anything like this on the desktop.

As you start to use NimbleX, you will quickly notice that there are an amazing number of applications installed, which is quite impressive, since NimbleX is a very slim distro. you should note, however, that the K office suite is included in place of OpenOffice. You can always create a custom NimbleX CD from the NimbleX website with OpenOffice, though.

In all these applications, you get some applications such as GParted and Partimage that make NimbleX a useful system maintenance CD. Also included are several already-configured servers, that can be started with the click of a mouse.

One thing I noticed, and liked, about the applications menu is that almost every application is named in this form: Application Type (Name), so it is easy to tell what each application does, even if you don’t recognize it.

I did notice a few bugs, but not many. When I start Compiz Fusion, the icons for the workspaces stretch horizontally and when I try to boot up in any of the non-standard modes, such as the web browser kiosk mode, X fails to start on my hardware. Hopefully, these bugs will be fixed soon, though.

Other features of NimbleX include the custom CD creator on the NimbleX website, which lets you create a custom version of NimbleX with the applications, artwork, and settings you want, and the sub-100MB edition, which, as the name implies, is a furthur stripped down version of NimbleX.

If you are looking for a small, customizable Linux distro, you should definetly check out NimbleX. Additionally, if you want to create a customized CD just for your needs, NimbleX is probably the easiest way to go. Even if you don’t fit into either of these categories, you might want to download the NimbleX CD just for the chance to check out some unusual desktop environments without having to download a million CDs.

Since I did a look at Ubuntu’s early concept art and since I am usually very impressed by Fedora’s final art, I decided that it would make sense to take a look at what has appeared on the Fedora Art Team wiki. I have actually been waiting a few days to do this, since, as of just a few days ago, there were not enough submissions that I liked to talk about. My point is that there has been a new theme submission every one to two days, which is really impressive. Now on to the art:

“Solar”
The concept behind this theme is that the solar system is “the perfect system,” just like Fedora should be the perfect (operating) system.

The art has a cool explosive effect, making it feel active and lively. Also, at least in this piece of art, there is fairly clean space at the left, which is where icons usually go.

Wiki Page

“Simetrical Freedom” (Spelled as it is spelled on the Wiki page)
This time, the concept is that “the perfection that simmetry can offer with the freedom power of the possibilities of forms and states that it can take and reborn inside the same thing.” Yeah, umm… Let’s just look at the art, which happens to be quite cool.

Wiki Page

“Blue Fire”
While the art so far is not the most impressive, I can really see this concept turning into an amazing theme with some work. There is not much in the way of explanation for why blue fire symbolizes Fedora’s goals, but is that really that important?

Wiki Page

“Wing Anatomy”
Like “Blue Fire,” I can definitely see wings or feathers playing a role in the final theme for Fedora 10. The idea behind wings is that they represent “stability, balance and freedom,” which are, obviously, also goals for Fedora, and many Linux distros.

Wiki Page

“Neon”
While this idea comes in many variations, the idea of some sort of city scene particularly appeals to me. It would be very different from the past Fedora themes, but that is not necessarily a problem - it might even be a good thing. Perhaps something could be done with a city scene and the look of a long exposure picture of a highway at night, like this one.

Wiki Page

“Dice”
Though the current art is very simple, it shows the promise of becoming something more complex or, perhaps, staying nice and simple. I am not sure, however, if “dice like a symbol of the variability” is a very good message for an operating system.

Wiki Page

Overall, I cannot wait to see what Fedora 10’s final theme looks like. If the concepts look this good already, I bet they will look simply incredible when they are finalized. I guess we will have to wait for that, though.

Since I have been writing about Ubuntu a lot recently, I thought I would look at some proposed features for Fedora 10. No features have been officially approved yet, so these are just proposals.

1. Web-Based Software Portal - Somewhat similar to CNR or Linux Mint, it looks like Fedora might have a website users could visit and search for software on. To install the software, they would presumably download a small file that tells a special program how to install the program.
   Wiki Page
2. Live CD Without the CD - Instead of creating a program like Wubi to let you do a special partitioning-free installation from Windows, the plan here is to make a Windows program that essentially lets you run the live CD straight from the ISO image on your hard drive.
   Wiki Page
3. Improved Support for Fingerprint Readers - This means not only supporting the hardware, but also making it easy to use a recognized fingerprint reader as a primary (instead of a password) or secondary (in addition to a password) form of authentication.
   Wiki Page
4. Fedora Lite - Similar to how Ubuntu has Xubuntu, a variant designed for older computers, Fedora could create “Fedora Lite,” a version of Fedora for older/less powerful computers.
   Wiki Page

Obviously, there is no guarantee that these features will be part of Fedora 10, but if they are, it looks like it could be an incredible release, particularly for new users.

Upon seeing the news that Ubuntu was being sold in Best Buys for $20, I decided to go down to my local Best Buy and see what the box looked like and where it was.

The placement was fine, not great, not bad. It was no where near the big display of Vista, which is too bad. Instead, it was placed a few shelves under the few remaining boxes of Windows XP. While the placement could have been better, I don’t blame Best Buy at all. It would be surprising if it was displayed as well as Vista.

On the packaging side, I was very impressed. The package is sold by ValuSoft and is very good at marketing Ubuntu. Some of my favorite quotes from the box are listed below:

• “Unable to run Windows? Ubuntu is for you!”
• “The end of: -Spyware -Viruses -Crashes -Wasted Time”

In addition, there was a big table of all the software included with Ubuntu. I was also interested to see that it comes with 60 days of support, apparently from ValuSoft, though they might just be contracting Canonical.

And, of course, I took some pictures:

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.

Reading this week’s DistroWatch Weekly, I was surprised to see an interesting news story I had, apparently, completely missed. Normally, I try not to write about stories that are more than a couple of days old. But considering how many Linux news sources I read daily and considering I never saw this story, I have to assume that a large portion of you also missed this story, so I am making an exception.

This message on the Debian Eee PC mailing list reveals that Asus and Debian are working together, or at least planning to, on software for the Eee PC. This, presumably, means that future versions of the Eee PC could run a modified version of Debian, rather than a modified version of Xandros, as they currently do. While the end-user interface might be very similar, it seems highly likely that if the Debian project was involved, it might become much easier to install software and do other more complicated tasks, beyond what the current Eee PC’s software allows.

A change like this would, hopefully, make those who are trying to do anything beyond the most basic tasks with the Eee’s default software much happier, while not making the standard interface too complicated.

If the Eee PC does switch to Debian as it’s default OS, it would be a great step forward in making the Eee PC’s default software more attractive to a wider audience.

Whenever a new major distribution comes out, I am always curious to see how they handled the release announcement. These sorts of announcements are almost always followed by some form of feature list. In some cases, this consists of something like this:

• Linux Kernel updated from 2.34.23.23 to 2.3.43.4.3
• OpenOffice.org updated from 43.43 to 343.2
• Bug #4344059450 fixed
• Blah, blah, blah

Obviously, I am exaggerating some, but, unfortunately, not very much.

In other cases, however, the “feature list” is a straight forward explanation of what is cool or interesting about the new version. This later case, of course, is what I far prefer. Instead of pushing away new users, it pulls them in and tells them why <insert name of distro> is the OS they should be using.

I am very happy to say that OpenSuse did a great job with their anouncement. The technical details are still there, just down a couple of pages. At the beginning is an explanation of the cool new end-user features like Compiz Fusion, complete with screenshots.

It is true that there are some references in the beginning to GNOME, KDE, and Xfce, but they are fairly well explained and OpenSuse has never really seemed to target the “average joe” Windows user anyway.

Overall, I am very happy to see another distro doing their release announcement the right way. Good job OpenSuse!!!

Remember, live review of OpenSuse 11 this Friday at 3:30 PM EDT.

Many Linux users have looked on happily as the Eee PC has taken off, bringing Linux to so many more people. Unfortunately, unless you learn some other way, there is no way to know that you are using Linux on the Eee PC. Thus, very few Eee PC purchases will result in someone trying Linux on their primary computer, unless they know from some other source that the Eee PC runs Linux. The same issue is true of most other Linux-based UMPC OSs.  If Ubuntu’s “Netbook Remix” takes off, though, this problem looks like it may go away.

What makes Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix different is that it appears, from the Ars Technica screenshots, to be clearly, though not annoyingly, Ubuntu branded. When people see the branding and have a good experience with their UMPC, they may choose to go try out Ubuntu on their primary computer. Because of this, Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix could bring Ubuntu to many people who purchase UMPCs who have possibly never heard of Linux.

Unfortunately, hardware makers are not exactly jumping to be the first to use the new Netbook Remix, but hopefully by the end of this year, when Canonical says the Netbook Remix will first be shipped, some hardware makers will jump on board and use it on their devices. And if the Netbook Remix is heavily adopted, we may begin to see a significant boost in the number of people trying Linux and Ubuntu out because of their UMPC expierience.

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.